Note: 99% of the time, I try and write reviews that I consider to be spoiler-free, but in the case of American Mary, I do have to cover one major part of the plot. It is an inciting incident, occurring early in the movie, and many people would include it in a plot synopsis. However, if you wish to remain completely spoiler-free, skip to the technical sections or click away.

Mary Mason (Katharine Isabelle) is a med school student studying to be a surgeon. She’s dedicated, spending Thanksgiving sewing up her turkey as practice rather than roasting it, but like most students, she’s struggling to make ends meet. To prevent her phone bill from getting shut off, she decides to respond to a Craigslist ad looking for exotic dancers. In the middle of her interview with the club’s owner, Billy Barker (Antonio Cupo), one of the patrons is wounded, and Barker gives Mary $5,000 in cash to sew him up and keep quiet about it. Before long, other underground patients are showing up at Mary’s door, flush with cash and looking for help with procedures that other surgeons would think twice about.

American Mary is a tough movie to review. Its ambition is admirable, but its sloppiness is not. It’s a film directed and written by women that tackles subjects that are sensitive to women, but in doing so it often plays into stereotypes or implies things that don’t seem to be intentional. Every moment is big and bold and screaming for attention, in a way that oscillates between exciting and obnoxious.

To jump right to the core issue: Mary is raped. In fact, the rape is listed in the MPAA rating description, but I’d forgotten by the time it became clear what was about to happen. Mary is invited to a party by a doctor she admires (Clay St. Thomas), and she excitedly accepts, thinking that she’s being accepted by people she hopes will become her colleagues. Unfortunately, they invited her because they figure her visible new wealth means she’s turned to prostitution. She tries to leave, but she’s already been drugged by one of her professors (David Lovgren), who takes her into a bedroom and records himself raping her, while she floats in and out of consciousness. A few days later, she quits med school.

Rape has a history in horror movies, often as the premise for revenge flicks that present the woman as a fury men were foolish to scorn. Unfortunately, “survivor’s strength” can easily become “rape creates strength” with the wrong emphasis, and that’s the problem with American Mary, which the film fails to support on multiple levels. First of all, for this one scene, Mary is portrayed with bright-eyed innocence and naivete that she doesn’t have before or after. Before the doctor invites her, the lesson of the day is about learning to deliver bad news, and Mary doesn’t hesitate to tell some strangers that their father is dead. When she applies for the job in the strip club, she’s on the lookout for people trying to take advantage of or exploit her. Not only that, but by the time the rape occurs in the movie, Mary has already earned a boatload of cash from two successful surgeries, one of which she sees has transformed that person’s life for the better. Although she has reservations, Mary has already found a bit of empowerment through her own actions, and there’s no reason other than ugly shock value to bring in rape as a motivation for committing to her new life.

Second, the addition of the rape creates dead weight in the story. American Mary is not actually a revenge thriller, but the thread that stems from the rape continues through the film, introducing a detective (John Emmet Tracy), because all movies where criminals are the heroes have to have a detective that the audience likes but roots against. Meanwhile, there’s an entirely unconnected story about Mary’s new business and the repercussions one of her surgeries ends up having. The conflict in this thread is shifted way toward the end of the movie, and it’s really cheesy and stupid, but there’s no reason the rape thread couldn’t be lifted right from the movie, and this other thread reshaped into a central narrative. The film feels as if the sisters came up with the character, had a brainstorming session on the stories that could be told with Mary in them, then crammed them all into one movie. Finally, even if the rape had a place in the movie, there are other problems: the Soskas stack the deck by making Mary’s rapist an unrepentant asshole from the very beginning, and screw up the biting observation that the doctors all assume Mary is a prostitute just because she has money with an earlier scene in the film where she considers prostitution before switching to erotic dancing (it’s only her first thought, and brief, but it still basically says the doctors are “right”).

Aside from the rape, despite being directed by women, American Mary doesn’t seem to have a great opinion of women. This is the kind of movie where all the women are casually cruel to one another for no real reason. One patient brings her daughter, who seems to have no purpose but to say “cunt” a whole bunch, for the sake of comedy. One of the surgeries involves a strange comment on Barbie dolls that totally overestimates society if the Soskas believe what the patient is saying, and which is another snipe against innocence and naivete if they don’t. There is even a scene where Mary is mean to the woman at the phone company that has an air of gendered anger to it. The Soska sisters themselves appear as clients for Mary in a series of scenes that have no apparent narrative meaning, other than an extended Hitchcock moment for the both of them. The body mod community could’ve provided some interesting elements to the film, but it never becomes more than a minor backdrop element, which feels like a waste. The one side thread that’s interesting is the side thread of Billy’s sad, unrequited crush on Mary. Frankly, the Soskas’ economy of character in bringing Billy back at all is fun.

There is a darkly empowering story somewhere in American Mary. The film has a great lead in genre vet Isabelle, who seems excited to dig into a role with so many facets (disparate as they are). Sadly, the Soska sisters aren’t interested in only telling that story, so they tell multiple stories poorly, fumbling their subtext and wasting a ton of potential on a movie that’s very poorly (wait for it) stitched together.

The DVD
Can’t figure out how to design some decent key art for a movie Why not just use one of the publicity stills and throw some text on it That’s American Mary’s art in a nutshell. The disc comes in a plastic-reducing eco-case, no insert, and a cardboard slipcover featuring the same art that’s on the actual cover.

The Video and Audio
I have been impressed with XLrator’s other DVDs, but this 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen presentation is a real bummer. Contrast is weak, turning blacks into grays and flattening the image, and banding is visible all over the place. Pretty much every darkened room and dimly lit basement is covered in ugly rings of color. Daytime scenes look basically fine, other than the contrast, but this is still a disappointing piece of video. Dolby Digital 5.1 is better, giving the music a nice immersive quality and rendering several environments with a pleasing authenticity. Although it’s horrible, the rape scene has some interesting audio effects that the track manages to cover. English captions for the deaf and hard of hearing are also included.

The Extras
Two extras are included. The first is an audio commentary with directors Jen and Sylvia Soska, Katherine Isabelle (via telephone), and Tristan Risk. Not surprisingly, considering the film itself, the Soska sisters are only so interested in discussing the themes and subtext of their movie, commenting instead on topics like Isabelle’s miniscule wardrobe. Within the first few minutes, they crack the joke “Dr. Rapey” and complain that they can’t say the C-word. At one point, one of them offers the following wisdom about shooting a film on a rapid schedule: “you lose shit, and it’s a fuckin’ bummer.” The other is a fly-on-the-wall behind-the-scenes featurette (17:31), where you can watch one of the sisters explaining to a bunch of extras how she’d like them to jerk off onto a girl (“you’re a surgeon, you’ve had a long day”). An original theatrical trailer is also included.

Conclusion
Skip it. American Mary has lots of interesting ideas about an interesting character, but it also has lots of fully-developed problems, which weigh down the movie and ought to have been excised in favor of something fresh and different.

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The Movie:

Directed by Eduardo Rodriguez off of a script by Robert Rodriguez, Curandero: Dawn Of The Demon debuted at a festival screening or two way back in 2005 where it was picked up and then promptly shelved by Miramax. It didn’t make the rounds theatrically nor did it come out on DVD… it just sat there in the vaults for almost ten years possibly because of some of the problems that Miramax found themselves in. Lionsgate has stepped up to the plate, however, and now the movie is out on DVD for those who are curious about it.

So as to the story itself Set in modern day Mexico City, the movie introduces us to a man named Carlos (Carlos Gallardo), the son of a spiritual healer who was, until he passed away, very popular with the locals. He’s approached by Magdelena (Gizeht Galate), a federal agent investigating a series of incidents that have taken place in the underworld of the Mexican drug trade. It seems she’d like Carlos to use what he learned from his father to help them figure out just what exactly is going on with a series of drug related killings. While drug related killings are sadly all too common in the area, these ones are different as they initially appear to have been done as some sort of Satanic ritual. Carlos is able to confirm that these are not specifically Satanic in nature, but something else entirely, while the drug lord in question continues to work his evil way around the city leaving piles of bodies and buckets of blood in his wake.

As Carlos is pulled further into the investigation, his abilities allow him to feel what the victims felt and as such, he can lend some insight into what happened at the various crime scenes. Unfortunately, he doesn’t really want anything to do with any of this. He knows that the investigation is bringing him dangerously close to thing he does not want to be messing with. A nagging part of him insists he carry on, however, if only to live up to his father’s reputation and prove to those who doubt him that he’s more than just a low level spiritualist.

This is one seriously mixed bag of a movie. The first of the two main problems that it suffers from are the visuals. It’s not that the movie is unwatchable or anything, only that it’s really ugly. The colors are so bland and lifeless that setting it in Mexico almost seems like a mistake. If you’re going to place your movie in Mexico and use all sorts of great outdoor locations and lots of red gore, the colors in your movie should really shine and here they don’t at all. The whole thing looks like white balance was off or something. Contrast is blown out and detail really suffers for it, the whole thing looks very artificial, bathed in oversaturated brown tones that do not do it any favors at all, which is a shame as in terms of compositions and camera set ups, the movie is well done. The second problem with the movie is the script itself. It jumps around a lot and it winds up tripping over itself in spots, particularly as the end approaches and it feels rushed, trying to explain to us what maybe didn’t necessarily need to be explained in the first place.

The movie isn’t a total wash, however. There are loads of effective gore effects almost entirely done with practical work, save for one really bad looking CGI blood drop that ‘hits’ the camera when it looks up to a ceiling with five bodies nailed to it. Monsters attack old ladies, demons appear, limbs are severed, eggs explode into balls or gore and body parts tend to be scattered around the crime scenes with sickeningly effective glee. This part of the movie is done well, the splatter effects really hammer home how nasty and depraved the killings are and it helps to set the mood of the story rather well. It’s also great to see Carlos Gallardo pop up here (and not playing a gun toting Mariachi either!). His understated performance is a strong one and he proves to be the right casting choice for the part, even if he doesn’t really have a whole lot of chemistry with Gizeht Galate.

The DVD:

Video:

Curandero: Dawn Of The Demon arrives on DVD framed at 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen. Shot on HD video, the movie looks about as good as the source material will realistically allow for (see the above comments about the color scheme). Some minor compression artifacts pop up here and there but the image is clean even if contrast is frequently blown out. The issues here seem to relate to the ‘look’ of the movie rather than the authoring of the disc. Some minor shimmer shows up in a few spots but this is likely as good as the movie can look.

Sound:

Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound tracks are provided in English and Spanish with subtitles provided in both languages and unless you’ve got a serious aversion to subtitles, you can safely go straight to the original Spanish language track. The English dubbing is poorly done and it hurts the movie. As far as the sound quality goes, though this is a bit more subdued than your average horror movie, there are some effective moments that take advantage of the surround channels and some noticeable stereo effects up front. Bass response is okay, not earth shattering but okay, while dialogue remains clean and clear. The score used in the movie isn’t used constantly but when it does arrive in the mix, it too sounds fine. No problems here.

Extras:

Director Eduardo Rodriguez and Director of Photography Jaime Reynoso offer up a commentary track that basically serves as the disc’s only extra. This is a decent track that offers up some history of the production and some insight as to where the filmmakers were pulling from in terms of inspiration, themes and ideas. It’s a solid, well paced track that’s actually a pretty good listen. Outside of that, we get an Ultra-Violet digital copy, menus and chapter selection. A few promo spots for other Lionsage/Miramax properties play before the main menu screen loads.

Final Thoughts:

Curandero: Dawn Of The Demon has a good story hiding in it somewhere. The performances are decent, the ideas are strong and the gore and monster effects work well. The movie is well paced and features some decent framing and camera movements but the issues with the blown out contrast and color schemes are hard to look past, resulting in a film that’s bland and ugly looking where it should be colorful, even garish. Rent it.

Ian lives in NYC with his wife where he writes for DVD Talk, runs Rock! Shock! Pop!. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.

THE MOVIE:
Just this past month (June), Magnet Releasing gave fans a second helping of their franchise in the making found footage tribute to all things video cassette, V/H/S/2, and among the insanely entertaining vignettes in same was something called “Slumber Party Alien Abduction.” Focusing on a group of teens and pre-teens trying to prank each other during a typical Summer sleepover, the resulting 40 minute romp turned their hijinx into horror as evil extraterrestrials with kidnapping on their mind began a terrifying home invasion. We mention this because much of Unaware would like to be as effective and efficient as “SPAA.” Though it came out in 2010, a good two years before Jason Eisener’s anthology installment, it suffers from some of the many flaws that make the first person POV perspective so specious, cinematically speaking. Directors Sean Bardin and Robert Cooley have a good premise and plot, but the final result is still dull and lifeless.

In one of those moves meant to mimic the “was it all real” aspect of the initial Blair Witch Project brouhaha, a typical young couple (who are not credited, though we eventually learn their names are “Joel” and “Lisa”) are taking a relaxing vacation trip out to his grandfather’s house in the country. Noting that this will be a special occasion for both of them, he brings along a video camera to document everything. When they arrive at the isolated home, no one is there. Even worse, it looks like granddad won’t be back for a while. Settling in, Joel asks Lisa to marry him. She says yes and they decide to watch a video.

Mentioning that grandpa had always “banned” him from the barn when he was a kid, our hero lumbers out into the yard, heads over to the locked building, and breaks in. Along with his gal pal, they discover a bunch of military equipment, granddad’s previous life in the armed forces, and his connect to a Roswell like incident back in the day. Opening up another crate, they unleash something ‘not of this world.’ Hoping for help, Joel and Lisa contact the FBI. Sadly, it may be too late for that. Much too late.

For a while, Unaware works. Call it the inherent curiosity factor involved in the set-up or an old horror fan’s willingness to give an otherwise nominal effort the benefit of the doubt. We really want to know why Grandpa consistently called the barn “off limits,” what horrible thing “scares” our lead when he goes out looking under the padlocked door, and the resulting melee that will occur once the truth is uncovered and our space beasties are unleashed. Unfortunately, that final effort is a Joss Whedon Avengers‘s vacation folly – read: much ado about nothing. It’s just some little kids in standard extraterrestrial garb running around, their visage peeking out of the corner of the camcorder frame. OOOOOOO – scary. By the time we get to the inevitable abandoned viewfinder shot, we no longer care about the narrative. Nothing before has set us up for such an abrupt sendoff, and the final shot makes little or no sense.

Even worse, Bardin and Cooley waste some decent atmosphere and dread within their initial sequences. When Joel walks up to the barn and starts hearing weird noises within, we can feel a few shivers rocketing up our spines. Better still are the moments when, once released, a shadowy figure makes his way around the ‘unaware’ occupants of the house. But none of that makes up for the wasted opportunities this film squanders. It takes far too long to get to the inside of the barn, and once there, Lisa is so whiny and unhelpful that you wish the aliens would do us a favor and get rid of her. Granted, Joel’s laughable obsession with the place is not much better, but at least it’s believable. The fact that they don’t flee the moment they discover the thingy in the military crate (or confirm what they saw via a rewind of the tape…and then get the Hell out) derides all that comes later. Everything just goes downhill from there.

THE DVD:
Offered up in a decent anamorphic widescreen image, Unaware does suffer a bit in the transfer department. This is probably because of the low budget leanings of the production and the less than professional handling of the camera. There is some pixelating, and lots of out of focus material. Rumor has it that there were some post issues (like footage being destroyed or compromised), but that doesn’t explain everything about the 1.85:1 picture. On the sound side of things, it’s all camcorder microphones and occasionally indecipherable dialogue. The Dolby Digital 2.0 mix is decent, if a little dull and lacking the kind of ambiance you except from a horror film. As for added content, we are treated to some deleted sequences, which is relatively non-essential, and some trailers. That’s it. Apparently, Cinema Epoch is sticking with the “is it real” ideal throughout the marketing and release of the title. Such a cinematic shell game won’t help.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
When placed side by side against something as fun and frightening as “Slumber Party Alien Abduction,” Unaware can’t help but pale in comparison. It has a few moments of meaningful dread. The rest of the movie just squanders its premise’s potential. Rent It.

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The Stinkubus. Scorpion Releasing (always a lot of fun titles) has released Incubus (I refuse to put the poster’s “The” in there, because it’s not present on-screen), the 1980 Canadian horror flick from some tax shelter called Film Ventures International (released by Artists Releasing Corporation), directed by John Hough and starring John Cassavetes, John Ireland, and Kerrie Keane. With that talented cast, some heavyweights behind the camera, decent production values, and a promising storyline, Incubus should have been a cinch to stand out from all the crappy schlock released during that golden age of late 70s early 80s horror…but it didn’t. A few original trailers are included as extras for this widescreen transfer.

The small New England town of Galen. Dr. Sam Cordell (John Cassavetes), having arrived there about a year prior with his teenaged daughter, Jenny (Erin Flannery/Noble), is now faced with a terrifying situation: a man, or men, are hideously raping women in the town, the force and violence of the rapes leaving the women sexually mutilated and filled with ungodly amounts of red-tinged sperm (a Disney film!). Police chief Hank Walden (John Ireland) is in over his head with this one, while Laura Kincaid (Kerrie Keane), an outsider to Galen who now owns the town newspaper, is trying to determine what forces may be at work here. Meanwhile, creepy Jenny’s creepy boyfriend, Tim Galen (Duncan McIntosh), is having bad dreams at night about a faceless woman being tortured, something his grandmother, town bigwig Agatha Galen (Helen Hughes) doesn’t want to hear about….

 I’m pretty sure I saw Incubus either at the theatres or on cable at some point in the 80s, but little of it stayed in memory. And now I remember why. A frustrating, disjointed supernatural horror movie, Incubus‘s elements should add up to, at the very minimum, a competent, scary enterprise–with even the promise of something intelligent going on from time to time (a pretty rare thing in early 80s horror, to be sure). After all, its executive producer was Stephen J. Friedman, who could turn out anything from The Last Picture Show to Slap Shot to Eye of the Needle to All of Me. Incubus‘ story was based on a book by celebrated novelist, short story writer and screenwriter Ray Russell (Mr. Sardonicus, The Premature Burial, X, Chamber of Horrors), with direction by the talented John Hough, who knew a thing or two about crafting a fast-paced, entertaining bit of exploitation (iconic titles like The Legend of Hell House, Dirty Mary, Crazy Larry, as well as the original Witch Mountain movies and The Watcher in the Woods for Disney). The supporting cast, made up mostly of anonymous Canadian actors, may not have been top drawer (some of those performances are quite poor, although the lovely Keane, of the popular kids’ show, What Will They Think of Next, is suitably mysterious). However, with heavyweight anchors Ireland (lending old Hollywood strength) and Cassavettes around (even in dreck like this, he comes up with quirky, interesting line-readings), those lesser performances could be forgiven…or better yet, forgotten.

Somehow, though, Incubus goes off track–right from the start. The opening scene, with Mandy and Roy (Mitch Martin and Matt Birman) getting slaughtered at the beach, is distressingly pedestrian and worse, obvious, looking like a hundred other such scenes you’ve seen in countless other suspense/horror outings. Hough regains his visual footing in later scenes (the library museum attack is believably frightening), mounting a few suspenseful sequences with some interesting framing, while regularly inserting off-putting, unnerving throw-aways to keep us off balance (Ireland examining a body…which turns out to be a mannequin). Hough, going against conventions of the time, shoots the rapes from the neck up, letting the horrified faces of the victims, and our imaginations, do the rest (even with occasional nudity, they’re gratefully not intended to titillate). Indeed, the gentlemanly Hough only gets gory with the men; the barn kill of the farmer is memorably grotesque (shovel to the neck, with the victim blowing off his own foot). However, these scenes, no matter how well intentioned or mounted, only work individually; the movie on the whole is a fitful, herky-jerky experience.

 Now, I like a good red herring as much as the next moviegoer, but there’s a big difference between a deliberate dodge to happily trick and confuse me, and either undeveloped or chopped-up plot points. And Incubus is loaded with vague, aborted tangents. Why is Sam so…bothered by his 18-year-old daughter dating Tim Why does Jenny sit on the edge of her father’s bed, kissing him on the mouth and telling him she’ll never leave him Better yet, why is Sam watching her coming out of the shower (and looking quite guilty about it) If an incestuous theme was intended, why beat around the bush about it Is that why Sam seems intent on Jenny not stirring up talk in the “gossipy” town of Galen Or is he worried they might discover he murdered his wife…or didn’t he (Cassavettes, who looks absolutely f*cking crazy here, would seem to be prime suspect number one for the rapes, even to Barney Fife) He certainly flashes on her dead body more than once, as Hough shoots him like the incubus (and why does Sam flash on Jenny as the unseen girl in Tim’s final dream). Why use Laura as the body of Sam’s wife, and not tie it in somehow Speaking of Laura, what is her character doing that is so wrong–she is a reporter and owner of the newspaper–that p.o.s P.O. Walden When Laura discovers these same rapes occurred 30 years ago…wouldn’t someone in the town also remember that little detail–like, um…copper Walden And what’s with all the sperm Sometimes it’s dry humping, sometimes it’s Niagara Falls Mind telling me why the difference Why is it red How and why does it “move differently,” according to Sam If it’s important enough to keep obsessing on it in the movie, couldn’t I be given an answer, then And how about those “witchhunter” Galens, who, according to Agatha, have always been witchhunters Okay…wanna tell me about that Is Galen some kind of witchfinder/witch/incubus nexus in the universe Seems like a pretty important plot point to throw out there in the movie’s last ten minutes…without explanation. Worst of all, if you’re going to go through the trouble of mocking up a fairly convincing representation of said incubus…can I see it for more than a few seconds at the end of the movie

 Looking back, that’s a whole lot of unanswered questions that either points to really crappy scripting, or some desperate post-production second guessing. Either way, the sum of Incubus is definitely not equal to its parts.

 0The DVD:

The Video:
Since this is a check-disc, no rating on the A/V until we get the final street product.

The Audio:
Since this is a check-disc, no rating on the A/V until we get the final street product.

The Extras:
Except for that Katarina girl (I just wish she’d play these intro and exit bumpers straight, instead of all those exaggerated hand gestures and bad jokes), there’s an original trailer for Incubus, along with trailers for Death Ship, Day of the Animals, Alley Cat, Mortuary, The Hearse, The House on Sorority Row, The Return and Humongous.

Final Thoughts:
Whether it was messed up from the start or after they took the shears to it, Incubus stinkubuses. A rental is recommended for Cassavettes and for 80s horror completists–not exactly an overlapping group.

Paul Mavis is an internationally published movie and television historian, a member of the Online Film Critics Society, and the author of The Espionage Filmography.

THE MOVIE:
With each new found footage film, the once profitable artistic approach dies a little. Sometimes, it works and works well (as in the high school superhero mash-up Chronicle). When it doesn’t, and the horror realm is literally strewn with hundreds of examples of same, it’s like experiencing your grandmother’s out of focus featurette on her package tour of Europe. While all that shaky-cam shiz-nit has its fans, for the most part, it’s ideas that carry the day, not how much of said “you are there” style you can take. Enter The Frankenstein Theory, a low budget indie effort that asks the burning question, “What if Mary Shelley’s Modern Prometheus was actually a true story” The answer is not worth the wait.

A documentary crew shows up at the door of young scientist/scholar/jerkweed Professor Jonathan Venkenheim (an absolutely horrible Chris Lemche). Lead by former college buddy Vicky (Heather Stephens), they are there to discuss a strange, controversial theory the egghead has. Believing that Mary Shelley’s book about Victor Frankenstein and his creature was actually non-fiction, he offers up proof that the letters contained in the manuscript are/were real. He then offers to pay everyone to travel up to the Arctic Circle where a series of mysterious murders have occurred. Naturally, no one believes the Professor, but they need the dough. Fast forward to the freezing cold climes of Canada and our group first meets up with a weirdo (Joe Egender) who claims to have had an encounter with the thing. Then they hook with their professional guide, Karl (Timothy V. Murphy). All manner of dull Blair Witch inspired hijnx ensue.

Does the monster eventually show up Do you really care at this juncture The Frankenstein Theory takes an already questionable premise (though it pulls its butt out of the illogical wringer more times than it really should be able to) and drains it of all its potential terror. In its place are the same mistakes that most found footage films make – too much interpersonal squabbling, unexplained camera placement, and not enough solid shivers. As with most of this slight subgenre, we are supposed to feel a basic sense of dread from the notion of not knowing what’s coming around the next corner, what image the viewfinder will capture next. But here, that’s never a concern. Things happen offscreen and we are treated to a collection of cardboard cutout irritations who never get us to believe the threat. Now, recent offerings like V/H/S/2 have solved this dilemma by giving us great ideas (a zombie invasion from a biker’s helmet cam, a documentary crew capturing a Satanic cult’s victory against God) executed expertly (by original Witch wonders Eduardo Sanchez and for the former, The Raid: Redemption‘s Gareth Evans on the latter).

Here, all co-writer/director Andrew Weiner has is a novel notion – that’s it. His cast constantly lets him down, more amateurish than their multiple IMDb credits would suggest. This is especially true of Mr. Lemche, who looks about as professorial as a rug burn and comes across as a young actor merely reading his lines. Never once do you buy that he is an Oxford educated thinker, or even worse, a long lost relative of Frankenstein devoted to clearing the family name. He’s just a plot placeholder, adding nothing to the mix. The rest of the cast is guilty of something similar, even if Timothy Murphy as Karl attempts to play grizzled and wise. They just don’t match the proposed seriousness of the premise. If we are out looking for Frankenstein’s monster (even if the idea is lunacy), wouldn’t there be less bickering and incessant infighting Would the crewmembers constantly bad mouth everything that’s going on Is it all just a set-up for a last act comeuppance that arrives to0 late to save anyone – participant or audience.

To that point, The Frankenstein Theory fails. It doesn’t deliver, barely providing the kind of scary movie mannerisms that keep us invested in the genre. Instead, it’s a long, slow slog through a bunch of BS, only to have it all crash together with a cobbled together ending. The result is a novel idea done very poorly, and a slipshod excuse for a film.

THE DVD:
As for the tech specs present, The Frankenstein Theory looks and sounds pretty decent. The 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen image is crisp and clean, with limited artificial noise tossed in during post to provide an authentic, “filmed on the fly” ideal. There is good color and a nice level of detail. There is also a solid Dolby Digital 5.1 mix which allows for some minor spatial effects and some accomplished ambience. We get a sense of being outdoors, in the elements, and the dialogue is always easily discernible. Sadly, there are no extras here. Some added content would have been nice, especially a commentary so filmmaker Andrew Weiner could walk us through the process of making the movie.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
During a key climatic moment near the midpoint of Universal’s original Frankenstein, our famed scientist looks up from the body parts lying still on the slab and screams, “IT’S ALIVE! IT’S ALIVE!!!” One wishes they could say the same for this found footage flop. The idea is excellent. The execution is not. Rent It.

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