User Reviews

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?

And a self-admitted one to boot. At one point the doctor's assistant refers to himself as Igor.

Working with the increasingly plausible idea that computers could be used to replace or reconstruct brain functions, this movie doesn't spend enough time exploring the premise. Most of the screen time is split between girlfriend-in-a-coma domestic strife and chasing down the brain donor's killer. It attempts to be a sci-fi/drama/thriller but fails to deliver on any of the three.

As a Frankenstein remake this one is missing everything that made the original good. Nobody calls the doctor insane or even threatens to kick him out of the hospital. The transformation scene consists of a coma victim opening one eye and the amazing computer that makes it happen isn't even shown. When the experiment works there is no praise, and when it starts going wrong there is little reaction.

Any suspense over who the killer might be is shattered by progressively showing him in the same room with all of the possible suspects. Finding the killer is as easy as opening one file and interviewing one person.

San Francisco as a setting is both overplayed and underused. The opening sequence hammers home the point that this is happening in SF, a cable car plays a significant role, the leads live in a hilltop Victorian, Pier 39 makes an appearance, and the final showdown happens at Golden Gate Park. More specifically along ten feet of cliff side at the park - just enough to keep the bridge in the picture at all times. Once the obvious scenery bases are rounded no other attempt is made to explore the city.

The acting is the only saving grace here. Keir Dullea shows a good range and pulls off a couple of genuinely emotional scenes. Suzanna Love portrays recovery from a coma well. Tony Curtis only gets a handful of lines and twice as many evil guy stares with most of the Frankenscience explained away by his assistant. The little blond kid hits his cues fairly well also.

I also gave it one extra star for the scene where the husband drives south from the bridge, it cuts to a U-turn in an unrelated parking lot, and then he's instantly back on the bridge driving north. It takes a whole lot of something - bravery, ignorance, deadlines - to try and slip that one by the viewer during the one single car chase.

My review was written in August 1983 after watching the film on an Embassy Home Entertainment video cassette.

"BrainWaves" is a briskly-told, engaging 1982 psychological thriller dealing with he sci-fi concept of transferring thought processes and memories electronically between different people (similar territory to Douglas Trumbull's upcoming big-budget "Brainstorm"). Representing German emigre filmmaker Ulli Lommel's best U. S. work to date, picture lacks the shock effects and hardware prevalent in today's sci-fi and horror market, probably accounting for the release in home video form (via Embassy) prior to theatrical release by distrib MPM.

Suzanna Love (Mrs. Lommel off-screen) toplines as Kaylie Bedford, a young San Francisco housewife who suffers a severe brain trauma (leaving her in a coma-like trance) in an auto accident. Her husband, Julian (Keir Dullea), and mother (Vera Miles) agree to an experimental medical procedure for he masterminded by Dr. Clavius (Tony Curtis), unaware that it has not yet been tested on humans.

Designed to transfer corrective patterns to the victim's damaged brain areas, process goes awry when the donor turns out to be a murdered girl (Corinne Alphen). Kaylie is physically and mentally rehabilitate, but plagued with traumatic first-person memories of the murder. Worse yet, the murderer is now after her, to forestal exposure regarding a death previously classified by police as an accident.

Well-edited by Richard Brummer, picture zips along with admirable verisimilitude. Dullea as the husband and father of a young boy (Ryan Seitz) is very sympathetic, with solid suspense generated as he piecest together clues to the killer's identity. Suzanna Love handles the lead character's shifts adroitly, and the trick-casting of her real brother (who resembles her), Nicholas Love, as the killer pays off. Name players in the supporting cast (particularly a glum-looking Tony Curtis) have little to do.

Director Lommel has kept his usual homages to Alfred Hitchcock to a minimum here ("Vertigo", etc.) with good results. Tech credits are pro.