Brain Drain
An awkward student's hopes of fitting in at university turn monstrous when he starts craving brains.
Thanks to a rare autoimmune condition and overbearing parents, Aidan (18) spent his gap year under house arrest. His best friend Camilla spent hers finding herself. Now at university, Aidan has one goal: become Aidan 2.0. Then a flatmate accidentally ruins his medication. Terrified his parents will drag him home, he tries to tough it out. Soon, a hunger awakens. He discovers that eating brains lets him steal his victims' best traits, from confidence to dance moves. Aidan 2.0 is magnetic, magnificent and monstrous. But the more he consumes, the less Camilla recognises him. As the body count rises and his parents arrive for damage control, she must choose: save her best friend or survive him.
Director's note
Brain Drain is inspired by my experience supporting someone who endured a psychotic break at university. They returned home, their mind blank; it was terrifying. What scared me most was how fragile the mind is and how easily everything that makes someone who they are can be lost.
Like Aidan, I started university with grand plans to rebrand myself (mood board and all). What I didn't realise was that everyone had done the same, borrowing traits from people in their old lives to build an exciting new self. So I thought: what if someone was compelled to steal those traits by consuming other people's brains?
Tonally, the film is Raw meets The Substance. The world is heightened but never descends into farce. Comedy lives in the scenarios and world, not the performances. I will craft a striking film charting one boy's monstrous descent across three visually extravagant parties.
Biography
Max r Lincoln makes horror with a wicked sense of humour and a love of nasty endings. His short RHYME OR DIE went viral, passing 2.5 million views across YouTube and sparking over 50 reaction videos. It won Best Screenplay Short at the BAFTA-qualifying Manchester Film Festival. His latest, INEBRIATED, premiered at FrightFest. A production designer by trade, he sets grounded performances in heightened, stylised worlds. His debut feature BRAIN DRAIN was selected for the European Genre Forum.
Producer's note
I am a UK Chilean/Palestinian producer and founder of Rasp Films. My work includes the BAFTA-nominated short Lucky Break (2021) and the BIFA-nominated short Housewarming (2024). Through my shorts, I have focused on developing bold projects with emerging talent and building a pathway toward genre features.
Brain Drain is a contained, high-concept horror-comedy aimed at global audiences. The university setting offers strong production efficiencies, with halls and bedrooms redressed as multiple locations and a single club venue serving the film's three party sequences. These efficiencies allow us to prioritise practical effects and VFX, which drive the film's key comedy and horror set-pieces.
My ambition is to develop Brain Drain as a European co-production with a distinctive genre voice.
Biography
Paola Dominique Delfuego is a London-based producer drawn to stories that cross cultural borders and morally complex characters that reveal uncomfortable truths about the human condition. Her creative ethos is to protect creative vision, create space for bold choices, and never underestimate an audience’s appetite for authenticity. A BBC Film Scholar and graduate of the National Film and Television School’s MFA in Producing.