The first generation of kids that grew up with the modern Internet are now the first “terminally online” adults. Being constantly connected has the perk of building relationships with people we’d never meet otherwise, but the downsides are much more detrimental. Irony and borderline mean-spirited satire drive humor, which becomes a coping mechanism for the larger issue of constant omnipotence. “Doom scrolling” — spending an excessive amount of time scrolling through generally bad or triggering news — has become a constant, never-ending cycle. Consistent depressing news begets scrolling which inevitably leads to more mind-numbingly horrific news and more angry scrolling; the cycle continues until your phone gets thrown at the wall or you collapse in despair.
Brain Death, written and directed by WL Freeman and John Harrison, is a visual representation of Internet oversaturation. Its eighty minute runtime is filled in bulk by broadcasts from a fictional alt-right incel and various found footage elements or viral video clips. While it’s mostly heavy on distorted visuals and audio, the film does attempt to tackle themes of isolation, identity, mental health, the surveillance state, and the new issues of people raised on the Internet. It’s an ambitious project with a visually-intriguing aesthetic, but some of the ideas the film tries to cover are lost in poor connection.
Liv (Hesse Deni, who also co-wrote part of the script) is a fairly typical twenty-something. She has a job where she gets harassed by rude customers of the bigoted variety, she watches commentary YouTube to pass the time, she has a long-distance girlfriend named Katy, and her taste in decor and films — like the Minions theater cutout and Shrek poster — are purely post-ironic. She allegedly can also pass through dimensional rifts. Unfortunately one of the inhabitants of the alternate dimension is the Alchemist (Actor Name): an elderly freak reminiscent of those in Trash Humpers that performs absolutely vile experiments for his own pleasure. His existence, alongside that of the Pig Monster (Actor Name?), his pseudo-henchman and experiment, was Freeman’s primary motivation to create the film. The film splits its runtime between Liv’s life and her attempt to reconnect with her girlfriend and the Alchemist and the Pig Monster attempt to infiltrate her dimension and gain control.
The idea of being too plugged in is established in the cold open: the alt-right TV show host in the cold open (played by the director himself) is proof enough. Most of Liv’s life is online: her girlfriend is online, her entertainment is online, the way her and her roommates bond is online. The general vibe of the movie is “overstimulation” in general between the repeated switch between filmmaking mediums, the glitching video and audio, and the general fast pace. It looks exactly like what information overload feels like. Unfortunately, the film suffers from its near-abstract attempt to recreate the Internet Kid Experience. It simultaneously lags and moves so fast that the plot is lost until the final twenty minutes. The interspersed adventures of the Alchemist and his swine henchman aid in the convolution and dragging of the plot, especially when they interrupt the interactions between Liv and Katy which are the best part of the film by a wide margin. They’re two girls who clearly have a deep connection and interact in an extremely realistic way for two people in a long distance relationship. The potential for explorations into online relationships, especially queer ones and especially in the age of hypervisibility, was almost wasted by throwing in the gross (by my standards, as a Human Centipede fan) Alchemist in large amounts.
Brain Death is an interesting movie more so in concept than in practice. It’s incredibly experimental and its visuals and sound design feel like your brain is melting into a pile of mush at points. It also deals with timely issues of a growing vitriolic alt-right presence, hypervisibility, and extreme reliance on the Internet in a way that feels like a genuine discussion instead of “we live in a society” The sweet and realistic long-distance lesbian relationship is a huge bonus as well, horror is definitely lacking in good lesbian representation. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s too weird for its own good and the plot of the film chokes and dies under the weight of its eclectic nature. It’s a really intriguing venture, but veers into being too focuses on aesthetics and its Alchemist side plot to truly have a successful grasp on its themes.
