MY CALL: This movie opens and closes with gore, CGI effects and horror, and middles in the realm of crime thriller with a lot of illegal legal advice from a videogame demon. Yeah, I’d watch that movie! MORE MOVIES LIKE Brainscan: So other early techno-horror include Demon Seed (1977), 976-Evil (1988), Strangeland (1998), White Noise (2005), Pulse (2001, 2006), Virtuostiy (1995), and The Lawnmower Man (1992).
A survivor of childhood trauma, high school technophile and horror fanatic Michael (Edward Furlong; American History X, Terminator 2, Night of the Demons) needs something to fill a void. His buddy Kyle (Jamie Galen) turns him on to the interactive CD-ROM game Brainscan, advertised as the most frightening experience imaginable.
The game allows one to see through the eyes of a killer and affect his actions, essentially simulating a murder. Michael plays, kills, and finds it thrilling. Really thrilling. It truly is everything he doubted it could possibly be. But he soon learns that his simulated murder may have actually happened. Worse yet, the game conjures a demon who instructs Michael that he must play more in order to avoid getting caught for the insidious crime.
Trickster (T. Ryder Smith) is an amusing demon, equal parts charismatic and aggravating, ugly yet stylish, and quite feisty. He’s like a mix of a coked-up Eurotrash Freddy Krueger and Aladdin’s genie. Trickster is an anthropomorphization of toxic addiction, taunting Michael with consequences lest he play the game again and again; playing again to solve a problem (e.g., a witness), but creating a new problem with each new play. Meanwhile, a local detective (Frank Langella; The Box, Dracula) is working the recent murders.
Michael is an interesting protagonist. We know he’s doing horrible things, but not by his own conscious decision. Frankly, I remained indifferent as to whether or not he met a horrible fate. I was surprised, however, at how much more this movie is a crime thriller than a typical horror movie (for much of its running time). There is very little gore excepting the main murder sequence, which was graphic. Most of the events of the movie transpire with no supernatural inklings beyond the obvious demon manifesting through a game to advise Michael.
The final scenes do bring us back hard into the horror genre with some gooey eye-gauging gore, CGI demon guts, and a CGI blob of demonic possession shenanigans followed by Michael barreling through videogame effects (just like in Hideaway or Lawnmower Man).
Director John Flynn (Out for Justice) is no seasoned horrorsmith. Still, this movie is decent! We hastily dive headlong right into the shallow end with the speed of introduction to this evil game. It has a quick and dirty feel to it and some 90s stank much like Strangeland (1998). Michael’s cute neighbor Kimberly (Amy Hargreaves; Founder’s Day, 13 Reasons Why) and his best friend Kyle never play as important a role as we’d expect given their introductions. But despite these faults the movie works. It’s good. It’s no gem of the 90s; more like a semiprecious stone. But it’s definitely worth a watch!
Very cheeky, satisfying ending, by the way!