Let's Scare Jessica to Death (1971)

However dreary and cruel the present is, horror movies teach us that darker scenes can always be uncovered in those places immersed more deeply in the past. Retreating city-slickers inevitably invite terror and carnage upon themselves when they make the mistake of not getting back on the interstate after visiting that remote fishing hole or greasy spoon. And deigning to put down roots among secretive villagers with arcane beliefs and buried atrocities risks conjuring some ancient evil from the alien depths of prehistory to consume them whole.

Such a fate is surely in store for the troubled New Yorker Jessica when she, accompanied by her husband and a friend, moves into an idyllic orchard in rural New England to get a fresh start of things after her treatment at a mental hospital (for reasons that are left mostly to the viewer's imagination). We meet a cheerful Jessica emerging from a hearse to make grave-marker rubbings in an old cemetery; a brief detour on their way to the house.

During her eerie excursion a strange girl in a nightdress appears to her and then runs off. Not sure if she only imagined seeing the ghostly figure, Jessica elects not to tell her husband and their mustachioed companion about the encounter. From the beginning we get that Jessica hears voices in her head and her haunted internal dialogue serves as a disjointed sort of narration throughout the film.

The trio board a ferry and are met by an elderly ferry man who, though initially friendly, turns rather stony when Jessica's husband, Duncan, mentions that they are moving into the old Bishop house. The local townsfolk (a small crowd of old men, actually) are less receptive, deriding them as "hippies". When they arrive at the house, they get another surprise in the form of an attractive but unassuming red-haired woman named Emily, an apparent transient who has taken shelter in the house. The couple's partner Woody automatically takes a fancy to the stranger and Emily is invited to stay. It's soon clear that Duncan is attracted to Emily, as well.

After a promising beginning, things begin to get weird at the old Bishop house. The townies get stranger and more menacing. Jessica finds an old (19th century) picture of the Bishop family and realizes that one of them, a tragic figure known as Abigail, looks oddly familiar. Emily's voices get darker. She sees something terrifying beneath the waters of the lake that beckons to her. She finds a bloodied corpse which disappears before she can show it to her husband. Someone or something is stalking her. Jessica is forced to decide whether the growing threat against her is real or just in her tormented mind.

A modest, fairly amateur production, Let's Scare Jessica to Death is a supreme example of 1970s Gothic, unmarred by camp and blatant exploitation with a plot device (is it real or is she mad) seldom utilized within the genre with the competence and restraint exhibited here. Atmospheric music and scenery are used to good effect to evoke an escalating sense of dread and isolation experienced by our disheveled protagonist. LSJtD got a modest response in movie theaters but became a staple of prime-time network television in the 70s, which is where and when I first saw it. The film has garnered a growing cult following, represented by blogs and sites like http://letsscarejessicatodeath.net/.

Now for some thoughts about the film for those who have already seen it. First of all, is there really any doubt that Abigail is real and not just in Jessica's mind? It does make sense that Jessica might see the woman who is seducing her husband as a monster. But the problem arises in the scenes that unfold outside of Jessica's presence. Did she merely dream that the shopkeeper was killed while fishing? And there's no indication that the killing of Duncan dispelled the illusion, though Jessica might have been too far gone at that point. The idea that the haunting is real is just more consistent than the idea that it's all just the delusions of a madwoman.

Also there's something fascinating about the aquatic vampire Abigail Bishop. It's a wonder her name isn't mentioned along with other spectral horror icons like Freddy, Candyman and the Blair Witch. Someone should give this legend a jump-start. A pity that you could only expect a remake in this day and age to get everything wrong.

Lemora: A Child's Tale of the Supernatural

The time is the 1930's, in the rural, Prohibition-era American South. Shy, thirteen-year old Lila Lee (Cheryl Smith), ward of the young reverend (played by director Richard Blackburn) goes in search of her gangster father, who is a fugitive from the law after having shot Lila's mother to death. Little does she realize that the letter summoning her on this dangerous trip to the remote, spectral town of Astaroth-- where her father has taken refuge, apparently near death--was authored by the mysterious recluse Lemora, who is merely using Lila's father in order to take possession, body and soul, of Lila Lee herself.


Lila Lee's odyssey begins when, trying to get to the bus-station to get a ticket to Astaroth, she stows away on a car going into town, and overhears the local gossip about the Reverend's less-than-puritanical designs on her. Lila Lee is further harried by scenes of corruption and debauchery in town before finding out that the only bus to Astaroth is driven by a bizarre little man with a mildly deranged manner (the somewhat overdoing-it Hy Pyke), and she's the only passenger. During the ride, the driver warns Lila Lee about the dark reputation of Astaroth, complete with the distinctive monstrous attributes (dubbed the "Astaroth Look") of it's inhabitants, tearing a page from H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth.


Unfortunately for Lila Lee, she soon gets to see the dreaded "Astaroth look" first-hand, as the bus breaks down and the two are swarmed by a pack of feral vampire-creatures. Lila Lee escapes only by being abducted by some other less horrifyic "civilized" Astaroth-ites who wear cowboy hats and turtle-necks for some reason. These vampires drive away the others and kill a few with stakes to the heart, and Lila Lee wakes up the next day in a padlocked stone hovel, illuminated only by sunlight though a barred window and tended to by a creepy old woman (the Renfield to Lemora's Dracula) who seems to be out of her mind. Lemora finds out that this cell is on the property of the woman who wrote the letter appealing for Lila Lee to come there, alone, to meet with her father, and that, far from being his protector Lemora has him captive, along with Lila Lee and others. After Lila Lee nearly escapes she meets Lemora, a strange woman with dark eyes, an unnatural complexion and funereal 19th century clothing. Lemora brings Lila Lee into her stark old manor and forces her to eat raw meat and blood for sustanance. In spite of being subjected to this and other indignities, Lila Lee begins to grow closer to Lemora. Lila Lee quickly comes around to the ominous reality, however, that Lemora, her henchmen and the gaggle of strange, laughing children that Lemora treats as her own are all vampires. More, Lila Lee is attacked by her own father who, as one of the savage feral vampires, is driven away by Lemora, banished to the woods where

the other feral vampires run berserk. Lila Lee escapes again, only to find herself pursued by the "wild" vampires that Lemora's vampires hunt like animals. Before long these vampires clash in a climactic battle for supremacy, in which Lila Lee is seemingly caught in the middle.


Written and directed by Richard (Eating Raoul) Blackburn, Lemora would be the young film student's only feature film, owing largely to the movies poor reception among American audiences of the time. Though a monumental career setback for Blackburn, his ambitious little independent genre production was rewarded with some recognition, mostly by European film critics, as well as a small cult-following from Americans who caught it on late-night movie-of-the-week broadcasts (for me, that was Shock Theater). Out on Synapse DVD in a remastered special edition, Lemora can now be enjoyed with a pristine picture, far surpassing the inky, nearly unwatchable, incarnations previously seen on cable and VHS. The clarity of the DVDs picture does, unfortunately, reveal many of the rough edges of the woefully low-budget. When I saw Lemora on Shock Theater as a kid, I always wondered what the creatures pursuing Lila Lee in the woods, the ones making the horrifying guttural beast-noises, actually looked like. What my imagination cooked up was a little freakier than what can clearly be seen now, but considering the financial limitations (Blackburns cast and crew were primarily friends and family) the home-made make-up effects (including plastic Halloween vampire fangs) don't detract too much from from what was, after all, a laudable experimental work that hardly launched any of those involved to stardom.




The late Cheryl "Rainbeaux" Smith did go on to appear in a slew of exploitation films in the seventies and early eighties (Caged Heat, The Pom-Pom Girls, and the ilk), wherever a freckly, buxom, translucent blonde was called for, but few were starring roles and only a couple of those appear to have required serious acting skills. Smith turned in an unusually restrained performance as Lila Lee, apparently not seeing the character as being easily unnerved. Smith's performance is eerily remote, almost somnambulic. It reminds me a little of Candace Hilligoss' wandering spirit in Carnival of Souls. It can be argued that Smith was no Jodie Foster, but on the DVD's commentary director Blackburn asserts that though he pushed her to exhibit more emotion in key scenes, he was glad, viewing the film today, that Smith had resisted the his direction to make Lila Lee the "screamy" type. It may be that Smith struggled with the characterization as it was. Here was a streetwise sixteen-year-old California woman playing an innocent, gospel-singing girl of thirteen, after all, and Cheryl even had to have her breasts taped down under her clothing so that her true maturity wouldn't be so obvious.


The performance choice for the eponymous Lemora (Lesley Gilb) was also a bit curious. The character comes across as a shrill photo-phobic schoolmarm, begging to be defied. For an age-old vampire who preys on children, you'd think that she'd have developed a more winning personality to help soften her severe, staring countenance.


Lemora isn't necessarily an engrossing, genre-defining movie but it's nicely textured and evokes a suitably spooky dreamscape atmosphere with a slightly off-kilter dramatic sensibility. Rather than going for sheerly exploitative thrills, as was the trend of the genre market of the day, Blackburn produced more of an art film with a European flavor. Though the lesbian overtones that vampire flicks of the seventies were lousy with are present, there is little erotic about Lemora's strained, awkward seduction of Lila Lee. Blackburn indicates that the film is about sexual repression at the core. The Reverend represses his indecent desires for Lila Lee, who is in turn forced to veil her desires as a young woman coming of age. This repression presumably contributes to their ultimate fates--grim or liberating, depending on your own particular interpretation.

The Brainiac

 

Consider the significance of the act of eating brains. Almost invariably the the brain-sucking creature in a sci-fi/horror movie craves the potent endorphins produced by the brain- an idea exploited in movies like I Come In Peace and Return Of The Living Dead. Oh yeah. "Brains make the pain go away" as it's been said, and it's not unusual for the typical freaky endorphin-fiend from space to develop a six-brain-a-day habit by the time the coppers take him down in a hail of gunfire. And it's a cautionary tale not confined to potential brain-sucking gargoyle invaders. You the viewer should also take heed! We must all watch the skies, and be ready to fight this cosmic commie-pinko menace (e.g.: The Brainiac) with all of the flame-throwers at our disposal, for God and Country! 

This, perhaps, is the underlying message made to Cold War audiences in 1961 by the makers of The Brainiac. Alternately, I suppose, it could be that there is some obscure Aztec folk legend, of which I am completely unaware, involving a brain-sucking warlock who soars across the heavens via comet and comes down to earth to reign terror upon Mexico every three centuries, morphing into a bizarre, bulbous-headed monstrosity with clawed hands, a dragon-size tongue, the power to hypnotize with a glance (and is a sex machine to all the chicks. Shut yo' mouth!!! I'm just talking about The Brainiac...), but just thinking of that possibility fills me with the sensation of pinwheeling down into a deep, dark pit of existential despair. Well, from whatever disordered mind the inspiration for this steaming Mexican horror dish sprang forth, he, she or it has brought joy and fits of uncontrollable giggling to generations of stoned people, while keeping us mindful of the nightmarish alien horrors that await us outside the warm comforting cocoon of human rationality, one day to spring on us as we sit in front of the Cartoon Network in our footy pajamas, hopelessly lost in a gravity-bong induced stupefaction. 

Before becoming a star-trekking, brain-draining scoundrel of the title, though, our feature character was an odd sort of fellow by the name of Baron Vitelius who, as our movie opens, is the special guest in the dungeon of the Inquisition receiving his umpteenth holy tongue-lashing from the extreme wind-bag Head Prosecutor. Vitelius, played by Mr. Producer Abel Salazar, is in irons and seated before the assembled group of black-shrouded inquisitors, listening with bemusement at the reading of his glorious history of malfeasance, debauchery and general misbehavior to date, along with the more colorful moments of his interrogation.

"And therefore, he was conducted to the torture chamber, and his arms thrust behind his back. The rope was then tightened by being twisted thirty times in a row. The accused merely laughed with disdain at these acts of justice! Because of this bold defiance, he was then laid upon the rack, and with his arms and legs nearly torn from his body, he continued to make jest of our holy authority!"

In spite of all the adversity he's faced in gaol, Vitelius is not only holding up well but he's downright gleeful. The High Inquisitor keeps getting distracted by the boorish baron's defiant tittering. He may be a thoroughly contemptible bastard who daily, and with great relish, engages in activities that would make Gilles de Rais blush, but here, for a moment, one is reminded of a certain John "Bluto" Blutarski and his endearing hiinks in Dean Wormer's office as the Delta House boys were being put on Double Secret Probation in the movie Animal House. Except that Vitelius doesn't actually stick a couple of #2 pencils up his nose. 

After this opening tirade, which clocks in at a hair shorter than Inna Gadda Da Vida live, the Baron's one character witness is brought in-- some shmoe from Portugal named Marcus Miranda (played by an actor who bears an eerie resemblance to Eddie Albert Jr)-- who, in spite of the sprawling rap-sheet of hardcore iniquities which had just been read aloud to the court, and seemingly acknowledged by the defendant, insists that Vitelius is some kind of haloed pillar of the community and national treasure second only to Jose Cuervo. This daft poofter is sentenced to a merciless flogging for his flagrant buffoonery (what about his "Miranda" rights?) and led away, never to be seen again. Or at least never for the next couple of minutes. Vitelius, in turn, is sentenced to be guest of honor at his own barbecue and, to add insult to injury, has to wear a funny hat while the flames sear away his flesh (ouch. why don't we make our condemned wear funny hats?). 

Unmoved by his imminent execution, Vitelius announces that if he's going to burn at the stake, it will be without unsightly chafing (or something to that effect) and his manacles magically vanish, and reappear on the guards directed to lead him off. And it's at this point that we the audience chortle stupidly and do another bong.

Wow, a witch-burning, only with a dude witch! These are always fun. You can bank on a good witch-burning to brighten up a dismally bad horror movie a little. This one is a tad on the chintzy side but it makes the grade for being offbeat. The funny hat is based on the actual attire forced on condemned heretics of the Inquisition being led to the Auto-da-fé. For all it's historical accuracy, though, I suspect it would be hard to keep a straight face while watching a guy get burned to death wearing a clownish get-up like that. 

Surprisingly, Floggingboy from the previous scene is good enough to be present for his buddy's immolation, figuring that since he couldn't acquit this guy then the least he can do is watch his skin blister and turn black as he writhes around shrieking in unspeakable agony (it was the thing to do in those days) The stake-igniter lights up the kindling, and WOOSH! Vitelius is instantly incinerated. The End. Brother, that was one weird movie... 

But wait! Vitelius still lives, and he doesn't have a mark on him, even though he is engulfed in a raging forced-perspective matte effect. The man is too cool to burn! The tribunal, rather than being perplexed by this apparent miracle, are pleasantly conversing about which one of the altar-boys they enjoy raping the most; or whether to go Chinese for lunch or finally try than little Greek place; or something else Middle Ages related. Perhaps the baron's incorruptible state has something to do with the the huge comet up in the sky which he regards with such great interest. The time has come to quickly establish the premise for the movie through the dreaded Witch's Curse. He turns to the masked tribunal, and, one by one, speaks their names out loud. As he does, each inquisitor's true face is superimposed over his hood. This peculiar effect is to reveal to us who the witch will be out to cap after he/she rises from their sooty grave. And as for what fate will befall the hapless Inquisitors? Let's hear it in his own terrifying words:

"I shall return to your world within 300 years- when that comet completes it's cycle and is once again in these latitudes. When that happens, I will take my revenge upon you! I will kill each and every one of your descendents, and I shall expunge your foul lineage from this earth!"

Uh-oh. Astrophysics. Should we take notes? Say! Why didn't he just use his powers to make it rain and put out the fire? And have lightning strike the inquisitors right there and then? No. Instead he vows to exterminate total strangers after hurtling through the void for 300 hellish years aboard a speeding glacier. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, you can only be so protective of your kin 275 YEARS AFTER YOU'RE DEAD. Why waste his breath on these inhuman bastards, anyway? They burn people for God, they aren't going to lose sleep over a bunch of philistines in the heathenly 20th Century. And why a comet? Why, man? What's the score here? 

As our producer is reduced to ashes, a bleeding-font caption rises up announcing that it is 1661. Successive captions hurl us forward in time in 100 year increments until we get to 1961--the very year that Vitelius vowed to open a big can of whoopass on certain lineages. But the local Inquisition has long since closed up shop and we find the swinging young hepcats of 1961 twisting the night away in a nightclub, comets of doom all forgotten. One pleasant-looking couple, Ronnie and Vicki, decide to blow this scene for the local observatory and excuse themselves, explaining that they are going to see "the professor", that Ronnie "works in the dark", that they are "looking for a real star", and it's a cloudless night. In spite of how tawdry this might sound, it doesn't involve getting naked, oiled-up and bouncy-bouncy with Vicki, unfortunately. Remember, this is the dreaded Night of the Comet, and our crazy kids are, by remarkable coincidence, astronomers. 

Oh, and "Ronnie" is played by the same actor that played Vitelius's punk-ass pal Marcus Miranda, by the way. The implication should be clear: This is an astronomically dumb movie. Imagine, the physically identical great, great, great, great, great, great, etcetera grandson of Marcus Miranda is doing the cha-cha with some bouffanted bimbo on the very spot that his great, great, great, great, great, etcetera grandfather's chum swore to return and wreak bloody vengeance on that very date. And he's an astronomer. And would you believe that Vicki's great, great, great, great, great, etcetera grandfather was one of the Inquisitors? No? Well, let's move along...

 

When Ronnie and Vicki get to the observatory, the professor starts to pump them (and, by extension, us) for answers to his mundane astronomical trivia. I guess the director was worried that the audience wouldn't buy that Ronnie and Vicki were bonafide astronomers unless they first passed a grade school astronomy drill. That out of the way, the professor reveals that he has found references in old books about a comet that flew over in 1661, and through the use of a lot of disjointed scientific jargon, blandly convinces us that we might as well not bother trying to figure out how he'd reached, or possibly could reach, the conclusion that the same comet will be back that very night. I mean, let's get on with it, man! 

Luckily, our astute student Ronnie has a watch and realizes that the mysterious comet should be presently be making an appearance. Using the nearby telescope, Ronnie manages to locate several dazzling astronomy photographs out of the 1954 Encyclopedia Britannica, (Boy, did they get a lot of use out of that encyclopedia in this movie) but that pesky comet is just nowhere in sight. Our devastating debutante Vicki, not content to look for the comet where it's supposed to be, finds it in a random sweep of the heavens. The easily excited kids find a private telescope on the terrace and Ronnie witnesses the fairy-tale comet giving off "a very strange light". So Ronnie grabs star-strumpet Vicki and tears after it before it can fly away (because those suckers are fast, you know--especially the ones like this that look like a little kid's Fourth Of July sparkler).

Regardless, Ronnie and Vicki aren't able to get to the comet before it splashes down. Yes, the comet they were talking about two minutes earlier enters the earth's atmosphere and plops right down there on the outskirts of Brainiac Junction. But this awesome display of astronomy in action is at least witnessed by one wormy motorist, who gets out of his car to investigate. The comet, it turns out, is about the size and shape of a port-o-potty covered with a zillion crusted globs of spit. This celestial ice-nugget quickly evaporates to reveal a creature that is equal parts hideous, hilarious and preposterous. And hairy. 

 

This is that whack, wicked-mad Baron Vitelius in his front-yard Halloween-prop mode. Herr Baron's prison duds are charred and unsightly and so, as is the first order of business for any visiting aristocrat, he kills the first native he sees and steals his clothes. He wastes no time sucking the fellow's skull dry and then sort of magically absorbs his clothing (leaving him at least the modesty provided by boxer shorts and a white tee, socks, and those things guys used to wear to hold up their socks.) and transforms back into his human form. Fortunately, supernaturally-chic Vitelius can make even this clod's unemployment-line special look like an an Armani. 

Our lovebirds appears about then and both seem incredibly confused to find this dapper gentleman standing around in the middle of the woods near where the comet disappeared. Vitelius explains that he always goes for walks this time of night and imparts that he too is interested in astronomy after the couple identify themselves as aspiring astronomers. The enterprising Ronnie offers Vitelius his card, in case he needs some comets chased in the future or whatever. 

This stilted exchange out of the way, Vitelius materializes at the nearest lounge at closing time and immediately catches a barfly in his deadly web of charm. Of course she's slutty and drunk and she thinks Vitelius is pretty odd just the same, with his lurking-outside-the-bedroom eyes and his stubborn refusal to make any utterance or facial expression whatsoever. But she doesn't know like we do what a masher he really is. And also that he's a brain-sucking troll from hell. Vitelius's eyes are lit by a strobe to mark his quick-change into BRAINIAC. He throttles the lady lush in his suction-cupped pincers and lewdly jabs his great big crazy-straw-like tongue in the back of her neck, inhaling her gray matter like a plastic cup of free Cinco de Mayo margarita. POW! 

Alright, dawg, time to kick out the Brainiac theme song...

(cue Isaac Hayes)

...WOCKACHIKKAWOCKACHIKKAWOCKACHIKKA...

 

He's the BRAINIAC! He don't take no smack.
He'll blow your mind, with his super-charged brain-vac.
He's the ultimate French-kisser, burnt alive by the Spanish Inquisition
He's got a score to settle with the Man. Baby, try to understand....
Brainiac's back, and he'll eat your brain for a snack!
He's the BRAINIAC! Get BACK, sister!
Woooooo! Yeah!

..WOCKACHIKKAWOCKACHIKKAWOCK-...

Now that we've been shown how the Braniac works, in principle, we cut forward to the coroner and a pair of fedora-wearing local dicks as they examine the Brainiac's horrific handiwork in the cooling room. The coroner indicates the distinctive puncture wounds on the two corpses as evidence that there is a killer at large. And noting that the subject's brains were sucked out, implies that they may be dealing with something beyond the run-of-the-mill hickey-pervert. Upon hearing the coroner's theory that the killer must be an expert in anatomy, the chief detective is moved to echo the creed of determined crime-fighters throughout the ages:

"I wish they'd find a way to control the subjects a man studies. A maniac with a lot of knowledge is a threat."

The head dick deducts that these murders are related to the recent bank robberies. And yet the murders were too far apart in too short a time to be related (unless you can become incorporeal like our man the cosmic phantom.) The trail of the brain-bandit seems to have gone cold. 

Meanwhile, having secured a stash of loot suitable for an aristocratic grifter, Vitelius starts snooping through the public records for dirt on the Inquisition's offspring. But this cat just can't fight the women back for very long. Soon he's harvesting the brains of some aggressively available street hussy, who slips Abel the tongue and gets more than she bargained for. But with the names of the inquisitor's descendants Vitelius can now afford to have more discriminating taste in brains. He invites all of his unwitting adversaries to a party so he can case them out. Somehow, all of the descendants look like their 300 year dead relatives, except the women who Vitelius can somehow identify, anyway. During the party, Vitelius must excuse himself to satisfy his special dietary need. He goes to the corner of the room and takes out a huge goblet full of brains and discreetly nibbles at it. At least I hope he's discreet, since he seems to still be well within the full view of his guests.

 

Not long after the lovely soirée, Vitelius starts to drop in on his new friends and sort of pick their brains concerning this burning stake-burning issue. He starts with a a deliciously brainy scholar and his deliciously attractive yet also brainy daughter, and reveals that he is the bloke who their distant ancestor was so unpleasant to (and rightfully so). He puts the whammy on them with his Svengali stare, groping the guy's daughter while he watches helplessly, hastily gobbles their brains, and then ransacks and burns down their house. Next he whacks some science magnate and his wife in a similar fashion, forcing the man to immolate himself in his own furnace. Always he reveals his victim's astronomically tenuous connection to his murder, which I imagine would only serve to deepen their already profound bewilderment. 

The police, as well as our amazing stargazing whiz-kids, naturally start to associate outsider Vitelius with these grisly goings-on. The police come snooping around his manor, but they are unable to crack through the baron's blast-barrier of sheer smugness. Undaunted by the growing scrutiny, Vitellius stalks another one of the party guests down, drowning the husband in the shower before going Nosferatu on her. Having pretty effectively ripped through the region's Inquisition-descendant elite, the baron invites the last of the chosen over for dinner--that being scorching-hot lassie Vicki, for whom Sir Brainiac seems to have a throbbing fondness. 

Vitelius keeps them detained with some idle chatter, inevitably excusing himself to indulge in another sinful spoonful of brain pudding before offering to present Vicki with a bunch of gift jewelry, to be delivered in private (presumably, a pearl necklace is involved. While grandfatherly Vitelius makes a rather awkward pass at Vicki, Ronnie decides to jimmy into the Baron's private pantry, discovering the goblet of brains (which must reek something fierce by now). The baron ultimately spoils the mood after harping on about Vicki's foul lineage and Vicki screams and runs in terror following his premature Brainiac-ulation. The baron advises the would-be hero Ronnie to step aside while he fulfills his revenge, informing Ronnie of his ancestor's feeble gesture to acquit the obviously guilty Vitelius three centuries before. Radical Ronnie refuses to balk so Vitelius turns ethereal and charges through him like a bad double-exposure effect. It looks the Brainiacal Mystery Tour is going to take Vicki away, and undoubtedly deal a catastrophic blow to the future of astrosciency stuff in the process.

 

Just then, the detectives (who are now hip to Vitelius's Medieval shit-list), burst onto the scene with flamethrowers blazing; in keeping with the department's new cremate-first, ask-questions-later policy. FWOOOOOSH!

 

And so the Brainiac, once again reduced to a smoldering char, dies.

The End.

This review written by Steve Ring © 2004