Replicator

I was initially lured into watching the 2024 horror movie "Replicator" from the movie's rather interesting cover. It looked rather Lovecraftian, and I am a sucker for that. Plus, the fact that it was a horror movie that I had neither heard about or watched before, certainly helped to make me want to watch it. Sure, since I had no idea what I was in for, then I harbored no expectations to director Mark Andrew Hamer, so in a sense he had every opportunity to entertain and impress me, I suppose.

Writers Mark Andrew Hamer and Russ Lindway put together a fair enough script. I mean, it wasn't particularly outstanding, but it made for a sort of adequate enough viewing experience. Though it is hardly a movie that warrants more than a single viewing.

I was not familiar with the cast ensemble in the movie, aside from actor LeJon Woods, though I will say that the acting performances were indeed fair.

While the movie's cover certainly had a particularly Lovecraftian feel to it, if you think back to Brian Yuzna's "From Beyond", for example, I have to say that the movie was only laced with some light Lovecraftian elements. A shame really.

The effects in the movie were good, and that certainly helped to add to the overall enjoyment of the movie.

My rating of director Mark Andrew Hamer's 2024 movie "Replicator" lands on a four out of ten stars.

Just bad! Do not waste your time watching this movie. It's a piece of something hard even to explain... pieces of a kindergarten puzzle all over the place... could be considered a good trash B movie but there is something wrong in the beginning where it is not right. Just watched today because I ended up missing my tv controller button and "voila" lol... here I go .. I did forward many times and still didn't have any happy/funny/sad/curious. Please don't take me wrong. You always have control over your time and attention. Go ahead! Watch and try to make a review here with the minimum requirements content ....it is very difficult and almost impossible. This film is so bad that it is very hard to say anything else... You will see a bunch people that it is just there to get paid. But once again... Im just writing a long review because I don't have any option.

Oh, Replicator, you wild, blood-soaked ride through the back alleys of small-town sin, you're a raw scream against the flickering neon of morality, a desperate gasp for justice in a world that doesn't play fair. Darby, our dogged public defender, played with fierce, blazing authenticity by Brey Noelle, isn't just a character-she's the heartbeat of a broken world, the lone whistle in a storm of chaos. She's justice with dirt under its nails, trudging through streets slick with secrets and fear. And man, does she feel it all.

Then there's Katelynn Newberry, who burns with quiet intensity in a role that shifts like shadows under moonlight. Her performance? A revelation. She's the anchor and the tempest, her presence a steady reminder that even in a town drowning in darkness, the human spirit-flawed and fragile-is something worth fighting for. Together, Noelle and Newberry are the yin and yang of a story that spins wildly out of control, like a car speeding down a mountain road with no brakes-thrilling, relentless, inevitable.

And the effects, man, the effects! The film bursts at the seams with Lovecraftian horrors, as if the unknowable and the grotesque cracked open the sky and rained down. Bodies twist and contort in ways the mind can't comprehend, shimmering with an unholy, otherworldly glow. Tentacles writhe, shadows ripple with intent, and the creatures-oh, the creatures!-are nightmares made flesh, dripping with slime and terror, pulling you deeper into the film's cosmic abyss. It's a visual cacophony of madness, every frame daring you to look away even as you're drawn in further.

The town itself is alive, a cast of shadows and whispers, characters shifting from sinners to saints under the glow of something other. And that's the rub, the punch, the thing that gnaws at you long after the credits roll: redemption here isn't clean or holy. It's brutal, a bloodstained rite that's as terrifying as it is compelling. The horror isn't just the gore-it's the questions that seep into your skin. What is virtue if it's forced upon you? And at what cost?

The direction is raw, the pacing relentless. The story barrels forward with the energy of a fever dream, a dark hymn sung to the gods of justice and despair. The cinematography paints the town in shades of dread-light spilling like spilled whiskey, shadows pooling in corners where the monsters live. The score? A low, thrumming heartbeat of unease, driving the tension higher and higher.

Replicator is a howl, a wild, unflinching look at what happens when we're forced to confront not just our own darkness, but the horrifying price of becoming the light. It's not just a horror movie-it's a morality play with claws and teeth, a midnight sermon delivered under a blood moon.

Go see it. Let it shake you, break you, make you question what you thought you knew about justice and redemption. Just don't go alone. The shadows-and those things-are waiting.

Trying to get her life together, a struggling attorney finds the sudden change in behavior of the townsfolk around her to be the cause of an invading substance that affects the victim in unnatural ways, which causes her and several others to find the cause before it affects them.

Overall, this was a fairly solid feature. One of the better elements with this one is the solid first half which doesn't have much in the way of action but does bring about some intriguing ideas for later on. As we get an idea of the kind of life she leads with the struggling attorney role involving the failed case and her conflicting affair with the sheriff complicating her professional relationship while the strained and somewhat antagonistic relationship with her dad living with her creates a striking impression of what's going on. The idea of the change coming about after getting this kind of setup makes for a fine mystery with everything taking place in a manner that goes against their previously established norms and brings about a great turn into the second half investigating this mystery. This mystery becomes quite fun as the revelations come about not just with some impressive action but also the reveals of what's going on. The clues left behind at the crime scenes of each of the strange deaths and how they fit together, from the strange goo, the claims about low-frequency sound waves, and the audio connections made when investigating the incidents themselves, make for a decent mystery looking to bring about the full reveal of the creature at the forefront of the changes taking place in the town. The paranoia about the whole incident and not knowing what's going on until we get the full backstory of the creature's possession and eventual rebirth allows for some impressive practical effects to accomplish this. It all comes together nicely for a lot to like here as there aren't too many issues here even though they're quite detrimental. The main drawback to this one is the confusing ending that doesn't make much sense contextually based on everything that's happened so far. The idea of choosing humanity at that point is somewhat confusing based on the experiences shown so far which makes the idea of subjugating everything feel natural yet the lack of impact it has due to the weak characterizations makes it feel less threatening. That is the other major factor as it tends to rush through things beyond simply setting everything up so it glosses over a lot of big elements that are needed to make it make sense. What the creature is all about, how the process works, and why it's expending this energy to create the replication in the first place so it's all confusing and doesn't make much sense. These are the factors that bring it down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and Nudity.

Where do I begin with a film like this? Let's start with the Pros:

• There is solid cinematography on display here, far better quality than this film deserves.

• That's about it.

Now for the Cons:

• First off, this film has some of the worst writing I've seen this side of a Neil Breen film. Characters say what they're thinking with almost no subtext whatsoever. Weird attempts at humor pop up out of nowhere and make the scenes feel like a series of loosely connected SNL skits. Subplots are brought up and then either dropped immediately, or ham-fistedly woven back into the script at the last second. It honestly seemed as though the writer/director had a handful of different films he wanted to make and rather than choose the best out of the bunch, he just decided to throw them all together into one stupid gumbo of a movie.

• Secondly, the acting is mostly community theater level bad. KateLynn Newberry gives probably the best performance of the lot, but the bar is so low here, that's not saying much. The lead and the sheriff are both quite wooden and their subplot mostly amounts to nothing.

• The creature effects are pretty forgettable. You can really tell there was a limited budget here. Everyone else seems to rave about the practical effects, but there was really nothing special about them. And aside from a limb getting amputated in the first five minutes, there's very little in the way of bloodshed, considering this is supposed to be a horror/thriller film.

• Jumping back to the Neil Breen comparison, this film -- like Breen's -- has a lot it wants to say about justice and morality, but it doesn't know how or when to say it. In fact, like many bad movie before it, 'Replicator' seems to preach the same tired sermon of "bad people are bad" and "elected officials are corrupt, but they really shouldn't be." It's cheap, uninspired, childish writing and there's really no excuse for it.

Bottom line: This is a terrible, awkwardly paced and utterly forgettable film with high school level writing, zero heart, bad acting, awkward staging, budget effects, and a central idea that just doesn't work. With the exception of some good looking cinematography, this film flounders in every possible way.

While some films are so bad, they're good, this film is so bad that it's just bad.

Save your money and watch a Breen film instead. At least it'll be entertaining.