The Atomic Brain: Joseph V. Mascelli

Abandon all hope, ye who enter here. For all who choose to watch Joseph V. Mascelli's The Atomic Brain are dooming themselves to a hellish fate of mind-numbing blandness and truly fatiguing tedium. After what must be fifteen minutes of a droning voice-over explaining the set-up of the film (so much for showing and not telling), we are treated to a lifeless tale of an elderly woman who intends to transplant her brain into the body of one of three immigrant girls that she hires as servants. I wish I could tell you that something more interesting happens...but it doesn't. The Atomic Brain is dead on arrival. I rarely see films that are this soul-crushingly boring. Imagine, if you will, if somebody took a hypodermic needle and extracted every drop of tension, atmosphere, horror, dread, and talent from a Val Newton RKO horror picture from the 1940s. The only way that The Atomic Brain could redeem itself would be if it was used as a sleeping aid for chronic insomniacs.

2/10