Cerebrum – Frightfest Movie Review
Director: Sebastien Blanc
Writer: Sebastien Blanc (Screenplay)
Cast
- Steve Oram (Sightseers)
- Tobi King Bakare (Temple)
- Ramona Von Pusch
- Chandrika Chevli
- Stephanie Lodge (Prototype)
Plot: After waking up from a year-long coma, an insecure young man must fight his controlling father in order to discover what really happened to his seemingly absent mother, as the true consequences of his past actions unravel before him.
Runtime: 1 Hour 37 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Cerebrum starts when William (Bakare) wakes from a year-long coma. He doesn’t have much memory about what had happened and must rebuild his life. His father (Oram) takes him home where his mother (Pusch) is kept hidden away from him.
As William starts suffering nightmares of the night in question. His father remains strong for his son. The more William pushes for answers, the more he remembers about the night in question.
Verdict on Cerebrum
Characters
William is a young man who wakes from a coma, he doesn’t function like he once did, needing to re-learn most things about his life. He is taken home where he starts to question where his mother is, a fact his father is keeping a secret from him. As he starts to rebuild his memory, he starts to remember what caused the accident in the first place. William is left with painful memories and a decision that his father wants to make.
William’s father is there when he wakes up. He takes him home to help him adapt to his new life, helping him rebuild his memories. However, he has a secret he has been keeping from William, one that changes their relationship.
William’s mother visits him in his dreams, but for some reason, William doesn’t get to see her. She is involved with what happened with William, which gets revealed through the story.
Performances
Tobi King Bakare is great in the leading role, needing to play out a large part of the movie recovering from his injuries. This includes being silent for parts of the film too, letting his expression tell the story his character is experiencing.
Steve Oram is the father who is trying to remain strong for his son, despite showing the signs of having a big secret. Elsewhere, in the supporting cast, we only get glimpses of characters with Ramona Von Pusch giving us a haunted character.
Story
The story follows a young man who is trying to rebuild his life after an accident has seen him in a coma for a year. As he starts, not everything is as it seems back home as he tries to remember the truth about what happened.
This is a story that shows the difficulties posed by recovering from a traumatic experience after a year in a coma. Along with the deeper pain of learning what caused the accident in the first place. It does take us down a darker path behind the motivation to keep things secret, leading to a bigger morale question for the characters to ask. This is a story that puts a lot out there, dealing with grief, pain and acceptance.
Themes
Cerebrum is a sci-fi horror that delves into the nightmare world of recovering from a coma after a traumatic accident. The horrors that can come from the typical recovery become clear to William. The remote house shows the isolation he is now experiencing, as he can’t manoeuvre as he once did. The twisted concept in the sci-fi side of the movie offers up an interesting discussion point too.
Final Thoughts – Cerebrum is a chilling examination of survivors guilt.
