20130924: Horror Review--Mutants

Mutants

1. Fundamentals
1. American live action feature length film, released in 2008, rated R, 83 minutes, horror, SciFi.
2. IMDB: 2.3/10.0 from 415 users.  Estimated budget: four million USD
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No reviews yet' and 4% from 176 audience ratings.
4. Directed by: Amir Valinia.  Screenplay by: Jody Jones.
5. Starring: Michael Ironside as Colonel Gauge, Steven Bauer as Marcus Santiago, Louis Hertham as Griff Theriot, Tony Sensamici as Commander Sykes, Sharon Landry as Erin Theriot, Jessica Heap as Hannah, Armando Leduc as Sergei Petrov, Richard Zeringue as Braylon, Derrick Denicola as Ryan Theriot.


2. Setup and Plot
1. Manufacturer Braylon, who owns the Just Rite Sugar Company, hires biochemist Sergei to design a food additive to increase consumer return rate.  Instead, the additive changes human test subjects into overactive and voracious mutants.


2. 'Nothing is going to derail our plans.'  That is a clear indication that stated plans will fail, and there will be lots of collateral damage.


3. During the first half of this film, the human test subjects are only kidnapped and maltreated, and a few are murdered, namely the ones who escape.  Experimentation is still going on.


4. During the second half of the film, the breakthrough in the sugar additive is made, and the monsters start being created.  What started as purely chemical research somehow has a viral element.


5. Griff, Erin, and Sykes find Ryan and attempt to escape with him. Then the violence really starts.  The cavalry arrives to exterminate anything living to contain the outbreak before it spreads to the general uninfected population.


3. Conclusions
1. Terrible reviews from IMDB and RT.  See scores below.
2. One sentence summary: Sugar additive meant to cause addiction causes violent monsters instead.
3. Final Rating: 1/10, three blackholes for cinematography, acting, and screenplay.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 0/10 I've seen 70k budget films with two levels of camera work better than this.  Dark, fuzzy, grainy, low contrast.  The daytime footage is almost as bad.  Much of it looks like bad telephone capture.  Lousy CGI for blowing up the lab.


2. Sound: 4/10 OK some of the time, hollow and poor too much of the time.  Irritating incidental music.


3. Acting: 2/10 Michael Ironside and Steven Bauer were competent, but most of the others delivered performances like those in a bad high school play.  Erin is supposed to be Griff's daughter, but she looks like his older sister.  Brilliant casting.


4. Screenplay: 1/10 Almost all the film is a flashback that does not include the only two competent actors: not good.  The jokes are non-witty and flat.  How this many murders committed in open daylight would not be noticed is hard to figure.  The interaction between Erin and her father was unconvincing.  Ryan getting kidnapped and held for days without being noticed is absurd.  Motivation?  Try another film.  Business logic?  Forget that too.