Bounding Into Halloween, Night 9: It’s Low-Tech ’90s Terror With ‘Dee Snider’s Strangeland’ & ‘Brainscan’
It’s another two-piece of 90s throwbacks this Thursday. Both movies are old cautionary tales about the dangers of playing the wrong video games and what can happen when a person doesn’t choose a public place to rendezvous with someone they met online. One delivers the most interactive experience in murder gaming since The Super Spy from Neo Geo, and the other was catfishing before it was cool. Let the games begin!
Dee Snider’s Strangeland (1998)
Twisted Sister’s ever-vocal vocalist, Dee Snider, is the writer and star in this low-budget shocker that predates the torture porn fad by a couple of years. It’s about a very interesting creature named “Captain Howdy,” or at least that’s what he calls himself online.
Aside from obviously being a big fan of The Exorcist, the captain is extremely dedicated to the arts of body modification, hook suspension, and teaching humanity about the transcendental enlightenment found through physical suffering… Even if he has to do it one abducted teenager at a time.
This vision goes up in smoke when he’s apprehended by the authorities, and they free the victims of his basement training facility for Cenobites. The judge sends him to the loony bin, but he ends up getting released a measly three years later after being deemed fit to reenter society.
Justifiably outraged by such a ludicrous (and highly unrealistic) miscarriage of justice, the local parents call for their own brand of Street Justice when the OG online predator made the moronic decision to move back into the neighborhood.
Instead of torching his hideout (and creating another Fred Krueger situation), they drag the sick man out of his house and hang him from a tree, but none of them bothered to verify his death before fleeing the attempted murder scene.
The tree limb snaps, and he drops to the ground before the final curtain could drop on him. Angry, off his meds, and determined to get revenge, the reborn Captain Howdy is not gonna take it. No, he ain’t gonna take it! He’s not gonna take it…anymoooore!!!
How this movie got a theatrical release is anybody’s guess, but it still has its moments, and Robert Englund is hilarious as the slack-jawed yokel who leads the mob of wannabe murderers.
It also features Elizabeth Peña (Jacob’s Ladder, The Incredibles), along with early performances from Amy Smart (Varsity Blues, Crank 1 & 2, DC’s Stargirl) and Linda Cardellini (Freaks and Geeks, Scooby-Doo, Avengers: Endgame). And then there’s the movie’s killer soundtrack, which deserves an honorable mention as well.
Dee Snider’s Strangeland is waiting for you on TUBI, and below is the Twisted Sister trifecta track that inspired the movie:
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Brainscan (1994)
This next feature from late action movie director John Flynn (The Outfit, Rolling Thunder, Out for Justice) is a campy tech thriller that successfully trolls both horror fans and gamers.
It’s about a teenager named Michael (Edward Furlong) who was crippled in a horrific car accident as a little kid. This also claimed the life of his mother, and he lives an isolated existence with his absentee father, but at least he has a pretty sweet setup in the attic.
Michael spends his time playing video games, running a secret horror movie club at school, talking to his numbskull friend (Jamie Marsh) on the phone back when that was still a thing, spying on the neighbor he’s crushing on (Amy Hargreaves)… and every other normal activity to be expected from a boy his age.
That same numbskull friend calls one day to tell him about this crazy new interactive CD-ROM game (feeling old yet?!?) called “Brainscan.” Claiming to be “The ultimate experience in terror!”, this game taps into the player’s subconscious through hypnosis and puts them into the first-person perspective of a serial killer who likes taking severed limbs for souvenirs.
Michael is thoroughly impressed, but that changes when he finds out the murders are real. Then a supernatural entity called “The Trickster” (T. Ryder Smith) appears to confirm that he’s the killer, and to make matters even worse, Frank Langella (Dracula, Masters of the Universe, The Americans) is the detective assigned to terminate Michael’s deadly game play.
This isn’t the easiest movie to defend. The premise is hackneyed, and the early CGI is comically cringe, but it still carries a comforting, nostalgic atmosphere that’s capable of soothing the weary souls of most ’90s kids.
Like with the last feature, moreover, it has an awesome soundtrack and Trickster looks like he could be related to Captain Howdy.
Disc 1 of Brainscan can be ordered on TUBI, but the original trailer is below:
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