The Prometheus Project

That's the only explanation I can come up with on this one.

Also, never trust a movie that is released under multiple titles. This is never a good sign.

So a group of scientists is using stem cell research to reanimate the dead, because someone writing this was a liberal arts major. They are all "Cleverly" named after characters in Mary Shelly's novel.

Hilarity ensues when the person they reanimate becomes a monster.

And that's about it. This story has been done better so many times. The slow pace and gloomy sets (probably some campus's office building after hours) just drag the experience out.

When I sat down to watch "The Prometheus Project" it was because of the synopsis. While it didn't sound overly interesting, I thought I would still give it a go, because it sounded like it might end up as a zombie movie. And the movie cover/poster was adequate, albeit it didn't really hint at anything zombiesque. And I Wonder how it ended up with the title "The Frankenstein Syndrome" on some releases.

This movie turned out not to be that. Instead, I was treated to a low budget foray into a horror movie that is centered on stem cell research and the wonders (and also terrors) that advanced science can bring about. Now, you might think that it actually doesn't sound like a bad idea for a movie. And I am sure that you are right, except that whatever the script writers had planned just didn't really pan out all that great when projected on the screen.

"The Prometheus Project" is not the type of movie that you will watch a second time around, providing that you actually manage to sit through the entire movie the first time. I managed to do so, because I wanted to see where the movie would go, in what direction director Sean Tretta would take the movie. It wasn't to a particularly impressive place, let's just say that much.

The acting in the movie was adequate enough, taking into consideration what kind of movie this is and the limitations of the budget. Don't expect to see any grandiose Shakespearian performances here though.

This was indeed a movie that came and went without as much as leaving even a bump in the road. The storyline, the characters, well essentially everything in the movie, just turned out to be less than memorable. And chances are that you will completely have forgotten all about the movie a short time after you have seen it.

If you enjoy a good horror movie, then there are far better and far more entertaining choices available.

After joining an illegal group of doctors to find a way to improve stem cell research, a woman finds the latest experiments bring the dead back to life and the one test subject chosen gets stronger and more violent over time, threatening the quality of their work.

This was an extremely disappointing effort, mostly due to the fact that the film's decided route makes for an incredibly unsatisfactory effort. Making the investigation of the team into their research and how they deal with each other isn't interesting or enjoyable, making for the first half of the film to have hardly anything worthwhile. Once it switches over into the regeneration angle, it's still quite a bit of time before the creature goes berserk as they spend a great deal of time treating and studying the subject, and it's really only the last ten minutes or so where it turns into a bloodbath when he goes crazy in the facility. That there's more damage done by a member of the team than the titular creature is another problematic point, and most of the scientific mumbo-jumbo is pretty headache-inducing if not inclined to follow along, but as mentioned, the last ten minutes are pretty good with the creature going through the facility killing them off one-by-one, but it's really too late to be of much use and leaving this one woefully underwhelming.

Rated R: Graphic Violence and Graphic Language.

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.