Brainscan arrived on home video this week in 1995, after an April 22, 1994 theatrical release.
Look, I joke that there weren’t many great horror movies in the early 90s because Brainscan used up all the franchise ideas. And pretty much all the 90s. They shotguned every youth-market trend into a single script and hoped something would stick.
In Ron Howard’s voice: It didn’t.
But then again, marketing to Gen-X around this time was a notorious act of futility. We spoke fluent sarcasm and we rolled our eyes at anything that dared to grab our attention.
Brainscan is wildly uneven and it can sometimes feel like someone smuggled the director’s demo reel inside a teen horror movie. But there are moments, particularly the Trickster sequences, where John Flynn clearly wanted to make something genuinely unsettling and visually arresting. Then there are long stretches where Edward Furlong mopes around his basement bedroom like he’s just so over this.
And that’s the other thing: Furlong’s Michael is hard to root for. Not in an too-cool and tragic “Jason Dean” antihero way, but in a “why should I care about this kid?” way. He’s sullen, self-pitying, and his big character trait is that he watches horror movies alone in the dark.
Which, fine yeah I felt called out at the time, but so what! – So did half the target audience.
The film doesn’t settle on what it ultimately wants to be. Is it a slasher? A psychological thriller? A cyberpunk cautionary tale? A franchise-launcher with a Hot Topic Freddy? The answer to all these questions is… maybe?
And honestly, that’s part of the awesomeness.
What Brainscan does have is T. Ryder Smith’s Trickster, who absolutely deserved to be the next iconic horror boogeyman. He did his damnedest to claim that throne, complete with a manic energy that should have spawned action figures and sequel rights. Every time he’s onscreen, you can feel the movie come alive.
The whole “interactive horror” gimmick captured something genuine about early 90s technology anxiety, though. This was the early CD-ROM era, when computers were transitioning from word processors to portals. Interactive entertainment promised jacked-in immersive experiences that pop culture couldn’t quite define yet, and that uncertainty bred a specific kind of pre-millenium tension. Brainscan is a great time capsule of when home computing was breaking out of its beige boxes and stepping out into the information superhighway. Without looking both ways.
The movie is a bit of a mess, sure. But it’s an ambitious mess that’s actually trying something interesting – and more importantly, relevant. It’s got ideas bouncing around in there between the moping and the missed opportunities. And for every moment where you’re wondering why you’re watching Furlong brood, there’s another where the Trickster shows up and reminds you why this thing has a well-deserved cult following.
Brainscan didn’t launch a franchise. It didn’t become the next Nightmare on Elm Street, but then again, it didn’t really stand a chance. By 1994, we were 5 years into series non-starters like Shocker, The Borrower, Popcorn, Skinner or Dr. Giggles. We had Candyman though, and Leprechaun got lucky by focussing on the Sraight-To-Vid market. That’s where 90s horror thrived.
But it captured a very specific moment in horror, and watching it again sends me right back to that place and time. It goes to show, when a studio throw everything at the wall, sometimes that desperation creates something genuinely memorable. -Pop