A Major Disappointment

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Impressed with the realism of his latest virtual reality video game, a teen horror fan begins to suspect the murders in the game actually happened in this nifty thriller shot in suburban Montreal. The film awkwardly shies over how the technology works, but the central concept is terrific with shades of 'Videodrome' and 'eXistenZ', especially as the game is promoted as one that "interfaces with your subconscious". We also see the protagonist being questioned about his obsession with horror, which brings to mind similar scenes in 'Videodrome' in which James Woods is asked what sort of person would watch the pirate broadcast. One of the cleverest meta lines in 'Brainscan' is "do all these horror movies that you watch make sense?"; the line is uttered though by an annoying comical supporting character that emerges after thirty minutes to taunt the protagonist. To be fair, some of his taunts are clever, especially as they poke into the boy's increasing paranoia, but his presence really spins the film in a strange comedic direction after the deliciously dark first half-hour. That said, the central concept of 'Brainscan' is still juicy enough for the film to retain interest until the end. The comical final scene does not quite work but the denouement is surprisingly good with the teenager truly altering his outlook on horror, gaming and the like as the result of his experiences.

Spoiler Alert!!! With the exception of Edward Furlong this film really doesn't have too many big names. I mean I don't even know anybody else. For being a bunch of no names I thought all of the other actors did a decent job at portraying their roles. I think Edward was a bit awkward at times I mean when he's spying on his love interest he doesn't even look like he's interested in what he's doing. Half of the time it looks like he's bored and uninterested in being in this film. I don't know if that's the purpose of his character but man he really looks depressed. Anyway this movie doesn't have a lot of gore and it didn't need to because the story is very unique and original. I don't think I've ever seen a slasher movie where a character is forced against his will to murder a bunch of people. This movie is pretty interesting and there's so much to say about it but check it out for yourself. I give it a 7 out of 10 because it's so interesting and fresh.

Looking like a cross between Alice Cooper and Joan Rivers, Trickster looks like the victim of a face-lift gone wrong and while not the least bit scary, he's played well by T. Ryder Smith as a campy mascot of a horror villain. It's directed with a strong enough hand by veteran John Flynn, who was simply accepting whatever job came his way at this point in his career. Edward Furlong is watchable enough as a horror fanatic who plays a virtual reality game where the game and reality blend into a pretty mild, but entertaining horror show. While director Flynn has nothing but ill words about his star: "Eddie Furlong was a 15-year-old kid who couldn't act. You had to "slap him awake" every morning. I don't want to get into knocking people, but I was not a big Eddie Furlong fan." Furlong's limited abilities fit into this B grade nonsense fine enough. As for the simplistic script by SEVEN writer Andrew Kevin Walker, this 'is it real or not' gimmick has no payoff and it's obvious from the start what the answer is. Brainscan is pretty dumb and derivative, but it's a passable way to kill some time.

Did you ever have that dream where you woke up but the bad or weird thing continued to exist in real life? And then you REALLY woke up? Or did you? If so, you'll love this film. I'm not easily surprised but this movie fooled me more than once. The actors are charismatic. The scary guy has this great punk look and what has to be a naturally evil face. Stop reading here if you haven't seen it. The new video game Brainscan comes out and this young horror movie fan tries it. Soon he imagines cutting off someone's foot. Imagine his horror at finding a human foot in his fridge the next day. Then he comes back to reality. Or does he? There's a great scene at the end when he hands the game disk to the high school principle who banned his horror movie club. A refreshing change; this horror film is actually scary and suspenseful.