Brain Damage (1988)
Trivia
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Spoilers (1)
During the fellatio scene the crew walked out of the production refusing to work on the scene. A similar incident happened during the shooting of Basket Case (1982).
On the subway, Brian sees a man carrying a big basket with a lock on it. The character is Duane Bradley w/Belail inside the basket from Frank Henenlotter's previous film, Basket Case (1982).
Frank Henenlotter claimed that he had make up effects give Rick Hearst a split lip throughout the movie because he thought he "looked too fucking pretty" and that it wasn't from a deleted fight scene.
The theatrical and original home-video releases of his film deleted the most gruesome scenes, such as the "fellatio" gag.
Frank Henenlotter reportedly gave up cocaine and wrote this film as a metaphor for his experience.
In a 2016 interview, Frank Henenlotter said one of his favorite things about shooting in 35mm was that he couldn't misplace the camera as easily as he did with the 16mm camera he used on Basket Case (1982).
Posters for the New Wave bands Bauhaus and Siouxsie and the Banshees can be seen hanging in Brian's bedroom.
One of the gurgling sound effects used for Aylmer actually came from star Rick Hearst. Hearst's stomach would make gurgling sounds if the actor drank coffee on an empty stomach. When Frank Henenlotter found this out he had Hearst go into a sound booth and record the noise with a microphone placed against Hearst's stomach.
The lead character's name is Brian...a play on the word "brain." Besides its title, Brain Damage has frequent references and plot devices involving the human brain.
Brian has an unexplained cut on his lip all throughout the film. It was a part of a subplot involving him getting into a fight the night before defending his brother in a bar fight. But due to time restraints the explanation scenes were never filmed
As Brian wakes up for the first time in his bed, his head covered in blood, an album poster is spotted on the wall, Slayer's "Reign In Blood".
The movie budget was so low that the production couldn't afford to have multiple sets running at once. Therefore, every sequence in the film that took place on a certain set (Brian's apartment, the courtyard, the Hell club, the hotel etc.) had to be shot all at once so the set could then be struck and a new one built in its place.
In one sequence, Brian has a curious homoerotic encounter with a man showering in a public bathroom. This is possibly a reference to the common downfall of drug addicts turning to prostitution to support their drug habit.
The first cut made of Brain Damage by Frank Henenlotter ran only 66 minutes, putting it short on time for a feature film. He then went back and reinserted sequences and shots previously edited out to extend the running time.
A copy of the Stephen King novel "Cujo" can be seen among the things in Brian's room. Ironically, King claimed to have been so deep in the throes of substance abuse during the writing of the book that he later couldn't remember writing it. Brian ends up having the same problem (albeit more grisly) in the film.
For his cameo appearance as Duane Bradley (the main character from Frank Henenlotter's movie Basket Case), actor Kevin van Hentenryck had to wear a wig, as he had short hair at the time. The wig looked so bad that producers told crew members that Eddie Van Halen was making a cameo.
Originally New Line Cinema was interested in distributing the film but some partners in the company strongly refused after seeing screening it.
The hotel that Brian hides out at is called the "Sunshine Hotel." Besides being ironic the name "sunshine" is also given to some strains of hallucinogenic drugs.
Star Rick Hearst was a method actor; he would actually sleep on set in Brian's bedroom to develop a connection to the character's place.
