Brainscan (1994)

Horror movies have always incorporated popular trends, and have always had fun with hobbies and interests that have been used as scapegoats by some scare-mongering news outlets. Whether it's the dangers of heavy metal, the perils of watching other horror movies, or videogames. And Brainscan is one of a number of movies to remind you that videogames are a corrupting influence on the youth of today. Well, the youth of the early 1990s, which means Edward Furlong.

Furlong plays Michael, a young man who ends up getting a CD-ROM of a game that allows him to commit violent crimes without fear of any real consequences. Except there does end up being consequences. Encountering a figure, The Trickster (T. Ryder Smith), who steps out of the screen, Michael finds himself in real danger. There's a detective (Hayden, played by Frank Langella) on the trail of a killer, and a young woman (Kimberly, played by Amy Hargreaves) who could become the next victim.

Written by Andrew Kevin Walker (yes, the man who would give us Seven just one year later), Brainscan is one of those horror movies that gets almost everything wrong. It desperately wants to make a memorable character with The Trickster, but fails, and none of the big plot points are as nasty and violent as they should be, which leaves the whole thing feeling far too take, especially for those who would have been the target audience for this in 1994.

Director John Flynn just doesn't have any handle on the material, as weak as it is, and makes a lot of wrong decisions. Had The Trickster been a better character then focusing on him would have been a good move, perhaps even giving him some more screentime (although he gets plenty), OR there could have been an attempt to make things even more complex between Langella's detective and Furlong's character, who keeps appearing in the wrong place at the wrong time. Considering how much better Langella is than anyone else in the movie, that could have greatly improved things.

Furlong is okay in the main role, but he's not someone I usually consider the best first choice for any role, and that is also the case here. He does what is asked of him though, moving from cocky teen to scared victim as it becomes clear that he may have actually committed crimes that will get him a hefty prison sentence. Langella is so good in his role here that I wish he'd been given similar roles in many other horror movies from about this time. In fact, I can't deny that I imagined a little fantasy universe in which Langella got the John Saxon role in the Elm Street series, and I wasn't disappointed. Smith is lacking a special quality needed to help make his character more entertaining, while both Hargreaves and Jamie Marsh (as a friend named Kyle) don't get time to make any strong impression.

Fun to watch once as a kind of relic from the 1990s, Brainscan isn't one that you should ever be too bothered about having missed off your viewing schedule. If the opportunity arises, decide whether or not you want to give it your time. It's quite poor, but it's not absolutely awful.

4/10

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