MUTATOR
THE STORY: The hero in the movie looked familiar to me...I knew I'd seen him in other movies. The actor's name is Brion James and I remember him as one of the replicants in Blade Runner.
David Allen, living in a seedy hotel gets a new job as a security guard for Tigen Corporation. Tigen is into genetic research and is trying to cover up an 'accident' that happened five months ago. Ann Taylor, Tigen's Public Relations chief confronts Axelrod the CEO about the way he's covering up the incident and tells him she's resigning. Axelrod's daughter, Jennifer is protesting Tigen and its experiments on animals. Allen gets the grand tour of the place by his new boss, Sgt. Travers and meets the other guards, Murphy and Popadopolis (sp?) . All of the guards think there may be something loose in the facility, an experiment gone wrong, but then they also think it could be rats, too. Jennifer and her animal activist friends, Tina and Adam sneak into Tigen that night to free some animals. While investigating the break in Murphy is injured.Allen goes to get help and a monster eats him. Travers contacts Axelrod who comes to the building and activates the time lock so that nothing and no one can get out until 7am. Axelrod admits he knew the monsters were in the building all this time and now is the time to kill them. (I'm not sure how many separate monsters there are) One of the monsters tries to get into Ann's office when she's working late and Allen goes to rescue her. Meanwhile Popadopolis goes to rescue the injured Murphy and the monsters kill them. Then we find out that Allen used to work for Tigen as a geneticist, but was fired when he objected to their experiments. He's come back to destroy the creatures which are, essentially mutant cats. Jennifer, Tina and Adam discover all of the animals have been mutilated and half eaten and attempt to escape the building. They team up with the others for mutual protection and try to escape through the sewers. Allen stays behind to kill the monsters. After the monsters kill Tina and Axelrod suffers a fatal accident they all escape. Allen blows the building up to kill the mutant cats, but nearby some children find a mutant kitten.
The first half hour of this movie looked dark. I guess the director was trying to set a mood, but I kept yelling "For God's sake, let there be light! I can barely see anything!" You hardly get to see the monsters either. When you do they look like body builders with fuzzy suits on and really fake masks.
ARE YOU KIDDING ME?:
1.) Travers tells Allen during his tour that the gook they find on the door knobs in the garage must have been left by one of Tigen's pets. Hello! Travers is a security guard in a genetic research facility and he doesn't think gooey [unwrite] all over the place signifies some kind of trouble. Like "Maybe we should get the hell outta here" trouble? Dummy.
2.) For animal rights terrorists, Jennifer and friends are pretty laid back when they break in. No masks. They waltz around like they've never heard of silent alarms or surveillance cameras.
3.) When Ann calls security for help, Travers tells Allen on the radio to go get her out of her office. This is this guy's first night and its a big ass building. Travers doesn't tell him where her office is. Of course being a replicant...I mean, hero, Allen finds it lickety-split.
4.) Adam disables the surveillance cameras with a paint pellet gun. Number one, when he shoots the camera the lens still looks pretty clear. Number two, doesn't he think painting the lens is still going to attract attention?
5.) Tina is nervous through the whole break in. When they find some bars all bent up leading to the labs she doesn't want to go in but Jennifer and Adam persuade her. [unwrite] that! If I see some bars all twisted up at the gates of a genetic research lab I wouldn't go in for all the tea in china.
6.) The monster could have been a little more active. Yeah some people got killed, but one hour into the movie I was screaming "Kill someone else, show up or sing a song, Monster, but DO something!"
NUDITY AND SEX: Nope. But Ann had some nice legs.
HUH?: When Murphy and Allen or in the basement, Murphy's radio won't work so they can't talk to Travers. Later on when Axelrod and Travers discover Popadopolis and Murphy's bodies in the same basement (the exact spot!) Traver's talks to Allen easily. Does Traver's have a better radio because he's the sergeant?
When Murphy calls out to Popadopolis, it sounds like he calls him a 'black bastard'. I can accept that Murphy may be a racist, but Popadopolis is an old white guy!
Adam asks Travers why don't they call the police and Travers tells him the phones are all dead. Travers must have a telepathic link with the phones because there's no indication that they're off. No dialogue or scene establishes it.
Axelrod shoots at one of the creatures, hit a gas line and sets himself on fire. Allen runs over to him and it looks like he's going to try and smother the flames, but he goes past him and shuts the valve off. Its a magic valve because the flames on Axelrod go out. (But Axelrod's dead.) Maybe fire needs oxygen and arms flailing around?
THE TALLY: If the monster actually did more damage or was more terrifying this may have been a better movie. But the plot plods along kind of slow and theres not that much action. You'd expect a little more carnage. I got the feeling they could have just evaded the monsters all night if the really tried. (Or shot them! Axelrod, Allen and Travers were well armed!) This flick was weak on the good part of the cheese but thick on the boring parts.