Flashback. It’s tough these days, I suppose, to come up with a genuinely original horror script. I mean, after Freddy I-VII and Jason I-IX, well, you know, it’s tough to come up with new ways to off hormonally disenfranchised teens. Flynn and team have jumped on the techno bandwagon and come up with a reasonable simulacrum of mid-Eighties slasher films (minus much of the gore, ahem) in the form of a CD-ROM from Hell. Nice touch, considering I just blew a sizable chunk of change myself on the latest Sega System — as have many of my peers. The trouble is, this film plays like a bad Nintendo rip-off: all sheen, and no heart. Not that they don’t try, though. T2’s Furlong is Michael, a rabid computer/horror buff, so hip-deep in high school blood and guts that he’s taken it upon himself to form his own Horror Club in study period. When his buddy Kyle (Marsh) tips him off to an ad for the “terrorific experience of a lifetime, via CDR” (in Fangoria, natch), in steps Mindscan and the Trickster, a red-haired Mohican demon intent on integrating Michael into the program. Before you know it, Michael is committing murders all across his tiny Cali hamlet while dozing (or is he?) in front of his terminal. Classic teen subplots abound — the unapproachable babe, the goofy sidekick/best buddy, the far too inquisitive cop (Langella), and there’s very little new here. George S. Clinton turns in his second derivative score this week (Mother’s Boys), here aping the synthesized tunage from A Nightmare on Elm Street down to nearly the last note. It all makes you pine for early John Carpenter, or at least The Hills Have Eyes, when the shocks were at least semi-new. Not to mention this is the second film this week featuring heroes of horror movie fans (Serial Mom). Guess who’s come of age?
This article appears in April 22 • 1994 (Cover).