Brainscan

Brainscan

1994

Dir; John Flynn

"Wanna play? I dare you"

Post T2 Edward Furlong gets the worlds greatest computer game through the post and goes on a killing spree to celebrate.

To say that I wish I lived in this movie would be an absolute understatement. It is a world in which teenagers are left to their own devices, lame 8-bit computers can interact with humans, chicks like nothing more than secretly photographing boys reading Fangoria in their bedrooms and really awesome things are sent to you through the mail. Somebody find me a computer game that sucks me into this reality please.

A still compos mentis Edward Furlong (seriously, have you seen this guy recently? He looks like he spent the last 10 years bathing in a bath of crack and aids) stars as Michael, a teenager with the coolest bedroom in movie history. His computer talks to him, he answers the phone by saying "talk to me" and hangs it up by saying "later", his walls are covered with old horror movie posters, he even has a picture of Alice Cooper on his fridge! Whenever Michael looks out of his bedroom window he see's boobies which he naturally videos. The boobies in question belong to Kimberly (Amy Hargreaves), who along with Kyle, his best bud, appear to be Michael's only semblance of friendship. It is Kyle (James Marsh) who introduces Michael to the new video game, Brainscan, which he naturally finds in the classified section of Fangoria magazine.

Kyle personifies 1994 with aplomb. He seems to start and finish every sentence with the word "dude" and rocks a ludicrous post cock rock fashion aesthetic mixed with some even more ludicrous grunge plaids. Basically he is the best friend everyone should have. Michael and Kyle's friendship is the real deal, neither of them will get off the phone until both have repeated the catchphrase, "buddies forever".

Michael orders himself a copy of Brainscan and heads off to school where his free period is spent watching a film called "Death, Death, Death Part 2" with his horror club buddies (one of whom wears a monster mask for the occasion). The school principle is not impressed and compares the movie to a "pornographic sex film". He insists that in the future all horror club movies have to be screened by him first. A rule he will live to regret soon enough.

Michael receives his Brainscan package and, that evening, whilst he watches Kimberly and her friends partying to the sound of Rob Zombie's half arsed white rapping he decides to give it a whirl. The game is made up of four challenges, all of which involve him planning and carrying out the perfect murder. Michael carries out the first challenge by murdering a Kelsey Grammar lookalike with a carving knife and stealing his foot as a memento whilst synth industrial jams fart annoyingly in the background. Inevitably the next day Michael finds that the man from the game has actually been murdered and his worst suspicions are confirmed when he finds the disembodied foot in his fridge freezer.

Without warning, a character from the game called "The Trickster" (an awesome T.Ryder Smith), appears from Michael's TV. He sports a lovely velvet sports jacket and shiny PVC trouser combination. He has the face of Sloth and the hair of Toyah. He makes Michael listen to Primus whilst he does a spazz dance on a table before exclaiming "no country and western please, every man has his limits". I think we can all empathize with that. The Trickster electrocutes himself and breaks his own fingers to prove he is loyal to Michael. He also tells him that he needs to play the game again because he left a witness behind. Michael agrees and this time when he finishes the game it is Kyle's necklace that he finds in the fridge freezer. His newest victim was, indeed, his "buddy forever".

Bad ass Detective Hayden (Frank Langella) already has his eye on the "weird" and "frightening" Michael (because he is, well, weird and frightening) but when his best friend becomes a murder victim his interest is piqued and he heads over to question him. Michael acts like a guilty man. Whilst the police are questioning our hero, the Trickster is busy making a mess of his bedroom and eating a frozen chicken. He convinces Michael to go back into the game by giving him an amazingly negative pep-talk in which he basically just lists all of his bad points. Michael believes that he is only going into the game to get rid of a footprint left at Kyle's house but he actually becomes responsible for the death of a member of worlds most bad ass neighborhood watch team who are out looking for the killer. Michael see's Valerie on his way home from the killing making her the final witness to be knocked off.

Of course, Michael doesn't want to go back into the game and kill Valerie, otherwise whose boobs would he oggle on those long, lonely winter nights? Again, the Trickster convinces him to go but when he gets into Valerie's bedroom he cannot carry out the deed. The Trickster unsuccessfully tries to convince him to follow through on the murder by eating Michael's head in a terrible CGI sequence.

Michael wakes up to find that the entire experience has been a part of the game. He is so upset that he smashes up his bedroom in slow motion. This means that the party next door is still going on and that Kyle is still alive enough to call Michael a "dick lick" before the pair head over to Kimberly's to join in the festivities. The next day at school Michael tells the principle that he plans on showing his horror film club the Brainscan game. The principle insists on reviewing the material before hand and as Michael leaves the office we see the Trickster relaxing into the principles office chair, ready to take him on the ride of his life.

This underrated doozy of a film is very highly recommended. Edward Furlong isn't as annoying as you'd expect in the lead role and the set design and digital effects are very atmospheric. The films score, by George Clinton (no, not THAT George Clinton!) is very effective, mixing John Carpenter synths with Twin Peaks atmospherics, its just a shame that the soundtrack is about as lame as you would expect from the era (Tad and Mudhoney being the exceptions). I think if you've ever been a teenage boy you're going to have a good time with this movie, particularly if you were a teenage boy in 1994 (which, thankfully, I was). The evil video game plot was a relatively new idea at the time and the entire game within a movie is executed very effectively. If you haven't caught this one yet, I'd advise you to seek it out.