Finally checked out the sole movie from Canada's biggest comedy troupe The Kids In The Hall after growing up a fan of their sketch show. Seems like this was both a box office grab from their producer and SNL mastermind Lorne Michaels and a bittersweet kiss-off from the boys. Brain Candy has the same production style and budget as It's Pat and Wayne's World and The Coneheads movie, but its way more ambitious and un-commercial (which says a lot as Its' Pat and Coneheads are fairly weird). Brain Candy feels more punk rock in sentiment and I think its a much more successful film artistically than the others. Its a ripe Fuck You to everyone, including Lorne Michaels.
The plot concerns a pharmaceutical scientist who develops a wonder drug that cures depression but goes to internal and external war with his boss, a now-obvious parody of Lorne Michaels. Its very interesting that this Michaels satire had to have been a spiky in-joke because it was Austin Powers that actually made Lorne Michaels' mannerisms and cold persona so famous. The villain here sounds, looks and acts like Michaels. I assume the troupe blamed Michaels for maybe softening their comedy near the end of the TV run as the major themes in Brain Candy are selling out, commercialization, conformity, easy riches, etc.
The film is reminiscent of Wayne's World superficially as its a simple small good guy vs a powerful bad guy with a backdrop of middle class stereotypes for laughs. At the same time, this baroque Ayn Rand-ian Romantic drama mythos was evident in the Kids' work for some time previously. Maybe Wayne's World borrowed ideas from Brain Candy and this is why the Kids are so pissed here. Whatever the reason, the bitterness fuels some awesome ideas and the film is really a buried classic; one of the finest film moments in the comedy genre from that period.
Its absurd, gross, sexy, sweet, bizarre, brilliant, sophomoric and hilarious as the gang was on TV. The boys made a fine leap to film so its a shame that they didn't do more together. This is more Monty Python's Meaning of Life than Bob and David's Run Ronnie Run, though its a fair mix of both dissimilar qualities. Those uninitiated with the KITH will have no trouble starting here and longtime fans of the Kids will get everything they could want, though curiously Dave Foley is barely in this film. Thankfully, the troupe's most underused and underrated Kevin McDonald takes center stage for most of the movie, which is a sweet touch showing the group still had a lot of love and respect flowing for one another, if no one else.
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