Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		4.0
Overall		3.0

Brainscan Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Dr. Stephen Larson September 24, 2018

The early to mid nineties saw the release of a number of "tech gadget" features—narratives that foregrounded computers, multimedia, interactivity, video games, and/or virtual reality in their plots. John Flynn's Brainscan contains each of these ingredients "except for the glasses," as composer George S. Clinton notes in a recently recorded interview on this Shout! disc. The Gazette (MTL) reported that Flynn and his crew filmed in the newspaper's native Montreal during a nine-week shoot in the summer of 1993 on the slender budget of $6 million. This was Edward Furlong's fifth movie and first staring role, which reportedly didn't sit well with Flynn. He was reputedly frustrated with Furlong's performance and didn't believe he truly had the acting chops.

Furlong plays sixteen-year-old Michael, a video game and horror film addict who hangs out in his father's upstairs attic. Michael is a shy, lonely, and isolated teen haunted by the memory of his mother's fatal vehicular accident. Michael was also injured in the crash and walks with a gait. Kyle (Jamie Marsh) is one of Michael's few friends and also obsessed with the same things. The two try to screen a "video nasty" as part of their planned "Horror Club" at their high school but are caught and reprimanded by the principal. While in his lair, Michael is a serious reader of Fangoria (a hobby that this reviewer also shared) and finds an ad for an intriguing game titled Brainscan. He instructs his robot Igor to call 1-800-555-FEAR so he can place his order and hears some creepy, cryptic message. A CD-ROM later arrives in the mail and when he inserts the game in his player, he's put in an electronic trance, entering a game world that may not be all that different from his own. A gangly figure with a rock star's appearance and vermilion mohawk literally comes out of Michael's TV screen and into his private domain. The film does a nice inversion of I Was a Teenage Frankenstein and the poster is appropriately plastered on Michael's wall. The Trickster, whose played by stage actor T. Ryder Smith, is really a creation borne out of the darkest desires and deepest aggression within Michael's Id. In a sense, Michael brought The Trickster in by purchasing the game and playing it. Michael realizes he is in trouble when he slays a sleeping man in his bedroom in the game. This same homicide is later reported on the local news in the "real world."

Brainscan makes a number of references to classic and modern-era horror films, which is part of the film's fun. For example, The Trickster makes a few deliberate homages to Freddy's Dead (fitting since in that film, we see Elm Street's boogeyman playing himself in a video game). I believe that the intertextual references and in-jokes play well with Brainscan's intended audience. It's a credit to the film's two editors that after The Trickster's monologue, there's a scene with Michael walking to school with Kyle and the latter sports a Freddy T-shirt!

The two main weaknesses of Brainscan are that other characters are weakly developed and subplots are given short shrift. Frank Langella portrays a cool and cold detective who spies on Michael and wants him to stay away from the homicides he's investigating. Langella just isn't given much to do as Detective Hayden. It's a role that the Oscar-nominated veteran could have phoned in or played in his sleep. While Furlong ably captures Michael's antisocial disorder, it's his relationship with the girl next door that's a missed opportunity. Voyeuristic Michael invokes the main character in De Palma's Body Double (among other "peeping tom" films) through the telescope and mini-camcorder he views the pretty woman with across the way. Kimberly (Amy Hargreaves), the object of Michael's gaze, has mutual interest and attraction to him also. When she knocks on his door, Michael timidly turns away from her and retreats to his cave. This may be a case in which Michael wants to shield Kimberly away from his dangerous game and The Trickster. However, I think the film misses a chance for Michael to understand himself (and his psychosis) through Kimberly. Flynn tries to solves this in the end by creating parallel analogs between Michael and Kimberly (i.e., they're spying on each other) but it's too little and too late. Overall, Brainscan is technologically prophetic but the material runs thin.

Brainscan Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

This is the first time that Brainscan has reached Blu-ray and Shout! has given the twenty-four-year-old film an above- average transfer on this MPEG-4 AVC-encoded BD-50. Shout! has slightly modified the framing by opening it up to 1.78:1, which approximates the theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1. As you can tell from these screenshots, the lighting is very dark for both interiors and outdoor scenes. Film artifacts could have used some more cleaning up as white speckles pop up from time to time. Detail on close-ups is impressive (see the perspiration marks on Furlong in #15). The transfer boasts an average video bitrate of 31998 kbps.

A dozen chapter breaks are encoded for the 94-minute feature.

Brainscan Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Shout! supplies Brainscan's original sound mix, rendered here as a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Stereo (1848 kbps, 24-bit). Dialogue is competently reproduced on this track as it's audible and clear enough. Sound f/x emanating from the game receives good directional support from the two front speakers. Clinton's guitar and keyboard sounds sound adequate put they would have been better amplified with a lossless 5.1 remix. The same goes for the heavy meal songs.

Optional English SDH can be accessed through the main menu or via remote.

Brainscan Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• NEW Audio Commentary with Assistant to the Director Tara Georges Flynn - Michael Felsher of Red Shirt Pictures moderates this feature-length commentary with Tara Georges Flynn, son of director John who died eleven years ago. The track is almost always non-screen specific as Felsher queries Flynn about his dad's filmmaking career and working relationships with the actors on Brainscan. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW A Virtual Debut – An Interview with Screenwriter Andrew Kevin Walker (14:25, 1080p) - Walker looks back at his script for Brainscan, how parts of it got rewritten, and why he's proud and appreciative of his inaugural work in screenwriting. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW Talking with Trickster – An Interview with Actor T. Ryder Smith (13:39, 1080p) - the very articulate Shakespearean actor discusses all facets of The Trickster and the experience of working with some of the actors. A must-watch interview. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW Merging Realities Featuring Interviews with Special Make-up Effects Supervisor Steve Johnson and Special Make-up Effects Artists Andy Schoneberg and Mike Smithson (19:04, 1080p) - three key special artists discuss their work on Brainscan. In English, not subtitled.

• NEW Musical Virtuosity – An Interview with Composer George S. Clinton (11:24, 1080p) - the Mortal Kombat composer discusses the ideas and instruments he came up with for the score's main theme, a piece he wrote that horrified one of the producers, and how the movie mirrors today's technological dependencies. Clinton was a a great choice to compose the music and this is one of the two best interviews on the disc (along with Smith's). In English, not subtitled.

• Trickin' with Trickster: Vintage Behind-the-Scenes Fun on Brainscan (5:09) - Footage of Furlong and Smith role-playing and driving around the set.

• Deleted Scene (1:38) - a lot of work went into this scene that unfortunately ended up on the cutting room floor. Extracted from VHS and presented in 1.33:1.

• Behind-the-Scenes Footage (7:47) - some valuable B-roll footage of the crew and makeup artists gathered in Kimberly bedroom for the above scene. It's very good VHS quality and presented in 1.33:1.

• Behind-the-Scenes Photo Gallery (1:15) - fifteen high-res color photos showing snapshots of the deleted scene and makeup applied to T. Ryder Smith.

• Still Gallery (1:55) - twenty-four images in all. The first set are from the Japanese press booklet (posters, stills, production notes—all in Japanese); this is followed by Spanish lobby cards; the last set consist of some black-and-white glossy sheets from Triumph Releasing's press kit.

• Teaser Trailer (0:39) - an MTV-inspired teaser that focuses on Michael's relationship with The Trickster.

• Theatrical Trailer (2:02) - a pretty decent-looking trailer of Brainscan that's presented in 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen.

• TV Spot (0:33) - a TV spot of Brainscan (with voice-over) that apparently ran before the film's release.

Brainscan Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

In evaluating the critical mass' response to Brainscan, I believe that a majority of reviewers understood what the filmmakers attempted and appreciated those efforts (even if their star ratings were low). I also did but feel that the narrative is occasionally scattershot and achieves less than the sum of its parts. While Furlong's off-screen issues have been well-documented, I still like him and am glad that his more of his films from the nineties have become available on Blu-ray. If you own the very good German DVD of Brainscan, you'll still want to upgrade with this deluxe edition. While not a frame-by-frame restoration of the negative, the transfer here looks solid and the uncompressed sound track sounds fine. Shout has put together numerous bells and whistles in the supplemental category, including a couple of excellent interviews. RECOMMENDED to fans of the film.