BRAINSCAN

Michael, since he lost his mother in a car accident, has closed himself off and spends his days at home watching horror movies, playing video games, or spying on the girl who lives in the house across the street, whom he is in love with. One day he receives a new horror video game in the mail, "Brainscan", an interactive experience that will allow him to step into the shoes of a serial killer. But the game no longer allows Michael to distinguish reality from fiction, and when he realizes that the people he kills in the video game also die in the real dimension, he will try to destroy the CD. "Brainscan" is an anomalously original teen-movie that manages to create a successful mix of horror and fantasy. Its strong point is undoubtedly the engaging base story, but it is also commendable to find in a product of this kind a certain care in the delineation of the psychology of the characters and in the development of the plot. The character of Michael, played by Edward Furlong (the John Connor of "Terminator 2"), is a boy tormented by the memory of his deceased mother, who spends his days in his hyper-technological room, alone, since his father is constantly traveling for work. The supporting characters range from Michael's only friend, Kyle (played by James Marsh, later seen also in "Desert Vampires"), a boy who shares the same passions as the protagonist; to Kimberly (Amy Hargreaves), the "well-off" girl who lives in the house across the street; to the police officer played by veteran Frank Langella (remembered in "Dracula" by John Badham in 1979) who hunts the mysterious killer. The numerous co-protagonists also include a strange cybernetic demon, Trickster, played by an unrecognizable T.Ryder Smith (recently seen in "Birth – I am Sean"), a sort of tempting devil who pushes Michael to play the game of death, but who perhaps, in the producers' intentions, was supposed to become a new Freddy Krueger. Flynn's direction (who had already made a name for himself directing Sylvester Stallone in "Sorvegliato speciale") is perhaps too televisual but functional to the story; the screenplay by Brian Owens, as already mentioned, has no flaws and in fact reserves more than one surprise; also diligent is the use of special effects, although there are no gruesome scenes in the film, while a special mention goes to the suggestive music by George S. Clinton. "Brainscan" also carries an ambiguous moralistic message in which video games and products of the horrific imagination are almost condemned because they incite to violence, but all this is clearly refuted by the figure of the bigoted principal (literally ridiculed by the film's screenplay) and by an ending capable of reversing the situation, certainly benefiting the narrative credibility of the entire film. In conclusion, "Brainscan" is an original and well-made film, different from the rest of the teen horrors present on the market. Perhaps it is not a particularly memorable work, but it stands out from the mass of mediocre horror products released in the mid-1990s. It is worth at least one viewing.