Leofwine_draca THE BRAIN MACHINE is one of those single location thrillers in which a group of voluntary participants come together in a research institute to take part in a scientific experiment, with horrifying results. It's not really a single location film all the way through as there are plenty of exterior scenes and padding that doesn't really add a whole lot to anything. I liked the way that the film's title and trappings attempt to bring in then-modern computer technology into the story even though computers have very little to do with what actually takes place.This also happens to be one of the dullest films I can remember watching in recent months. Films made in the 1970s either tend to be really, really good, or really, really bad. THE BRAIN MACHINE falls into the latter category as it's just so cheap and amateurish in nature. The first half of the picture is all back story, set up, and exposition, and the second half is all tumult that just doesn't ring true. Add in plenty of histrionic acting and a generally dated feel and you have a film that's really not worth your time.

talisencrw This is a low-budget 70's film which stems from the cinematic crazes of both the 'evilly-implemented mind control' ('The Manchurian Candidate' and 'The Ipcress File') and 'paranoia about government conspiracy' sub-genres that were fervently expressed in the Vietnam/Watergate era of American cinema. For me, growing up watching James Best as Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in 'The Dukes of Hazzard', it was intriguing to watch him here, as a priest selected as one of 4 paid volunteers for an experiment supposedly run by the ECC, an environmental organization. It ends up that it's just a cover to test an experimental mind-control 'Brain Machine' that the U.S. government wants, in order to keep it's citizens in line, in the name of 'keeping social order'. Admittedly, when one of the directors says that the future is surveillance, I couldn't help but shudder at the parallels to society today, in this post-9/11 era. Unfortunately, the more time that passes, the closer these Orwellian cinematic views of civilization and its discontents come to mirroring the way life has become.No spoilers, but the machine forces the person to tell the truth. Growing up, I have learned that honesty is not always the best policy. In fact, life has to endure the 'little white lie' in order to have things run peacefully. While no cinematic masterwork, this film more than suffices as Exhibit A for evidence. Definitely worth a watch, especially if you can handle 1970's, TV-movie-style filmmaking.

Scott_Mercer I hereby give this film a 5. It's not as bad as the other commenters would have you believe, but it's no masterpiece either.The problem here really is that the filmmakers bit off far more than they could chew. I believe they had ambitions to make a high class sci-fi thriller with a bit of social commentary thrown in. Some great ideas under the surface here. But the people behind this film fell far short of their ambitions, with occasional awkward dialog, (yes) somewhat imprecise editing, and acting that's either too hammy or too underplayed. I am grading on a curve here: this was obviously a low budget production with great ambitions which did a decent job with limited resources.The word "boring" used by other commentors, I feel represents a failed attempt by the filmmakers to build tension. The film as presented is confusing, but it is meant to be a somewhat complicated thriller, deciphered only after a bit of thought and perhaps more than one viewing.I'll give you a brief synopsis of the plot as I have come to understand it. I think I have a handle on it, in spite of its confusing presentation. At a government research facility, some sinister things are happening. On the surface, they are performing benign research experiments. And the scientists that work there are in fact, benign.But some shadowy figures are trying to hijack these experiments for their own means, without the scientists or their subjects knowing about it. These include "The General", possibly a CIA chief or similar, and his enabler, an unnamed Senator. A furtive guard at the facility (supported by various stooges) is their point man.One of the scientists, Dr. Krisner, finds out about this infiltration. He takes off with documents that will prove the illegal infiltration, but he is killed in short order.Therefore, the project is "tainted" and The General and his underlings cannot use this Doctor's work to test their own device: The Brain Machine, a mind control device designed to pacify enemy populations, or, more chillingly, our own citizenry here in the USA.So, they move on to infiltrate "The E-Box" experiment, headed by Dr. Roth. Again, they will use this experiment for their own nefarious purposes without the scientists in charge knowing what is really going on. In this experiment, supposedly used as a simulation of the effects of overpopulation, four test subjects (selected by the fact they have no immediate family and each one has a horrible secret) are placed into a small room which will get smaller and smaller as the experiment goes on, and the subjects are grilled about their shameful secrets of their past, until they breakdown and confess. The importance of telling the truth, "the real truth" is mentioned over and over.While this is going on, the sinister forces of The General, are installing and testing this "Brain Machine" on the subjects, to the confusion of the scientists and pain of the subjects. I should mention that this machine seems to work by remote control, so they are never in contact with the experiment, and are viewing the results by remote cameras. There's lots of yelling, screaming, fighting and accusations from the four subjects, and electrocutions. Each one of the subjects is also a classic stereotype: the questioning clergyman, the intellectual, the working man, and the blue-collar woman.Though the IMDb lists a date of 1977, the film bears a copyright date of 1972. This puts the film clearly in a post-Altamont, pre-Watergate period of utter cynicism about the intentions of our government.** SPOILER !! ** This bears itself out in the film's ending: every single one of the "heroes" are killed, their painful deaths easily swept under the rug by the unseen puppet masters. The "Brain Machine" is proved to work and is last seen on a truck headed for Anytown USA...maybe yours! Only during this short time period in American history (post Easy Rider, also, I might add) could such a "downer ending" be conceived and accepted. Then again, maybe today is the perfect time for a remake, with stories of domestic spying and political retribution in the air. Maybe The Brain Machine is not some stupid little B-movie, but a prophetic document with more to tell us about today than we even realize...

Coventry Ouch, what a painfully BORING Sci-Fi movie! And that's especially saddening because the opening 15 minutes were so action-packed and full of potential! During the intro, we follow a bunch of nervous security officers and hired hit men as they chase a doctor who escaped from a mysterious laboratory with a briefcase full of top-secret files. As he's about to reveal the supposedly horrible & inhuman events that take place in the lab, he's executed. Figures… From then on, the 'action' swifts back and forth between two locations, the aforementioned laboratory and the rural mansion of a corrupt senator (or something), and it quickly becomes clear that the experiments are actually the complete opposite of disturbing. More like dull, pointless and vague. Scientists selected four random persons without living relatives and it's really really really really important that they speak the truth even though a giant machine reads the content of their minds, anyway. They all hide dark secrets from their pasts and people suffer when get revealed; yet I fail to see how these tests could ever result in a humanity-threatening device. Perhaps I missed something, but I doubt it. The interactions between the patients and doctors are even less interesting to follow, as really none of them have personalities. So basically, "The Brain Machine" just handles about a bunch of lame people living in an awfully decorated room. The film also could have been half an hour shorter if it weren't for a THOUSAND stagnant shots of buildings! The relocations from the lab to the villa and vice versa are indicated EVERY SINGLE TIME by a five-second shot of the places. Either the makers really needed the padding or they just assumed that all Sci-Fi viewers are morons unable to notice a change of location by themselves. Staring at a forsaken pool with a mansion in the background for the tenth time in only five minutes becomes quite annoying, I assure you. James Best's performance as the reverend with mental issues is rather decent, but one man definitely can't save this thing from being an absolute waste of time. Avoid!