LD 50 Lethal Dose

Dude this movie was HILARIOUS!!! its about this dude, and he couldn't find his car.

Sorry wrong movie but same intellectual level. Like the teen comedy "Dude, Where's My Car", "LD 50 Lethal Dose" bravely seeks the lowest rung of its genre's (in this case sci-fi, sort of) intelligence ladder. The only positive outcome is the possibility that first-time writer Matthew McGuchan is now ashamed enough about his sad screenplay to seek a permanent career in the food service industry.

Basically "LD 50 Lethal Dose" is what you would have if someone tried to remake 1970's "The Andromeda Strain" under a lot of budget constraints. Speaking of budgets, can anyone find the $8 Million allocated to this movie? Very little of even that modest amount makes it to the screen. And speaking of mysteries, how did they manage to find that kind of financing for this turkey?

"LD 50 Lethal Dose" has the same production design concept as the two "Saw" movies and "The Hole"; find an abandoned industrial building, go inside, and roll camera. But even though this particular claustrophobic set has more potential than the others, the finished product is not even remotely in their league. A few artsy interior shots can't salvage a premise this lame or a script this staggeringly bad.

If you enjoy life on the bottom rung of the sci-fi ladder you would be better served by something that at least has some innate charm (insert "Godzilla" here). "LD 50 Lethal Dose" might have eventual parody potential but I am not masochistic enough to watch it again for confirmation.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

The premise of this movie is seemingly solid, and it begins like "28 Days Later" Animal Rights Activists break in to a lab and free the cute and fuzzy bunnies. One of them gets captured, and then it turns into some kind of "Altered States" heist movie.

Seems our Activists are now set on freeing their captured comrade from the lab where he has become the focus of a new experiment that is gradually stripping away his humanity in a "Lawnmower Man" kind of way.

Sounds cool, right? That's what I thought. The problem is that once the heist portion of the movie starts, it goes nowhere fast. There's a lot of pointless screaming as members of the crew start turning on each other. It's another entry into the current string of U.K. funded programming that features people turning on each other. For more of the same, watch "The Bunker". The Bad Guy doesn't make an appearance until the last ten minutes of the movie, and it's a pretty dull ride up to that point.

Lethal Dose is a tedious excuse for a horror film, with characters you won't care about and a script that will put you to sleep. It revolves around an animal rights group that tries to rescue one of their own a year after they abandoned him during a raid. What they find is a mix of bad dialogue and pseudoscience.

The film is nowhere near as gruesome as its subject matter would suggest. The opening credits show photos of animals being experimented on, leading one to expect a violent piece of gorn. Instead, we get a bunch of poorly thought out science fiction mumbo-jumbo as our protagonists confront the results of an experiment gone wrong.

This might have been a decent film anyway if we had had some characters we could care about, but these people are stupid even by horror movie standards. It's hard to see how these activists avoided getting caught on their first raid, as they wore only some camouflage make up on their faces even though they knew they were on camera. Furthermore, they decide it is a great idea to smoke pot when they are in the middle of a mission in a government installation. At least slasher movie victims have the excuse of only being at a summer camp when they act like idiots.

"Lethal Dose 50" is a stylish British production that deserves a view. It's a for sure a great and pleasure full time killer. The cast isn't that well known, although maybe the spice girl " Melania Brown" could be a recognizable face. The director of this horror SF flick, "Simon De Selva" sets a pretty impressive movie onto your screen as first time director! The tension is superb and of a perfect level. The director knew how to put in the suspense moments at just the right and perfect time. Acting is of a decent quality though can't be called amazing but actually I think that was for sure not needed into this flick. Everyone played their part to best of their ability and in which they succeeded for sure. Sometimes I did spot some "28 Days Later" links into the film but it never annoyed me in anyway. It didn't interfere into this flick in a negative way. The music is good and adds by times that certain needed drive to get some scenes, even the whole movie into a certain gear so it starts rolling onto your screen and creates that great feeling of being locked onto your screen. Which also gives that extra power onto these "jump chair" scenes. Where into this movie one is to be found for sure!

Not as great as "28 Days Later" but for sure much better as "Dogsoldiers"! A' kinda must see if you're in for a foreign filled film evening.

Dario/ 7.5 outa 10.

Synopsis : A group of animal rights activists have a rescue mission go wrong and one team member gets trapped at the location. A year later the team receives an encoded message from the friend and they join together to break him out of the facility he is trapped in. To their dismay, they locate an abandoned laboratory that seems to have a mind of its own, and the team starts disappearing one by one.



Plot : The story was a very interesting concept but I feel it lost something in the translation from paper to screen. The film had a decent budget but at times it didn't seem like the budget was used to it's full capacity. Definitely more of a science fiction feeling type of movie but it also had it's horror moments. It can be enjoyed by parties that enjoy either genre.



Cast/Characters : Not a Blockbuster line-up but some familiar faces on the screen with decent acting skills. Some of the scripting though made a few on the screen less talented than what they normally would be. All personality types were covered with the team, almost too formulaic.....nothing tossed in to liven up the story.



F/X : Nothing too cheesy, which is good. Just enough gore to keep ya going and no moments when you are sitting there saying "I see the guy behind the curtain". Of course, there could have been more gore to give it more of a horror feeling but working with what they gave me made it a-okay.



Pace : They spent a little too much time at the beginning of the movie setting up each character and creating a story that really had nothing to do with the result of the film. I feel they should have just skipped to the 2nd act and started the movie there, explained some things better that they skipped and it would have been perfect.



Jekyll's Final Thoughts : It was a good experience to see this film at the Nevermore Film Festival, especially with it being a British made film ; no usual dribble with American casting, etc. If you have the chance to see this movie, try and catch it. I give it a 3 star rating.