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Film: The Frankenstein Syndrome
Year: 2010
Director: Sean Tretta
Writer: Sean Tretta
Starring: Ed Lauter, Louis Mandylor and Tiffany Shepis
Review:
In this film, we begin at the climax. A young woman, played by Tiffany Shepis, is fleeing in terror and we hear yells from somewhere deeper in the building. We cut to 2 years later, two FBI agents show up at her house for a deposition. She is wearing a mask over her face, so we know something bad happened to her and she begins telling the tale.
It begins with her being hired by a man who has cancer, played by Ed Lauter. He hires her for her work in stem cell research. He’s trying to find a way to not only cure himself, but to create a serum that will heal every one of problems similar to his. He tells her though that once she joins the project, her life outside is completely over.
The film shows that they get stem cells from artificially inseminating run-aways and women no one is looking for. The research itself is illegal and the means to get things is also in the same vein. The problem is that one of the girls falls for one of the guards, played by Louis Mandylor, and they have an affair. The baby they take is actually his and when the girl ends up dead, he’s mad.
To try to save her they use the serum and it eats at her insides. When Mandylor threatens the man running the research team, he’s killed and they use the serum on him, but with some other drugs. The result is frightening as he learns everything from scratch, but at an exponential rate, using more brain than we do.
This film isn’t the great horror flick, but is actually deeper than most at this budget level. This film does have some gore, but doesn’t rely solely on it. This film on the other hand tries to go deeper into the psychological level and I believe it does that very well, something more low budget films should do.
This film is full of the doctor moral dilemma, doing research that is illegal, but in the end could save millions of lives. In the end for their quest to save life, they create a monster that far surpasses the abilities of man.
The acting isn’t all that great, but then again it isn’t horrible where you can’t watch the film, it is tolerable.
If you like low-budget horror, I would recommend this one. The acting is decent, the story is solid and it isn’t just a gore-fest. This one is an interesting take on the Frankenstein film and I would say to give it a watch.
My Rating: 6 out of 10