Editorials
‘Brainscan’ – This Nostalgic ’90s Gem Doubles as a Waking Nightmare
Brainscan is one of those movies you would stumble on as a ’90s kid watching HBO, Cinemax or whatever other programming you weren’t supposed to be watching after your parents went to bed. The kind that you could tell right away was something darker than society would deem appropriate for someone of your age. The kind you knew would keep you up that night.
All of which made it impossible to turn off, of course.
But there’s a certain quality to Brainscan that felt still even more under the surface sinister than the other horror flicks I was used to at the time. This might sound silly considering the plot is about a misfit teenager who plays the hottest new horror video game advertised in Fangoria and ends up dealing with an almost cartoonish, mohawked, coulda been a guitar tech for Twisted Sister, Little Monsters type villain who crawls out of a TV set.
But it did….and here’s why I think it made such a lasting imprint.
Murder in Suburbia
In John Carpenter’s Halloween, Haddonfield plays such an important role because everything is so average; the town so unprepared for what lay ahead. When Michael Myers shows up it’s as if someone dumped a great white shark into a hot tub full of people on Ambien. In Wes Craven’s Scream, the upper middle class suburbia of Woodsboro is rocked by their children suddenly becoming unsafe in their large, beautiful homes as they are away on business or enjoying date night. There’s something about these settings that feels so realistic to any kid or teenager who’s had the house to themselves on an eerie Fall night or heard the voice of their local TV news anchor describing a shocking murder close to home.
Brainscan is drenched in that same realistic dread.
Michael (Edward Furlong) lives in the type of suburban neighborhood you take your kids Trick or Treating at because you just know they have that full sized candy bar type money. His section of his sprawling suburban home looks as if Richie Rich were a metal, horror and video game fan. Still, you can sense his sad and lonely existence among his ’90s treasure trove. His dad is perpetually gone on business and his mom died in a tragic car accident. He and his only friend, Kyle (Jamie Galen), are the school misfits and the only adults in their lives are the 90 year old, tweed jacket wearing, judgmental, “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” types. Even if they did want to reach out for help, they’d likely be shamed and disregarded.
The community as a whole, given the choice, would probably rather be rid of them both. They are very much alone and susceptible to the evils of the world amidst their quiet suburban town that just feels like it’s about to be the center of a Dateline NBC murder special. And it is.
A Nightmare Come to Life
Have you ever had a nightmare where you committed a crime you didn’t mean to commit? Or even murdered someone? Then had to sit with your anxiety waiting for the red and blue lights to show up in your driveway? No? Well, stop thinking about how weird I am for a second and be thankful. That nightmare sucks. The scariest part of Brainscan is that it successfully recreates the awful anxiety that countless other movies have made an attempt to inhabit. Sure, someone can be framed or wrongly accused. But Michael actually did these things and now has to sit around alone in his giant house and wait for the consequences to darken his doorstep.
Michael pops in the game for the first time and we are suddenly in first person mode (think the opening of Halloween without the eye holes) with a voice whispering “the gate……the gate.” We walk up through a suburban yard and into someone’s home where a man is sleeping; completely vulnerable to anything that stands over him. Which, in this case, is us.
The voice says “do it” and after a moment of apprehension, we stab him in the back. There’s a struggle and more stabbing and we ultimately end up hacking off his whole goddamn foot; but the point is this…..it felt cold. It felt real. The scene elicits the same feeling of the lakeside double murder in David Fincher’s Zodiac. Which, I admit, is a leap of a comparison to make stylistically. The two scenes and movies for that matter are completely unalike. But not in feeling. Both scenes share the same haunting callousness.
Michael wakes up and realizes, thankfully, that it was just an extremely realistic video game. He didn’t kill anyone. Then, on the news the next day he sees the breaking story that the murder had indeed occurred and a city wide manhunt had begun with law enforcement searching for the perpetrator of the heinous crime. No matter how many times I watch this scene, I feel my stomach sink with him at this moment. What a nightmare. It truly freaks me out. Imagine having committed a murder and not remembering it until you see the story on the news.
Of course, it all becomes far less realistic when “The Trickster” (T. Ryder Smith) pops out of the video game through Michael’s TV screen and starts dancing around on his bed like some sort of satanic Howie Mandel and going through his CD collection. But every time Michael is forced to slip back into that game I get that same queasy feeling.
Don’t get me wrong, “The Trickster” may suck all the True Crime realism out of the moment but he’s still one of a kind. Entertaining as hell and frightening in his own way as he gouges his own eyes out or breaks his own fingers while laughing like some sort of alternate universe Freddy Krueger. He’s a horror movie all on his own.
Game Over
One of the most fun aspects of Brainscan is the blast from the past that exists esoterically in Michael’s room. From stacks of horror magazines to a life sized whip bearing Alice Cooper fridge magnet; I would love to take a walk through this dude’s room with a VR headset. It’s as if someone let Dokken decorate an Applebee’s.
Brainscan features some yet to exist technology as well with Michael’s virtual helper “Igor.” Igor is a way radder version of Siri that can be summoned to Michael’s TV set by voice activation and make phone calls to his friends, whose faces then appear on the TV as the phone rings. Kind of like the technology that exists today but definitely didn’t back then. These moments of ’90s nostalgia and imaginative technology make Brainscan a bit of a messed up comfort watch for those of us from the time period and will probably be fascinating for those who aren’t.
There’s also no denying an amazing cast featuring Edward Furlong near his peak, Frank Langella as a thoughtful but no nonsense Detective, and of course, the standout performance by T. Ryder Smith as the Trickster. There’s also a kind hearted performance by the girl next door, Kimberly (Amy Hargreaves), who despite being far more socially acceptable of a human being sees something special in Michael and has fallen for him. So much so that she gets naked in front of her window every night because she knows he’s watching. She probably doesn’t know he’s recording it and on his super high def American Beauty VCR setup, though. Again, these weren’t what you would call “good kids.” It’s as if there was a multiverse where John Connor never ran into Arnold Schwarzenegger and instead was still being raised by his foster parents, running around hacking ATMs for arcade money.
All in all, Brainscan is a lot of things. In one moment it has the suburban trappings of Wes Craven’s Scream and the next, the wacky tone of Wes Craven’s Shocker. I think this tonal shift is why it is so often overlooked and disregarded by critics (the film sits with a lowly 13% Rotten score on aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes) but has also become a cult classic (it boasts a 60% Fresh audience score) among horror fans. The film juggles true dread in one hand and a coming of age story featuring a larger than life monster dude in the other. Brainscan is a bit messy in the organization of its tones and admittedly loses some steam by the third act, but one thing you could never call it is forgettable. There’s a lot of films that do some of the elements of Brainscan. But there isn’t quite another one that does them all.
College kids, strippers and vampires—those were Donald P. Borchers’ only requirements when he approached Richard Wenk about writing and directing a movie for New World Pictures. As requested, Wenk cooked up Vamp (1986), a tailor-made blend of the decade’s teen movie craze as well as its horror boom.
Grim and earnest stories were still very much a part of the ’80s horror landscape, yet Vamp is something of a comedy. One difference between it and, say, Saturday the 14th, though, is the former avoids using schtick. Wenk’s movie proves that horror comedies also don’t have to subtract thrills from their recipes. Of course, it takes a minute before reaching that point; college antics and culture shocks preface this one macabre misadventure.
Vamp‘s initial setup is apt for a typical college-set, sex-driven comedy; to bribe their way into a fraternity house, two pledges (Chris Makepeace, Robert Rusler) go looking for some adult entertainment. Without wasting time on any further exposition, the characters embark on an all-in-one-night trip that quickly detours into terror.
To procure their elusive MacGuffin—a stripper willing to gyrate for some frat boys—Keith (Makepeace) and AJ (Rusler), plus a third wheel named Duncan (Gedee Watanabe), trade the safety of their remote college campus for the seediness of some unnamed city. The setting is recognizably L.A. by day, but as soon as night falls, downtown, along with the characters, slips into a kind of surreal universe. Director of photography Elliot Davis gave this early entry on his prolific résumé an unusual yet distinctive look; that Mario Bava-esque, magenta-green lighting is omnipresent, so much so that it’s almost its own character.
Chris Makepeace and Robert Rusler in Vamp
The faint comparisons to Martin Scorsese’s After Hours are merited, although not just because of Vamp’s distinguishing nighttime aesthetic. Save for the primary characters, the supporting roles in Wenk’s movie are also quite colorful and transactional in their behavior. The difference here, though, is the additional urge to ruin Keith and his friends at every turn. Some of that harm is humorous and tolerable enough, whereas the moment Vamp dishes out its first fatality, it’s abundantly clear how this movie qualifies as horror.
Vamp falls into that category of horror movie that reveals its genre with a scream rather than a series of whispers. The opening scene can function as a hint of what lies ahead—things are not at all what they appear to be—but otherwise, Wenk is more than happy to hold off on the horror. When that time does come, though, it catches the viewer off guard. In addition to the pure shock value is that sudden decision to upend the movie’s foremost feature. Or so it would seem.
If afraid of major spoilage, those new to Vamp would be wise to stop reading here. There’s just no skirting around the fact that the central fellowship in this buddy movie hits a serious snag when AJ is killed. That development causes the story to become more of a “long, bad night” journey for Keith and his romantic interest. So while Wenk scores points for subverting expectations, there is also a touch of sadness in his decision. Because if Vamp does anything well, it’s making the characters likable.
Something that comes easily to Vamp—and other teen horror movies from this same era—is its ability to invent young characters worth caring about, or at the very least, are interesting and not so immediately off-putting. More impressive is how Wenk did all this without actually fleshing out those characters. Still and all, Keith and his kind are a grade above cookie-cutter, and in some cases, aren’t completely devoid of growth.
Grace Jones in Vamp
Vamp appeals with an assorted cast of characters. No two are the same, nor are they operating on the same wavelength. The cinematically extroverted AJ, whose actor conveyed charm and vulnerability in near equal amounts, comes alive when he’s at his most undead. Makepeace then makes the chronically cautious Keith a sympathetic fellow, even as he’s more and more affected by the night’s bizarre events. Meanwhile, Duncan is indeed the designated loser of the whole bunch, but Watanabe still manages to humanize him. As a bonus, the role didn’t require him to pull a Long Duk Dong.
As for Dedee Pfeiffer, she is plain adorable as the mysterious After Dark server nicknamed “Amaretto”. She spends all night fixing her dress strap while at the same time trying to get Keith to remember how he knows her. As their offbeat romance grows, it becomes another highlight of this movie. Whether or not Pfeiffer’s character is really a vampire also creates some welcome tension in the story.
Like a lot of its contemporaries, Vamp went on to become a bit of a cult classic. That current status is determined by several factors, but without a doubt, the casting of Grace Jones is the most considerable. The image of her writhing on that unique-looking chair, a Keith Haring original, springs to mind whenever this movie is brought up.
Chris Makepeace, Billy Drago and Paunita Nichols in Vamp
Prior to that first display of unequivocal horror, local vampire queen Katrina (Jones) took to the stage and delivered a strip show like no other. One would expect nothing less from that renowned model and performance artist. By now reports of Jones’ tardiness on set are no secret, yet it’s also hard to deny her commitment to the part of Katrina. It was, in fact, Jones who took charge of her character’s appearance—on top of Haring painting her body and that now-iconic chair, she had Andy Warhol handle her costuming. And not too many actors could seize a room’s attention without saying a single line of dialogue.
In 2022, Vamp received a retrospective novelization from Encyclopocalypse. This literary union of preexisting source material—Wenk’s original screenplay—and new ideas from author Christian Francis amounts to a more comprehensive visit to the After Dark Club. The basic story there is no different than what’s shown on screen; however, Francis gets creative with the characters’ origins and designs, and he enhances a number of key scenes.
The novelization expands on the urban and social decay of the main setting, and supplies a background for the After Dark Club. Sandy Baron’s character, Katrina’s emcee and familiar, is given ample motivation for sticking around; up until the fiery end, he is loyal to his friend and former business partner “Squeak”, who looks like he was “fed through a combine harvester, and left as nothing more than a heap of mangled remains”. Then there is Billy Drago’s character Snow, the leader of a street gang called The Dragons. His reason for menacing Keith and AJ is more altruistic than in the movie; he and his peers act tough to scare off any potential food for the vampires.
Lisa Lyon in Vamp
If not for all the backstories, Francis’ Vamp would be a hell of a lot shorter. Instead, this tie-in read dives into how AJ met Keith—the orphaned Anthony Joseph hailed from a broken home back in Brooklyn—and how their friendship flourished over the years. Keith’s archership is no longer just an assumed part of his entire being; it’s a confidence-building extracurricular for a boy who got picked on before coming into the protection of the new kid in town. These supplemental, in-depth looks at the protagonists, plus their close connection, are maybe unnecessary. The movie already did a fair and concise job of addressing their platonic intimacy without the need for flashbacks and insights, specifically in that scene where AJ lays it all out as he sacrifices himself.
Where the novelization gets off course is its approach to the minor characters. Intermittently backstorying the likes of Katrina’s indentured servants, Seko (Leila Hee Olsen) and Vlad (Brad Logan), ends up disturbing the flow of the writing. Was it absolutely essential that readers know Vlad was the Grand Duke of the House of Romanov, or how Snow’s accomplice Maven (Paunita Nichols) became so dentally challenged? No, not really. However, one’s mileage with these random biographies may vary.
The novelization is a more substantial experience, but for a movie like Vamp, less is more. And as plentiful as they are, it never simply coasts on its campy charms, either. The character work sits comfortably in that realm between cursory and meticulous, the script is sharper than first realized, and Greg Cannom’s vampire makeup is straightforward yet effective. Most of all, the movie didn’t squander its out-of-the-box concept. Richard Wenk made his vision of a “comic nightmare in which just about anything that can go wrong does” come true, and it is very enjoyable.
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