I love a movie with an interesting story. This has a real story behind it, we almost want to believe it to be reality. Brainwaves is a tight, solid psychological thriller that some medics out there would get a kick out of with their analogies. A young girl is murdered in a bath, while listening to music, ear plugs on, again proving that water and electricity don't mix. Of course she didn't hear the intruder. As he picks up her radio placed behind her, while standing above her, he raises the radio above his head, although he's faceless to us. Then in slow effective motion we see the radio drop, following by her electrocution. Full on too. Later a young mother walking across a steep San Francis street, gets one of her heals caught on the railway track in one of those grooves. And a slow moving train is coming right towards her. Barely evading a flattening, inturn she's knocked up on the hood of this car, her skull knocking up against the windscreen, spider webbing the glass. She goes into a coma, but there is one way she can by pulled out of it. A thing involving the clavious process, where one can use electronic devices to transfer impulses from one brain to another. This becomes an experimental success. Unfortunately for that girl's killer, this isn't good as the mother is giving the dead girl's brain. How cool is this story. Now she starts acting strange, seeing images that the dead girl saw, like the killer wrist tattoo, while in the gym, where eventually the killer's identity becomes full circle too her. If you enjoy these psychological thrillers, this is something different in the thriller department. It's backed by a cast of great actors, including the late Tony Curtis as the respected genius doctor of the hospital, a kind of dark and a little enigmatic, this fine actor plays so well. This is a story that leaves you wondering if this really could possible. Who knows in today's times. A thoroughly engrossing thriller, one of those little movie surprises.

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.

Glossy looking but very slow and ponderous 'thriller'.A young accident victim receives a "transplant" of deceased accident victim's brainwaves in an innovative new procedure. Before long she begins to experience flashes of the other woman's memory that indicate the death was more than an accident, and which identify the perpetrator. The main problem with the film is that the plot is just too thin. The story is very straightforward, is predictable, and lacks any twists or surprises. It plays like an episode of television's "Quincy", or perhaps even "Murder She Wrote", but even those shows packed-in more twists and unexpected plot developments.Certainly it appears a lot of footage was shot in all sorts of interesting San Francisco locations and we are treated to a constant repetition of these establishing shots throughout the movie. The camera-angles do look nice, but the heavy use of these travelogue sequences slow the film's pace down to a deadly level. There is also a lot of unnecessary character development; we learn all about the lead couple and their son and the grandmother but these details are all irrelevant to the plot. And Vera Miles' character of the grandmother (named Marion!) is utterly superfluous. She gets one good dialogue scene (though it is irrelevant to the plot) and basically provides background chit-chat in the various family scenes.Many viewers may feel they need their brainwaves revived after sitting through this one.

Woman (Suzanna Love) involved in a terrible accident nearly dies, but an experimental surgery saves her life. She is given brain waves from a recently deceased woman who was murdered, but as Love starts to feel better she feels sudden urges to find the woman's killer and to bring him to justice. Handsome looking, glossy thriller is well directed and well cast right down the line, but predictable and unmemorable.Rated R; Violence and Brief Nudity. Later edited to PG.