Exploring Humanity Through Sci-Fi Ross Marquand Looks Through Sean’s Eyes: Trauma, Light, and Alien Truths
In this episode of Exploring Humanity Through Sci-Fi, we dive into the haunting and intimate journey of Sean Bruner, played by Ross Marquand — a security guard grappling with buried trauma as he and his wife Andrea prepare for their first child. After a mysterious encounter with a beam of light, Sean awakens in a hospital with an uncanny ability to draw vivid extraterrestrial landscapes and beings. But this isn’t your typical alien abduction story — it’s a psychological descent into memory, identity, and the thin veil between reality and the unknown.
We explore how the film uses Sean’s anxiety as a compass, mapping his emotional unraveling alongside the emergence of cryptic clues. Therapist Sara Bulger enters the story as both skeptic and seeker, helping Sean unlock suppressed memories that point to a desert site with ties to his past — and possibly to something far larger.