Brain Twisters, Video Games and Rage

Do video games alter the behavior of our youngsters?  The popular answer, an incorrect one, though, is yes they do. They fill the children with sexual deviance and rage.  Kids will have sex and brutalize one another the more they play these games.  Their minds are taken over and hyper-suggestion moves in and brings them to a more primitive, maybe carnal, mode of operation. However false this is, in 1991 this was a widely held belief.  Hence we look at 1991's "Brain Twisters," directed by Jerry Sangiuliano.

Dangerous experiments by a mad scientist! Yep, Dr. Phillip Rothman (Terry Londeree) is a brain doctor at a university.  This is convenient because he can hire babe coeds and hunk frat boys as his test subjects. Uh oh...murders and suicides start spiraling out of control on campus. As our film begins, a sultry jogger (Laurie Ann Hickey) is mowed down by another college kid. Rothman is a professor at the university and is also hired by a video game company to make video games addictive to youngsters so they will keep buying and playing them.  He tests images and colors on the college kids and turns them into homicidal beings.  The homicide aspect of all this is an unintended consequence...or is it? Laurie (Farrah Forke) is sad because she has known many of the babes who have been slaughtered by their boyfriends of late.  The boys...well, they commit suicide shortly after the murders.

Enter the hunk detective, Frank (Joe Lombardo). He suspects the mad scientist and has found out that Laurie is his new work-study student. Unintentionally, maybe, Rothman turns coeds and hunks into monsters.  In one case, Michelle (Donna Bostany) actually turns into a monster. Rothman is well connected to a super secret video game company that might be funded by the Department of Defense. As Frank falls in love with the nubile Laurie, so does Rothman.  Now Rothman, going more and more insane, is obsessed with Laurie and does not like it that she is falling in love with the cop. Yep, Laurie is in danger.  Uh oh...the weird corporation is ready to release new games upon the youth of America.

Just how ethical is it for a police detective to fall in love with a witness to one of his investigations, who is half his age?  As nubile babes are turned into homicidal monsters, is this a metaphor to what happens to coeds on college campuses today?  Is there a tag team match brewing between Rothman and Michelle in one corner and Frank and Laurie in the other?  This is a terrific techno-thriller from the early 90s with a nice cheese and beef factor.  See "Brain Twisters," and see the hunks and babes fall.