The Plot

Michael (Edward Furlong) is a disturbed teenager who runs the Horror Club at school, watching movies like Death Death Death Part II with his classmates during lunch. He’s also a repressed, weirdo voyeur, constantly taking video of his pretty next-door neighbor undressing through her window. Michael’s always looking for the next big scare, so when his friend Kyle (Jamie Marsh) points out an advertisement for a new video game called Brainscan in the latest issue of Fangoria, Michael calls and orders the game (from 1–800–555-FEAR, naturally).

That’s the cheapest looking disc label I’ve ever seen.

Soon, the CD-Rom arrives in the mail — this was 1994, remember— and he plugs it in. The game hypnotizes him, and he hallucinates having committed a brutal first-person murder, complete with stabbing, screaming, and sawed-off feet. When he wakes, he thinks he’s just had the most realistic gaming experience ever, until he hears about a murder on TV that matches his memory of the game exactly. Has he really killed someone?!

A creepy mohawked man emerges from his TV and introduces himself as Trickster. (Not the Trickster. Trickster). He explains that Michael has only played Brainscan Disc 1 of 4, and that he has to finish the game, or else he will die. “Finishing the game,” of course, involves more murders, more killing, more violence. Through it all, Trickster keeps appearing and disappearing at inopportune moments for Michael, reminding him that he brought this on himself by being such a twisted little pervert who likes horror movies and violent video games. Soon, Michael can’t tell the difference between reality and virtual reality. Where will the game end?!

PS. The screenwriter of this movie also wrote Se7en.