In Royce Gorsuch’s Mad Genius (2017) Chris Mason of Vampire Academy (2014) and the TV series Broadchurch plays an anonymous hacker, Mason, who, disappointed with his past efforts at computer hacktivism—tells his online audience that what he really should do is “fix humankind” and “hack the human mind.” Another voice disrupts his speech, lamenting the possibility of their endeavors, citing the lack of power, equipment and a “neural transmitter.” The voice belongs to his internal alter ego played by Scott Mechlowicz from Demonic (2015). He appears the next few times physically and later glitching in and out—think the final scene in Altered States (1980) but in spurts.
Mason and Finn debate jacking the city’s power supply to pull off their venture, but the passing by of the manic pixie dream girl distracts them but she shows up later. He then—technically, they—meet Sun Moon, played by Gbenga Akinnagbe who’s had parts in the tv shows Numb3rs, The Wire, Fringe and The Following along with some movie roles. Moon informs him of the death of Nicola played by Levy Tran from The First Purge (2018) and the American version of the TV show Shameless.
According to Moon, Nicola was working on a headset that maps the human mind, but the baddie, Eden, possesses it now. He is played by the impressively hard-working Faran Tahir with appearances on Law and Order, Party of Five, Alias, The West Wing, Supernatural, Warehouse 13, a regular role in the TV series 12 Monkeys and parts in Iron Man (2008) and Star Trek (2009).
A programmer, Zip, is played by Brandon Scott who has had bits on Law and Order, Bones, and as a regular, Dr. Ryan Spalding, on Grey’s Anatomy. Spencer Locke plays Sawyer, our resident Manic Pixie Dream Girl, and, since Mad Genius (2017), has starred in Insidious: The Last Key (2018).
The rest of the film pits Mason/Finn against Eden as he hunts them down and they acquire everything they need to hack the human mind, but on the way, Eden proves himself to be a clever heavy. Any details concerning such would spoil the plot, but it’s impossible not to mention the instant classic of dual slash dueling personalities, Fight Club (1999), but what Mad Genius does is that it follows a different path of what-ifs, a very original variation on a theme. In fact, Mason and Finn test the limitations of who and what they are to each other. What they are basically doing is making consciousness a program that can be downloaded into the human mind, but it also takes physical form, so imagine this idea with a purely imagined character and Faran Tahir’s clever heavy.
It is easy to notice the low-budget-ness of the film, but the filmmakers created a thought-provoking, low-budget sci-fi film that went somewhere new, and director Royce Gorsuch succeeds with this freshman effort.
Mad Genius is streaming VOD right now!