BRAINSCAN (1994)

DIRECTED by John Flynn

SCREENPLAY by Andrew Kevin Walker from a story by Brian Owens

STARRING  - Edward Furlong as Michael,  Frank Langella as Detective Hayden,  T. Ryder Smith as The Trickster,  Amy Hargreaves as Kimberly,  Jamie Marsh as Kyle.

PLOT - Michael is a lonely teenage misfit - his mum was killed in a car crash, he walks with a limp from the injuries he sustained in the crash and now he lives with his father who is never around due to being a wealthy (and busy) businessman. Michael is also a horror movie geek, his only friends are another teenage misfit called Kyle and the girl who lives over the road - Kimberly - who Michael has a secret crush on.

One night, Kyle tells Michael about a new computer game called Brainscan that promises to be the most realistic horror computer game ever made. Intrigued, Michael orders a copy.

The game arrives - Michael plays. It appears to be a virtual reality murder simulation that puts the player in the killer's point of view. Michael kills a man ingame but it transpires that a real human being has been murdured in Michael's neighbourhood -  the same man that Michael killed in the game.

Very soon Michael finds that Brainscan is no mere game. It is deadly and all too real and being run by a malevolent demon known as The Trickster. 

The Trickster demands more victims. The police are closing in. How long will it be before its "Game Over" for Michael ?... 

DIALOUGE  - Michael  - " Who the hell are you ?"  The Trickster - " I still can't believe you don't know...I'm YOU !"

PERFORMANCES  - Edward Furlong plays maladjusted teen Michael (teenagers in films are always maladjusted aren't they). At this point in his career Furlong was riding the coat tails of his most famous role - the young John Connor in the smash hit Terminator 2 - and was regularly appearing in (mainly) sci-fi/horror movies. He was getting fairly regular work and was a pretty promising young actor. The future looked bright for this talented young man.

Unfortunately, as is sometimes the way with these things, the Hollywood system chewed up Furlong and spat him out - too much money at too young and inexperienced an age led to the usual sad story of alcohol and drug abuse. Fast forward thirty odd years and Furlong is now a recovering alcoholic, virtually physically unrecognisable, his career washed up, his middle-aged self a shadow of his teenaged self. This is a real shame as he was, like I said, a promising young actor. Such is life in Hollywood I suppose, at least he lived to tell the tale. He's good in this film. He captures Michael's awkwardness really well.

Michael is a pretty broken young chap. His mums dead, his dad has no time for him and he's seen as being a bit of a freak by his classmates. Like many troubled teenage boys he escapes from his problems by immersing himself in a fantasy world (in this case horror movies), it's this need to escape from reality that drives Michael to play the deadly computer game which is something the evil Trickster uses to his advantage.

Michael isn't always a likeable character (at one point he creepily spies on his next door neighbour Kimberly when she's getting undressed) but he is a pretty realistic character I think. Theres definitely something a bit off about him but you do find yourself rooting for him regardless as he attempts to escape the clutches of the evil Trickster.

The Trickster as played by T. Ryder Smith is a great villain. He looks like he's stepped straight out of a 90's alternative/goth nightclub. With his flamboyant dress sense and exaggerated mannerisms he's every inch the goth/punk nightmare from Hell. The Trickster is manipulative, patronising to his victims and looks like he's having great fun causing chaos, death and destruction in his camply velvateen wake.

He's not all tricks and japes though. T. Ryder Smith imbues him with a real sense of menace, theres a steely undercurrent to the Trickster that slips out from time to time. A tantalising glimpse of the true psychopath that lurks underneath the flamboyant exterior. I'm surprised we didn't get more movies made that used the Trickster as a recurring villian, both in concept and execution he certainly had the potential to become more iconic and popular than he did.

Rounding out the cast are Frank Langella as uncompromising cop Hayden and Amy Hargreaves as Kimberly. Langella's character is one of those cops that you'd really hate to have on your back, even though he's ostensibly one of the good guys you still find yourself not liking the character very much. 

Hargreaves as Kimberly is fine, she doesn't really do much and is a bit of a one note character (she's just the cute girl next door) but she's perfectly competent in the role all the same. 

SFX - The Trickster boasts a pretty decent makeup design. You can't really tell what parts of his face are latex and what parts are real or even if T. Ryder Smith really is that odd looking or not. 

We get some pretty ropey early 90's computer game graphics and CGI when the Trickster first manifests himself in our world but in this instance it actually works - The Trickster is a demon summoned via a computer game so it makes sense that he'd initially appear looking like a computer graphic.

We also get some standard 80s/90's pop video neon lightning effects when the Trickster uses his powers.

Theres some great practical effects near the end where the Trickster "swallows" Michael and the two appear to physically merge to form a mutated freak of a creature which owes more than a little to John Carpenter's version of The Thing.

Oh...and not really a special effect as such but for some reason I really like the little "virtual assistant" Michael has on his PC, it's like a cross between Uncle Fester and an early version of Alexa (but less annoying).

SEX & VIOLENCE  - Michael spies on Kimberly whilst shes wearing just a bra and pants (which is more creepy than sexy).

The first murder where we see Michael killing his neighbour whilst playing the game is pretty graphic and goes on for an uncomfortable length of time (which is kind of the point. Michael - and by extension - the audience are meant to be voyeurs at this point). The rest of the killings happen more or less off camera.

In a running gag Michael then finds the murder victim's severed foot in his fridge, this foot proceeds to dog him for the rest of the movie.

RATING  - I really enjoyed this. It's got a compelling story, decent characters and script, an interesting idea and is overall pretty well done. It's very early 90's with its fascination with virtual reality but that only adds to its charm.

The endings unfortunately a bit of a cop out but it's not enough to ruin what is otherwise a decent little sci-fi horror.

4 and a half killer console games out of 5.

GAME OVER.

ART -