Spent Friday night and a slice of Saturday morning at Clearwater Cinema Cafe where one of Tampa Bay's more prolific filmmaking gangs debuted their latest opus with a private, late-night wrap party.

"This was the closest thing to a grindhouse that we could find," filmmaker Andrew Allen said, knowing that some museum of fine arts wouldn't do Brainjacked justice.

Brainjacked is another horror flick from Film Ranch International, led by the two Andys: director/co-writer Allen and producer/co-writer Andy Lalino, two of the most normal guys you'll ever find making movies drenched in corn syrup blood and mutilated latex flesh. They made the award-winning (I'm not kidding; I was on one of the juries) Filthy, a flick as vile as it sounds but in a good way.

A funny thing happened on the way to Friday night: the two Andys got a bit respectable, at least compared to Filthy (which featured a crazy Manson-style family forcing a victim to go bobbing for scrota before killing her). Brainjacked actually has a plot, the gore is relatively mild and the production values are stepped up. With a pitcher of Sangria, the movie went down well.

You see the plot outline on the poster art; a mad scientist (Rod Grant, in full Jeffrey Combs mode) collects runaways under the pretense of helping them. Then he uses an electric drill subbing for a hand to poke into their brains, inserting chips allowing him to control their actions. The bad doctor has expanded the idea to include the police chief and several city officials.

There's a fair amount of supple female flesh on display (thanks again, Krista Grotte), not all of it mutilated, and decent performances by Chris Jackson and Somali Rose as brainjackees rebelling against the scheme. There's also a hilarious moment when a brainjacked toddler (Allen's son Creighton) tries his hardest to look menacing as he stalks toward the camera. A tongue shoved firmly in a cheek is one body part these guys never sever.

Props are also due to cinematographer Wes Pratt and editor Chris Woods, for keeping the eerie factor at a proper level without pushing to include every trick they're learned.

Lalino told me that Brainjacked will get shopped around a few horror festivals and wind up on DVD for gore aficionados. Just about that time, a woman appearing too refined for dismemberment movies approached and slipped her arm around Lalino's waist. "This is my Mom," he said.

I took Dolores Lalino's delicate hand in greeting and said with mock sarcasm: "Oh, you must be so proud."

She is, without hesitation. And the two Andys should be too, about Brainjacked.