Overall Rating Awesome: 12% Worth A Look: 24% Average: 16% Pretty Bad: 16% Total Crap: 32% 1 review, 19 user ratings

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Brainscan

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by Scott Weinberg

"Ah, the beloved sub-sub-genre of video-game-horror-movie."

Fans of the already legendary "Se7en" may be find it interesting to note that screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker penned two fairly atrocious horror movies before hitting the big time with the Pitt/Freeman/Fincher classic. One was an adaptation of Dean Koontz's "Hideaway", a film I was really looking forward to and also one that just really sucked. Walker also penned the screenplay for John Flynn's silly cyber-shocker "Brainscan".

It's a good thing Walker came up with Se7en when he did because, based on the quality of these two early efforts, he could just have easily ended up inking Trancers sequels for a career. (For the record, Walker also delivered a solid script for Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow and now ranks among Hollywood's finest screenwriters/script doctors.)

As far back as 1983 (with Joe Sargent's forgotten Nightmares) b-moviemakers have been trying to forge together the worlds of horror movie and video game. Since it's a pretty stupid idea to begin with, the results are nearly always atrocious. (My apologies to anyone who managed to enjoy Albert Pyun's Arcade.) Brainscan is hardly an exception.

Edward Furlong (he of the dinstinctively nasal whine) stars as a teenage horror junkie who comes across a devilish video game. While enthralled by the game's power, our hero (?) stalks into the night to kill people. Obviously he reawakens at his computer desk with no recollection of the murders.

That's pretty much it, unless you consider tiresome plot threads and prototypical police procedural stuff worthy of any special note. The flick makes very little sense, the kill scenes are tedious at best, the acting is uniformly rotten (try not to die laughing whenever Furlong's "best buddy" character bops onscreen), and the personification of evil here - The "Trickster" - seems little more than a thinly-veiled effort at creating another Jason/Freddy/Pinhead icon.

Unfortunately for the filmmakers (and luckily for us, as the annoying dolt never earned sequel one) the Trickster is more garish and annoying than he is anything resembling scary.

There's not a damn thing on display here than well-traveled horror fans haven't seen 300 times before. And less obnoxiously.

link directly to this review at http://www.efilmcritic.com/review.php?movie=2030&reviewer=128
originally posted: 04/29/04 16:36:21

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User Comments

1/16/12 JCameron Crap 14 yo wet dream, but kinda fun 2 stars

1/23/11 PAUL SHORTT TASTELESS, CRUDE TEENAGE FANTASY 1 stars

8/04/07 TANCP The affects and plot are truley 90s. Trickster was good, but odd. 3 stars

6/10/07 Dave M I wanna root that kimberly chick. shes mad hot 3 stars

2/07/07 AJ Muller Pretty cool when I was 13; let us just say time has been unkind - to ALL of it. 2 stars

5/25/05 Greg liked it 4 stars

2/06/05 Gray freaky 4 stars

1/29/05 Michael Budd Severely Underrated. 4 stars

1/11/05 Little_Monster I thought this movie was amazing for its time, a childhood favrote and awesome acting 5 stars

11/12/04 eddie fan great movie! great acting! seen it 100 times! 5 stars

11/12/04 eddies lover This movie is fantastic! eddie is sexy! best movie ever! 5 stars

4/30/04 y2mckay Furlong was okay, but the movie mostly blew goats 2 stars

6/19/02 Charles Tatum Film series wannabe 2 stars

7/23/01 joel meana I thought the movies score was very eerie and the acting of the Trickster unique 4 stars

4/14/01 Pete M You have to see this film with a bunch of dunks.. then it's really funny! 4 stars

4/12/01 Casserole I liked the movie 4 stars

3/16/01 Stephanie It wasalright.the only part I really liked was trickster 3 stars

1/23/01 anonymus worthless, shows its age, belongs to 90s, better left undisturbed 1 stars

7/04/99 J-Dogg I guess I'm the only one rating this. Is it that bad? I though it was a good idea gone awry 3 stars

IF YOU'VE SEEN THIS FILM, RATE IT!
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USA 22-Apr-1994 (R) UK N/A Australia 02-Jul-1994

Directed by John Flynn Written by Brian Owens Andrew Kevin Walker Cast Edward Furlong Frank Langella T. Ryder Smith Amy Hargreaves Jamie Marsh Victor Ertmanis

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