Suspended Animation
Picture:
B- Sound: C+ Extras: C Film: C+
John
Hancock was one of the distinctive journeyman directors of the 1970s, with
films like the well-remembered Bang The
Drum Slowly (1973) and the less remembered but noteworthy Horror Thriller Let’s Scare Jessica To Death (1971),
which was about how cruel a group of people could be to the individual. It is the latter territory he decides to
revisit with Suspended Animation
(2003), and he makes it at first.
Thomas
Kempton is an animator used to sitting around to express himself, but when he
goes out snowmobiling with is friends, the machine breaks down. Two women, sisters Vanessa and Ann Boulette
(Laura Esterman and Sage Allen) take him in, then decide to abduct him. It turns out they have issues with men and
also have cannibalistic tendencies, so waking up bound, he is subjected to
their mean spiritedness and sick behavior.
The more he panics, the more they enjoy it. This is an impressive return to form, though
it does not hold.
Hancock
still has it, but after the initial set-up falls through, the film veers off
into a direction that sends it going downhill and makes it less and less
plausible. The intense situation that
was established early on falls apart as Dorothy Tristan’s screenplay decides to
take the unfortunate risk of leaving what was so well-established because she
either ran out of ideas or simply confidence in the original plot. That is a shame, because there was much
potential on many levels just to run with this and come up with new things to
say. Instead, the film goes into much
more tired, predictable, and even lame territory that makes it into every other
formula film of its kind out there.
That’s a shame, because Hancock still has it and this has a decent cast. It will make for an interesting genre study,
though.
The
letterboxed image is not bad, with some good color and interesting shooting by
cinematographer Misha Suslov, especially at the beginning. As the situation gets less involving, so do
the visuals. The Dolby Digital 2.0
Stereo has barely any Pro Logic surrounds, but does have a solid score by David
Lynch favorite Angelo Badalamenti, which serves as a plus to the film. The few extras include some Behind The Scenes
footage, bio of Hancock, and a few stills from the film.
J. E.
Freeman surfaces as a guest psycho, more or less. The film keeps trying to link family members
together when they are not together as psychos, but to no avail. You are likely to recognize Freeman form many
films, including as the psycho villain in 1997’s Alien Resurrection. It seems
too thrown in and Freeman was never in a classic such role yet, so it seems as
trite and failed as the latter part of this film. It is too bad Suspended Animation decided to suspend what was working so well for
it, but it does show that Hancock is back from his own suspended mature
filmmaking after doing telefilm and kids movies for many years. Let’s hope this means he will be doing more
such films real soon.
- Nicholas Sheffo
