Kids in the Hall: Brain Candy (1996)

A pharmaceutical scientist creates a pill that makes people remember their happiest memory, and although it's successful, it has unfortunate side effects.

Director:

Kelly Makin

Writers:

Norm Hiscock, Bruce McCulloch

Stars:

Dave Foley, Bruce McCulloch, Kevin McDonald

4 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Dave Foley	...	Marv / Psychiatrist / New guy / Raymond Hurdicure
Bruce McCulloch	...	Alice / Cisco / Grivo / Worm pill scientist / Cop #2 / Cancer boy / White-trash man
Kevin McDonald	...	Dr. Chris Cooper / Doreen / Chris' dad / Lacey
Mark McKinney	...	Simon / Don Roritor / Cabbie / Gunther / Cop #1 / Nina Bedford / Melanie / Drill sergeant / White-trash woman
Scott Thompson	...	Baxter / Mrs. Hurdicure / Wally Terzinsky / Malek / Big Stummies scientist / The Queen / Raj / Clemptor
Kathryn Greenwood	...	Ginny Hurdicure
Amy Smith	...	Raymond's kid
Lachlan Murdoch	...	Raymond's kid
Nicole de Boer	...	Cooper's groupie
Krista Bridges	...	Cooper's groupie
Christopher Redman	...	Wally Jr.
Erica Fairfield	...	Wally's daughter (as Erica Lancaster)
Jackie Harris	...	Natalie (Roritor's secretary)
Jonathan Wilson	...	Panicky assistant
Tony Ning	...	Mai Tai waiter

Storyline

A team of scientists working for a pharmaceutical company discovers a cure for depression. When the company finds itself in trouble financially, they rush the new drug into production without doing enough testing. Things seem to go fine until some of the users of the drug start slipping into comas. It becomes a race between the scientists who want to tell the world the truth and the company's marketing department who wants to protect their profit margin.

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Plot Keywords:

drugs | scientist | pharmaceuticals | side effect | marketing | 

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Taglines:

Shove this up your mind

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Genres:

Comedy

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language and sexual humor

Details

Country:

Canada USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

19 April 1996 (USA)

Also Known As:

Brain Candy

Filming Locations:

Toronto, Ontario, Canada

Box Office

Gross USA:

$2,653,000

Company Credits

Production Co:

Paramount Pictures,Lakeshore Entertainment,Broadway Video

Technical Specs

Runtime:

89 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The music that plays in the elevator as Dr. Cooper goes to meet the executives is The Tragically Hip's 'Butts Wigglin' from their '95 album Trouble at the Henhouse. Though the lyrics are not heard, the song contains the line 'In my opinion, the drug is ready', which is exactly what Dr. Cooper tells his bosses, despite his reservations and uncertainties on that matter. Perhaps he was subliminally primed into making his ill-fated decision.

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Goofs

When the psychiatrist writes a prescription for Gleemonex for the repressed gay character, we see a large microphone hanging from the patient's neck during an over-the-shoulder shot as he's sitting up on the couch.

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Quotes

Don Roritor: [Touring the ward of comatose patients] Now, you know, Chris, it might be very easy here to take the narrow view and say, you know, "Oh my God, more coma victims, oh how terrible, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah." You know, Chris, I still think that's the narrow view.

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Crazy Credits

After the credits, Mother Hurdicure is distressed over her grandson flying away with the balloons she gave him, and is queried by the boy's mother as to his whereabouts.

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Alternate Versions

The Kids in the Hall originally filmed a different ending to the film where Dr. Chris Cooper (played by 'Kevin McDonald') fell into a coma and dreamed the ending. Apparently this included "an elaborate parade, complete with Coma Queens, candy-coloured floats, and a grinning mob", but unfortunately it scored poorly with test audiences. Paramount and the Kids re-evaluated the ending and agreed it lacked dramatic-weight and was "too scattered". They re-shot the ending in January.

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Connections

Follows The Kids in the Hall (1988)

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Soundtracks

Nata Di Marzo
by Yasuharu Konishi
performed by Pizzicato Five
Courtesy of Triad/Nippon Columbia/Matador

User Reviews

Not what you'd expect.

This film meant more to me than just 'a feature film featuring the comedy troop, The Kids in the Hall'. I am a Kids In The Hall fan. Their first feature length film theme was a good one. They took on one of the biggest things of 1996 and poked fun and holes at it: "Depression".

You have to remember, by 1996, depression drugs were being dispensed at an all time high. People were "sad" and wanted to be happy all the time so prescriptions were running wild for these depression drugs-- Prozac being the top one.

So the Kids went after this theme. Remember, this is The Kids in the Hall taking on this, not the book "Prozac Nation". This film may seem silly to some, or even awful for those who expected the same kind of Kids work as they had done in their series, but I did like it and I like the way they went about taking on a popular subject at the time most people didn't wish to admit how popular it really was.

Look back at "Brain Candy", well, may seem a tad bit dated now that in 2003 we should "know better". Do we? But again, I gotta hand it to the Kids in the Hall for being "sharp" enough to tackle this..and the WAY they tackled this. Think about it...is your health less important than corporate profits? ("We beat -- penicillin!!!!")And how about the summary at the end of the film by the taxi driver..."it's Okay to be sad...sometimes."

The Kids in the Hall were a very talented Comedy troupe of gentlemen and to some degree many expected something more comedic from them with their familiar characters and material for their first film fare, but again, I thought this was a more creative way to go, a more daring and brilliant way to go. Sometimes it strayed, but it all came back to the central theme. This is NOT for everyone's taste, but for those who want to venture into something different from a comedy troupe..maybe along the lines of the Monty Python's troupe fare of "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" -- who's theme too was way out there for a comedy troupe. It's enjoyable, pick this one up, see it for what it is.