Brainscan

Brainscan follows Michael, a sixteen-year-old horror fan who spends much of his time alone with computer games and scary movies. He obtains an interactive virtual-reality game called Brainscan, which promises the most intense fright he has ever experienced. Once he plays it, the line between the game and the world around him begins to collapse, and he is drawn into events resembling a murder he believed existed only on screen. A figure from the game, the Trickster, keeps pulling him back, while Detective Hayden investigates and closes in on the boy.

The film was directed by John Flynn, released in 1994 as the eighth of the nine features listed in his filmography, following Out for Justice and preceding Absence of the Good. Andrew Kevin Walker wrote the screenplay, and Michel Roy produced. Edward Furlong plays Michael, with Frank Langella as Detective Hayden, T. Ryder Smith as the Trickster, Amy Hargreaves as Kimberly, Jamie Marsh as Kyle and Victor Ertmanis as Martin, among a credited cast of twenty-three. It runs 96 minutes and was made as a British-American production.

Brainscan took about 4 million dollars worldwide, a modest return for a wide-release genre film of its era. On TMDB it holds 6.1 out of 10 from 296 votes, while critics rated it 3.8 out of 10 across 16 reviews, so audiences have been noticeably warmer toward it than reviewers were.