Bruce Campbell is The Bulgarian Bruce Campbell

Man with the Screaming Brain (2005)
Directed by Bruce Campbell, Screenplay by Bruce Campbell

Let’s face it, if you like Bruce Campbell then you’ll watch this film and try to find some enjoyment in it no matter how bad it is and if you don’t then you should be stranded in Bulgaria until you learn to appreciate the little things like clean drinking water and a chuckle or two from a Bruce Campbell movie.

William Cole...Bruce Campbell
Jackie Cole...Antoinette Byron (An All My Children and Melrose Place alum, among other things.)
Tatoya...Tamara Gorski (Played an actress seeking eternal life in Angel Season 1 episode “Eternity” and was also Morrigan on Hercules: The Legendary Journeys)
Uri...Valentin Giasbeily (The Bulgarian James Dean, Valentin made 3 films in 2005, two of which involved Bruce Campbell. The third was Mansquito.)
Dr. Ivanov...Stacy Keach (Stacy Keach...what can I say? You get busted once for cocaine and this is where your career goes.)
Pavel...Ted Raimi (Because a Bruce Campbell movie without Ted Raimi would be empty and soulless.)
Larry....Jonas Talkington (Talkington has been seen in such classics as Shark Zone, Raging Sharks, Lake Placid 2, Boogeyman 3 and the classic Mansquito.)
Yegor...Vladimir Kolev
Mayor...Velizar Binev (Can be seen in Octopus, Octopus 2, Shark Hunter, Shark Zone, Raging Sharks, SharkMan and Lake Placid 3)
Bar Punk...Remington Franklin (Remington Franklin sounds like a fake name.)

Director of Photography....David Worth (That’s right, this film was shot by the man who directed Shark Attack 2 and Shark Attack 3 but before you get too snooty about it you should also know that he was the DP for Clint Eastwood on Bronco Billy and Any Which Way You Can and if he was good enough for Clyde the orangutan then he’s good enough for you.)

The first thing to note about this film is that the idea took 19 years to get made. The lesson here is that if you have a dream project and you spend nearly two decades trying to work the system to get it produced then you too could suddenly find yourself adapting your story to work in Bulgaria...and you’ll probably still be able to get Stacy Keach for it if you get started right now.

One of the refreshing things about this film is that unlike other low-budget films shot in Bulgaria it doesn’t try to pretend that it’s located some other place. The result is that rather than looking like a really cheap American movie it looks like a really well made Bulgarian film.

The story itself is a critique of rampant capitalistic excess and exploitation of the anarchic conditions of the post-Communist eastern Europe. Campbell’s William Cole is a rich man looking to avoid taxes by investing a modicum of cash in a useless boondoggle tax-shelter in Bulgaria. Cole has pursued the glory of Mammon at the expense of giving any love (or practically any attention) to his wife Jackie. This lack of love will get William Cole in trouble as he tries to make amends by buying his wife off with jewelry helpfully sold to him by his ex-KGB cabdriver Uri. As a rule, you should never buy jewelry from a cabdriver, much less an ex-KGB cabdriver because there’s a good chance that it was originally meant for a gypsy girl who will come looking for revenge.

When the aforementioned vengeful gypsy shoots both Uri and William Cole the mad scientist part of the plot takes over as Stacy Keach and his bumbling assistant Ted Raimi embark on the kind of Frankenstein adventures in science that would make a bioethicist twist in agony.

Now, there are a couple of ways of taking the ending. In one interpretation the forces of western capital ultimately overcome and continue to exploit the newly open, naive and weak easterners. Or, it’s about love ultimately acting as the saving grace that redeems the American couple and in a strange way also unites the Uri and Tatoya.
But what I find interesting is that not only is this a story of new world reason and resolve going up against old world superstition and corruption but that it’s also a story where science ultimately does provide a solution. In the end the mad scientist comes through and science, though it had briefly created a monster or two, managed to work out a way to move forward. Usually once you get a mad scientist in the mix the story takes the form of a cautionary tale, but here it takes a cautiously optimistic tack. Sure, the whole thing is a fantasy but it’s one where science is not dismissed altogether but rather encouraged to keep experimenting until the scientists get it right. And that may just be the most enlightening part of this film.

As for the rest. Well, it’s got a couple of interesting chase scenes and some nice shots of lovely Bulgaria. Bruce Campbell in a restaurant fighting himself is worth more than a few laughs. If your measure of a movie is that it should have flawless special effects then you should go attach the battery from a Yugo to your taint and then watch Transformers 4: The Rise of the Fall of the Mechanical Machine. If you refuse to watch anything other than Claude Chabrol films, well, you should get out more often. But if you need a break from watching another marathon of the Real Housewives of Albuquerque then you should watch this film and enjoy something that’s doesn’t kill your soul.

Man with the Screaming Brain isn’t for everyone. We all make our choices. I choose to watch this. Others may choose to watch Jersey Shore while rubbing themselves with kiolbassa. The choice is yours.

Bonus Features
1. Audio Commentary w/Bruce Campbell and Producer David M. Goodman
An extra hour and a half listening to the ever smooth Bruce Campbell chat with his buddy about making this film? Why not?
Fun anecdotes about making a movie in Bulgaria abound. Put off catching up with Gossip Girl for another couple of hours and enjoy this special feature.
2. Brain Surgeons: Making The Screaming Brain
The one thing that we learned, that I learned from Bubba Ho-Tep is that there’s a whole counter-culture out there that has alternative cinemas that want alternative movies. And this really is an alternative movie. This movie’s so weird that it belongs in an alternative house that won’t compete with Die Hard 9. -- Bruce Campbell
This is a quick history of how Bruce Campbell and David Goodman met and came up with the idea for this film (many eons ago) and how Bruce Campbell developed as a director.
3. Neurology 101: Evolution Of The Screaming Brain
This where we learn the long sad history of development behind Man with the Screaming Brain. It just shows that incredibly difficult it is to play by the rules and attempt to get money to make a film, especially when you start over 25 years ago before the levelling effect that has come with digital technology. So, what happens to a dream project deferred? It gets shipped off to Bulgaria. Welcome to the motion picture business, folks. If you ever need a fourteen minute lecture in front of a blackboard about the nature of the business side of filmmaking this is it right here.
4. Trailer
This trailer almost makes me want to watch the movie again. Almost.
5. Behind-The-Scenes
This is great material for stunt and fx coordinators. Lots of great Bulgarian scenery.
6. Bruce Campbell Bio
Not nearly as amusing as Bruce Campbell’s actual autobiography.
7. Storyboard Gallery
Alright, I’ll admit that I’m the guy who actually likes going through the storyboard scenes retrospectively to see how it was drawn out.
8. Comic Book Gallery
This is a preview of the comic book from Dark Horse, which I will admit that I read before I saw the film. For the completist, you get a bit more backstory in it and the artwork is good.
9. Trailers
1. Evil Dead
Relive the excitement of the first Evil Dead film.
2. Evil Dead 2
Relive the excitement again. Right now. The only shame is that there’s no Army of Darkness trailer on here.
3. Dead & Breakfast
Line-dancing zombies. I wouldn’t lie to you about that. I’ve seen the movie and it lives up to the preview.
4.Lightning Bug
A serious film from the director of Laid to Rest.
5. Thou Shalt Not Kill...Except
This early 1980s trailer looks like it’s for a fake movie, but the movie is very real and it’s by the director of Alien Apocalypse, which was filmed in Bulgaria just before Man with the Screamig Brain with much of the same cast and extras.