Brainscan
(1994) 96 Min.
Rated: R (Gore)
Country: Canada | USA | UK
Director: John Flynn
Stars: Edward Furlong, Frank Langella, T. Ryder Smith
Links: IMDB | Wikipedia
Rating: ★★☆☆☆
A teen boy plays a video that contains a terrifying game of murder.
Synopsis:
Troubled and lonely teen, Michael (Furlong), has re-occuring nightmares about the car accident that killed his mother and left him scarred and with a slight limp. He lives alone in a large house.
His best bud Kyle tells him about a new sick game advertised in Fangoria. Meanwhile, Michael is secretly videotaping his crush, Kimberly, next door as she undresses. He calls Kimberly and then has the phone disconnect as she’s about to answer.
After rewatching his creepy videotapes of Kimberly, Michael decides to call the ad in Fangoria and order the game. While on the phone he has a jolting experience just talking to the man on the phone. Michael is slightly unsure of what happened.
At school, Michael, Kyle and several students are watching a horror movie when the school principal interrupts the film and is disgusted by what they’re watching. He talks to Michael in his office and bans the horror club.
Michael rides a bike home and sees medics cleaning up an accident. The blood on the street reminds Michael of the car accident when he was younger. Detective Hayden (Langella) appears and tells Michael the scene is none of his business.
Michael goes home and finds that his package containing Brainscan arrived. He also listens to messages left on the answering machine from his absentee father.
Next door a loud party is taking place. Michael decides, instead, to play with Brainscan. It plays much like a DVD meant to hypnotize. Soon the audience is in point-of-view cam and we are with Michael as he has to carry out a murder in a certain time period. The game goes into a man’s home while he’s sleeping and the killer stabs the man and cuts off his foot as a trophy. The game ends and Michael is sweaty and exhausted.
Michael goes over to Kimberly’s house, but sees a news report about a murder in the town. The description of the crime matches what Michael did in the game, and he nervously leaves the house. He goes to the crime scene and is again shoo’d away by Det. Hayden.
Micheal goes home to find the cut off foot in his fridge. Terrified, he tries to call the Brainscan company again, but an operator says there’s no listing for that number. Meanwhile, a creepy looking man is birthed from Michael’s TV. He introduces himself as Trickster (Smith) and tells Michael that Michael killed the man in his bedroom and that it was art. Trickster encourages Michael to continue to play the game and also tells him to hide the “trophy”.
The next day, Michael goes out into a nearby forest and attempts to bury the foot but is almost thwarted by a dog. After returning home, Kyle comes over for a visit, but Michael is reluctant to hang out with his friend and turns him down.
Kimberly also stops by to drop off homework and his mail. Michael finds a new Brainscan disk in the mail and pretty much shoves Kimberly out of the house. Trickster appears and tells Michael he must play the game and kill the witness, Kyle, otherwise the police will be asking him questions about his whereabouts during the murder. Somehow this convinces Michael to play and he videotapes himself playing the game.
Michael lies in a chair and comes back in a flash. He reviews the videotape, but sees himself walk off in a trance at the start of the game. Michael rushes to the freezer and finds a bloody necklace once owned by Kyle. Michael attempts to call Kyle’s phone, but Det. Hayden answers, confirming Michael’s worst fears.
Kimberly comes over to talk to Michael and they share a moment. Then Trickster shows up to taunt Michael and encourage him to play the game. Det. Hayden also shows up at Michael’s home. He suspects now that Michael is the killer, but waits for more clues before acting.
Trickster says the next part of the game may not need killing. Michael is also mad at Kimberly because she put a moment they shared privately as an interview on Kyle’s death in the local paper.
Meanwhile, Det. Hayden sneaks into Michael’s home and steals “fresh ashes” that were in the fireplace from when Michael burned up his clothes after killing the first victim. Det. Hayden also starts to organize people to run neighborhood watch.
“In the game”, Michael goes out to Kyle’s house and erases footprints left in the dirt. As he’s running around at night, Det. Hayden’s partner finds Michael and tries to call for backup but instead gets a large load of bricks to fall on himself as he struggles to hold Michael.
Michael hides in the rubble of a construction zone and a man who was previously chasing Michael brings out a gun and gets shot dead by the neighborhood watch people. Michael escapes the ordeal, but two men are dead in his wake.
Michael is supposed to kill Kimberly and slips into her bedroom while she sleeps. He resists killing her and Trickster appears. Trickster reveals that he is part of Michael and basically absorbs Michael. Michael appears before Kimberly, who is now awake and terrified, but he has Trickster’s yellow eyes and slightly scarred face.
Kimberly tries to convince Michael that she loves him. Michael retorts that she’d say anything to save her life. Kimberly admits she has been taking photos of him, too. Michael sees the photos and can’t kill her.
Trickster appears outside of Michael and is disappointed with him. He then reveals Det. Hayden from behind Kimberly’s bedroom door. He calls Michael a murderer and shoots him.
However, this wakes Michael from a trance. He finds that the party at Kimberly’s house is still going on and Kyle never died. He runs over to Kim’s house and asks her out. She says “maybe” and he’s super excited. He finds a folder full of photos of himself that she’s taken and he’s extremely pleased.
Michael gives his principal a copy of Brainscan to review before he can show it to the Horror Club. Trickster appears behind the principal and laughs.
The film ends and credits start up. Then the credits stop and Trickster’s voice is heard asking if we’ve forgotten something. A dog appears and leaves the foot of the first victim at the doorstep of Michael’s home, implying that the first kill was real. The credits roll and the film finally ends.
Review:
This film has a few things going against it which were too glaringly obvious for me to ignore. One of which is the star of the film has almost no emotional range, two is that its villainous Trickster chews the scenery, and thirdly the creepy normalization of stalking and secret photos as proof of love.
The protagonist just seems so rock stupid to be bullied into continuing to do the murders. Frank Langella’s detective seems capable but ultimately useless. The girl next door is so charmed by being stalked that she stalks her neighbor too in return and this is supposed to be endearing.
Perhaps the message of the film really is supposed to be to learn to love your friends, take chances on love and love yourself, but the film is so ridiculous that it’s hard to be taken seriously. Trickster’s appearance is so 90’s that I’m sure whoever came up with him thought he would be like some “cool” Freddy Krueger and it just doesn’t work.
I’m sure some people will genuinely enjoy this film, but for me it leaned a bit more on the “so bad it’s good” spectrum. It wasn’t outright detestable, but more on the dumb and silly side of horror.
