The Prometheus Project

This film is absolute, complete and utter garbage.

I was feeling particularly suicidal today so suffered through it with 3 extended vodka shot breaks.

1st - tripods exist for a reason.

2nd - the sOuNd recording and mixing is all over the place. Dreadful.

3rd - the story .. um .. what story? Oh and is there a music soundtrack? Not that I could hear between the aUdIo levels all over the place. How can you have mood without music? Perhaps the last 3 minutes of the film should have been the start.

Avoid at all costs! A disgrace to the genre.

In the intro we see some facility on lockdown, some girl runs, there's a decapitated body. The girls writes a note when someone grabs her.

FBI agents interview a woman in a wheelchair wearing a mask. She tells us what happened. Now we're taken months back. A molecular biologist (played by Tiffany Shepis!?) gets a job at this facility, owned by some eccentric rich guy. There are armed guards everywhere. Marcus runs the facility and introduces Tiff to the rest of the team: a surgeon, a data information guy, some Indian researcher, and some lady scientist who immediately dislikes Tiff. This group is given free reign to work on a stem cell-based serum to regenerate cells/organs, etc.

They make some progress. Tiff has some outlandish idea. They go ahead and inject Tiff's serum into some piece of rubber on a dish that we're told is supposed to be a heart. Nothing happens. Later they try the upgraded version of the serum. Suddenly the heart starts beating.

There's something else going on at the facility. In a room in a basement they keep girls and the lady researcher extracts embryos from them. One of the girls had a relationship with one the guards. The procedure of extracting her embryo depresses her and she commits suicide. That gives the researchers the idea to try and revive the girl with the serum. And it works. Except that she starts spewing black bile and gets aggressive. So she has to be eliminated.

Suddenly the guard who had a relationship with the girl shows up with a lawyer and demands money to stay silent about what goes on. Marcus shoots them both instead. Again the researchers give smaller amounts of serum to the dead guard, even though he has a huge hole in his head. But sure enough, the serum works. The hole closes up, the guard regains life and consciousness. The lady researcher treats him as her son and teaches him things. The guy, named David--what else, not only learns but does so very quickly. He starts devouring books and gains the skills of clairvoyance, telekinesis, and the ability to turn water into fruit punch. But eventually he flips out and we catch up with the scenes from the intro as he kills everyone he can.

The Prometheus Project is a promising movie. It has a very good idea and an excellent script. Casting is iffy. Shepis in the lead role as a scientist? I don't know. Patti Tindall as the nasty researcher? Not crazy about that one. Some unknown as the David character? Not convincing. It's until we get to tertiary characters like Marcus that we get someone with acting chops in Louis Mandylor. The looks of this movie makes you think you're watching something above a B-movie but audio is problematic and it reminds you, if the casting didn't, that you are watching a B-movie after all. So budget is lacking to take this movie to a level the story deserves. It's also one of those horror movies that makes you wait more than an hour until we get to the horror and gore. Still, it gets you involved and you do care about the outcome.

This movie is a bit scientifically ignorant, which might offend some people who are hoping for a science fiction story, and the philosophical / ethical questions are rather simplistic, but it's still enjoyable for what it is (a mad scientist movie, in the Frankenstein tradition). Basically, a group of ethically challenged researchers decide that they're going to muck around with illegal stem cell research. When things go wrong and bodies start to pile up, a unique opportunity presents itself, Herbert West-style: re-animating the cadavers of troublemakers who got in the way. Unfortunately, I thought the movie started to lose credibility here, as it started to take on more and more fantastical elements. I guess that if you're willing to buy into re-animating the dead, it shouldn't be such a leap to accept the whole supernatural twist that this movie takes near the middle (and, especially, the end), but what really annoyed me was that they trotted out that dumb "we only use 10% of our brain" myth. Ugh. I hate that. Much of the later film seems to hinge of this, and, once again, the man who can use all 100% of his brain turns out to be capable of psychic powers. This is complete nonsense, of course, but is it any more nonsensical than re-animating the dead, using stem cells? Eventually, I just gave up on this movie saying anything intelligent and treated it as a silly supernatural film, no more scientific than a haunted house or demonic possession story. After that point, I think I liked it better, because there really isn't anything deep here at all. If you're actually looking for an examination on medical ethics, a science fiction thriller, or extreme gore (there's a bit of gore, but it's not that bad), I'd suggest you skip The Frankenstein Syndrome. TFS is actually a pretty enjoyable movie, once you get past the technobabble and laughable "science", but it's certainly nothing that's going to make you ponder deep thoughts or strike up conversations with your friends.

The acting and special effects were quite good, though the writing and directing were a bit uneven, unfortunately. Some of the things that the director had the actors yelling at each other were a bit unintentionally funny, but the actors did make it work. So, I figure that's good for a 7/10. I'd be curious to see what the director does next, but I'm not quite a fan yet.

Frankenstein, or variations on the original Mary Shelley novel, have been told and retold again and again on film since Edison Studios produced the first Frankenstein film in 1910. From Van Helsing to Young Frankenstein to Re-Animator to Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man, there are arguably hundreds of titles to choose from that have adapted ideas from Shelley's original text. The latest of such is The Frankenstein Syndrome, a new film starring Ed Lauter, Tiffany Shepis, Louis Mandylor and Scott Anthony Leet.

The premise is interesting in its modern day approach. A group of researchers, which recently brought aboard scientist Elizabeth Barnes (Shepis) into the fold, are conducting illegal stem cell research in a secret location. Their research runs the risk of the doctors and scientists being ostracized and even prosecuted harshly by law if their research methods were made public. However, with the notion of being able to regenerate dead tissue and its impact to the medical profession, the scientists are willing to waive some ethical notions for what they consider to be the better good.

We begin to get an idea of just how eagerly twisted the project engulfs when we learn of vagrants and runaways that are locked away and used for the cultivation of human stem cells. But things take a more serious turn when they begin human trials and more specifically with a test subject by the name of David Doyle. David is a beast of a man to begin with and works as part of the labs security team. But when an accident leads to Doyle's attempts to sue to establishment, he is instantly murdered and used in the team's experiments.

The stem cell serum works better than any could have predicted and Doyle regains full consciousness. But they soon learn that he has other powers as well. Doyle is able to read minds and can move things telepathically. Add in his psychosis and treatment as a captive and you have the basis for grizzly behavior.

Doyle soon takes revenge on the team (except for his 'mother' Victoria played by Patti Tindall) and you can expect blood and pain to be part of his reprisal.

The Frankenstein Syndrome is played in flashback as the film opens with the Shepis character (wearing a mask and occupying a wheelchair for reasons to be revealed in the final chapter) giving a deposition as to events that occurred in the lab. Director Sean Tretta (The Greatest American Snuff Film) does a good job of developing characters and allowing the audience to connect to the cast.

There is violence in The Frankenstein Syndrome, but unlike most direct-to-DVD horrors it doesn't trump the story or engulf the characters. The screenplay (also by Sean Tretta) can take credit for most of the films triumphs. The dialogue is genuine and, at times, intelligent and helps propel the film from the ordinariness of its peers.

The Frankenstein Syndrome might not go down as one of the top 10 Frankenstein films of all-time, but it is a worthy entry. And one that definitely entertains its audience of Igors.

www.killerreviews.com

This a Frankenstein remake. Frankenstein is on of the greatest horror stories ever and they ruined it. This movie is badly acted. Badly written. It has an awful ending. In this one the monster can turn water into fruit punch. I don't mind that Dr Frankenstein is woman. The part about the monster turning water into fruit punch I could of do mind. This movie is not scary at all. I can think of some very scary Frankenstein movie. Frankenstein (1931) is very scary. The cures of Frankenstein is very scary. Frankenstein unbound is also very scary. I Frankenstein is also very scary. But not this one don't see it. Don't wast your money. And don't wast you time.