If you only know Ulli Lommel from the horror movies he made after the year 2000(*), this may sound impossible to believe, but he honestly was a decent and above-average competent director in the 1970s and early 1980s! His debut feature ("The Tenderness of Wolves") is downright fantastic and, after moving to the United States, he did a handful of silly but nevertheless gory and entertaining horrors, like "The Bogey Man", "The Devonsville Terror", "Olivia", and this "BrainWaves".
"BrainWaves" (for some reason spelled with a capital B and capital W but without space between the words) presents a familiar medical premise, namely that of a patient who after a transplant suddenly must deal with the traumas, memories, or urges of his/her deceased donor. It's a little bit of "Frankenstein", a little bit of "The Hands of Orlac", and quite a lot of "The Eyes of Laura Mars", though with the human brain as the pivotal organ this time.
The happy and prosperous life of the San Franciscan Bedford family is brutally torn apart when wife and mother Kaylie gets involved in a traffic accident that leaves her brain-dead and comatose for several weeks. The odd but brilliant Dr. Clavius comes with a solution when he offers to try out a brand new and groundbreaking procedure during which neural brain patterns from a deceased person are transferred to the damaged parts of Kaylie's brain. The operation is a success, and Kaylie's recovery is miraculous, but soon after she's haunted by visions of a faceless man throwing a radio in her bathtub! Could this be the last thing her brain patterns' donor ever saw?
Lommel's film is, with barely 80 minutes, extremely short. By the time the intro, the traffic accident, the operation, and the revalidation have passed, there's hardly any time left for the essence of the plot; - and that's solving the murder of the poor donor girl! It also means there isn't time or energy left to make this a suspenseful and/or involving search. There's only one obvious suspect (and he's literally pulled into the story) and zero additional kills or extra plot-twists. With a slightly longer running time and a bit less focus on the drama and family aspects, "BrainWaves" easily could have been a compelling 80s medical horror highlight.
(*) My guess is that Ulli Lommel underwent a lobotomy shortly after the year 2000, but somehow still managed to continue making movies. How else would you explain the overload of unspeakably awful horror movies ("Zombie Nation", "B. T. K Killer", "The Raven", "Black Dahlia", "Diary of a Cannibal", ...) that have an average rating of 1.5 here on IMDb?
"BrainWaves" (for some reason spelled with a capital B and capital W but without space between the words) presents a familiar medical premise, namely that of a patient who after a transplant suddenly must deal with the traumas, memories, or urges of his/her deceased donor. It's a little bit of "Frankenstein", a little bit of "The Hands of Orlac", and quite a lot of "The Eyes of Laura Mars", though with the human brain as the pivotal organ this time.
The happy and prosperous life of the San Franciscan Bedford family is brutally torn apart when wife and mother Kaylie gets involved in a traffic accident that leaves her brain-dead and comatose for several weeks. The odd but brilliant Dr. Clavius comes with a solution when he offers to try out a brand new and groundbreaking procedure during which neural brain patterns from a deceased person are transferred to the damaged parts of Kaylie's brain. The operation is a success, and Kaylie's recovery is miraculous, but soon after she's haunted by visions of a faceless man throwing a radio in her bathtub! Could this be the last thing her brain patterns' donor ever saw?
Lommel's film is, with barely 80 minutes, extremely short. By the time the intro, the traffic accident, the operation, and the revalidation have passed, there's hardly any time left for the essence of the plot; - and that's solving the murder of the poor donor girl! It also means there isn't time or energy left to make this a suspenseful and/or involving search. There's only one obvious suspect (and he's literally pulled into the story) and zero additional kills or extra plot-twists. With a slightly longer running time and a bit less focus on the drama and family aspects, "BrainWaves" easily could have been a compelling 80s medical horror highlight.
(*) My guess is that Ulli Lommel underwent a lobotomy shortly after the year 2000, but somehow still managed to continue making movies. How else would you explain the overload of unspeakably awful horror movies ("Zombie Nation", "B. T. K Killer", "The Raven", "Black Dahlia", "Diary of a Cannibal", ...) that have an average rating of 1.5 here on IMDb?