The Fiend With the Electronic Brain Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		3.0
Audio		3.0
Extras		0.5
Overall		2.5

The Fiend With the Electronic Brain Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 20, 2020

Note: This film is available as part of Al Adamson: The Masterpiece Collection.

Disc Two of The Masterpiece Collection offers three versions of the same basic source material, and as such may be of interest to "film archaelogists" who like digging into how Adamson and his team refashioned material in order to get ticket buyers into seats (at theaters or cars in drive-ins, as the case may be). This film, Psycho a Go-Go , and Blood of Ghastly Horror all share at least some of the same footage, so those interested might begin their "research" by looking at some of the screenshots in all three reviews.

When Psycho a Go-Go failed to really register with audiences, Adamson and his team went back to the drawing board and decided to get a marquee name (or at least a former marquee name) by hiring John Carradine and adding footage with him as a deranged scientist who had been experimenting with brain surgery, a plot element which is kind of shoehorned into the existing footage from Psycho a Go-Go dealing with a jewel heist and an unwitting family who ends up with the loot.

The Fiend With the Electronic Brain Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Fiend with the Electronic Brain is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Severin Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.34:1. There's a kind of split between the reused material and the "newly" shot sequences with Carradine. The reused material looks pretty gritty at times, though the palette is still reasonably vivid. While the Carradine material shows some of the same recurrent damage as the rest of the transfer, mostly in the form of flecks and speckling, these scenes have a more authentic looking palette and better resolved grain field. There are prevalent signs of damage again throughout this version, with quite a few long green scratches, unstable frames and inartful edits.

The Fiend With the Electronic Brain Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Fiend with the Electronic Brain features a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono track that exhibits some of the same boxiness noticeable in Psycho a Go-Go, but which arguably has a few less pops and cracks. There's still discernable hiss, but a lot of the underscore sounds fine, even if the go-go numbers here sound just a bit muffled compared to Psycho a Go-Go.

The Fiend With the Electronic Brain Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Alternate title sequence as Man With the Synthetic Brain (1080p; 1:51)


• Man With the Synthetic Brain Trailer (480p; 1:01)

The Fiend With the Electronic Brain Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Fiend with the Electronic Brain (the actual title card omits the opening definite article) doesn't really manage to very artfully weave the Carradine material into the pre-existing scenes, but it may be especially fascinating because of that. The Carradine material does look sharper and better detailed than some of the rest of this presentation, but this transfer shows pretty regular damage in the video department, along with some probably lesser but still noticeable damage and boxiness in the audio department.