Virtual Reality Gone Psycho

September 10, 2015

Virtual Reality Gone Psycho

When I was a teenager, Eddie Furlong was considered rather cool to not just me, but many my age. T2: Judgment Day got him a lot of mileage. Most kids would have been written off after Pet Sematary 2 (which I will be watching this weekend as a “twofer of Eddie 90s horror”), but he made some decent films before his ultimate descent, fading like many unfortunate child stars tend to. Here, in Brainscan, Edward is a teenage “misfit” (the students in his classes consider him a frightening freak because of his love for horror movies) eventually getting involved in a video game that literally takes you on a series of mind games, with a devious, flashy “host” (T. Ryder Smith) goading him to continue playing. Murders are a result and Eddie finds himself in hot water as a homicide detective (Frank Langella) seems destined to arrest him while investigating. Eddie has a best friend named Kyle (Jamie Marsh) and a girl he pines for (Amy Hargreaves, who was actually 24 at the time; she was about seven years older than Furlong!) that lives across the street. Amy purposely walks around in her room scantily clad, knowing that Eddie spies on her with a video camera. Amy’s Kimberly pretty much goes out of her way to make Eddie’s Michael aware she digs him, too. He just keeps blowing it. He’s a blank sheet of paper, though…this isn’t a five star performance from Furlong. The director of Brainscan, John Flynn (Rolling Thunder), didn’t speak kindly of his teenage star in regards to his acting job in the film. I have to say, Eddie looked like he’d rather be anywhere but in this film. Still, the novelty of his involvement will probably always bring eyes (some fresh after watching Terminator 2) to Brainscan.

I think you can see with the Trickster character is the attempt of another horror film to develop an alternative to Freddy Krueger. I think that was the plan with Craven’s supernatural psychopath, Horace Pinker (Mitch Pileggi of X-Files fame), which never materialized (funnily enough, Shocker (1989) is one of two Craven films I plan to review for the blog this month). Trickster is played to hilt by Ryder. I thought he was fun. He’s kind of like this cyberpunk psycho with the loud hair style and clothing style. He’s supposed to be way out there in both how he acts and what he looks like. He really needed to pop off the screen. And, quite frankly, the film needed “noise” and “over the top” to make up for Eddie’s non-performance. If Amy is showing interest in me, I’m not going the route in behavior (all cold fish and “don’t give a shit”) Eddie does. I think it was supposed to be all awkward and discomfort, but Eddie just makes Michael a zombie. Kyle, on the other hand, is all excitement and enthusiasm. If the film had Kyle hooking up with Trickster, I wonder what kind of film Brainscan could have been! Amy is played up as “the virgin looking to put out”, testing out Eddie’s interest. Eventually at the very end, he gets up the nerve to ask her out. Her response tickled my funny bone.

I thought the *twist* at the end wasn’t necessarily a cop out. It is all *feel good*, and this also allows Ryder to leave the film as a character you cheer due to the next victim of Brainscan. Its depiction of horror fans bummed me out a bit. That we’re anti-social creeps considered not altogether normal. Sure, maybe we aren’t conformed to a specific sense of normalcy that is specified by society at large, but I think the times have changed somewhat. Anyway, the video game medium and how the experience of “playing the game” has been “advanced” to where we can be a greater part of what is happening is what Brainscan is all about. Eddie’s life, turned upside down although he spends a lot of time in his room, is trying to avoid criminal charges for crimes he had no control over. That is the whole point: to be a part of the game where some scary shit happens to you, but you are at the center of everything. The murders, investigation, and how those around you are so involved in the entire ordeal: Brainscan plants Eddie right smack dab in a pickle he just wants to free himself from. Not if Trickster can help it. Langella is Langella. He has that contemptible, haughty kind of style in his acting where he’s smarter than everyone else, and that sense of control and weighty presence that looms over others in the same vicinity as him.

What primarily happens throughout is the film establishes the mind trips “into the game” (popping in a disc and sitting in front of the television set as the game “sucks you in”) and how they include Michael’s involvement. He kills, removes clues that could lead to him, and attempts to avoid capture. The trick of the film is to get you to truly want him to succeed. It is like Norman Bates watching Marian’s car sink in Psycho (’60); do you want the car to sink so Norman gets away with it? Same with Michael’s fate. Do you want the cop searching around with a flashlight to spot Michael hiding in the woods behind some leaves? Trickster even calls up a forensic detective to inform him Michael’s outside the window removing his footprints in the dirt.

An entire sequence has Mikey trying to get back home as the posse and Langella's police task force perform a "neighborhood watch" and look for anything suspicious. By the end of it, a man would be dead, another buried under a house development's brick pile.

But the scene that takes the WTF? prize is when Tricker *absorbs* Michael and the two *are one*. No longer given a choice, Trickster invades Michael, in a way possessing him. Attempting to force him into killing a "witness* (Kimberly), Langella's detective just happens to come around right as Michael could be implicated of hurting Kim.

The ending is one of those that gives the lead a good jolt but allows him to truly understand the experience of BrainScan. The school principal that has been hassling Michael about his "horror club" gets his comeuppance which should be a treat for those of us who have been looked down upon for enjoying what we love even if it isn't popular to certain people. That's socking it to him, Eddie. He should be right up Trickster's alley.

As a kid, I recall thinking how cool it was that Michael had this large, rad pad all to himself. The pops was away *on business* (good way to focus intently on the kid without the father butting in) and so the kid was on his own. Without the adult authority figure, when Mikey gets knee deep Trickster can just show up anytime. We can spend time with Mikey in his house without the need for the father to chime in on how his son's a loser. Nice house, too. All surburbany. His room, though, reeks of "horror fan"...what a sweet savour it is.