It’s well known that the Soviets didn’t just stop their evil with fixed planned economies and brutalist housing. Secret underground cities, bases on the moon, plans to nuke the earth and even spreading social ills such as gay rights and feminism are among their crimes. Wait a second, weren’t the communists against that? Who understands these right-wing talk shows these days.
Terrible renegades in a region of war-torn Europe are on the loose however, with ideas to carry out worse atrocities, and only a team of brave soldiers can save the day. Beginning with an ominous introduction, the scene then leads to the killers packing an arsenal of weaponry with an intent to infiltrate the enemy and destroy them from within. (This was also released as The Hybrid).
Words cannot describe the relief at seeing John Lynch again (Black Death) and his ability to look well blimmin’ serious, like. His gritty realism sends a great presentation, and his crew of grim-looking vagrants do likewise, including the skinhead, the hairy hippie guy, the young woman with a chip on her shoulder and Doug, a kind of chain-smoking badass version of Thom Yorke.
Though everyone’s dressed up and ready for combat, there’s surprisingly – and disappointingly – little of it. Despite the expensive production, this one takes its sweet time going anywhere, spending a third of its life building up the tension for a tiny moment of action. And as the mystery claws its way deeper, bringing its intelligence and science fiction elements, it’s too wet and soppy to be wildly interesting or attention-grabbing.
This reveals to us the real star of the show, which is the set design. There’s an excellent competence of arrangement, with the harsh grey wastelands, the grim stone dungeons and the almost unreal laboratory so different in nature and caliber, yet coordinated and displayed with detail and precision. It’s probably legitimately where the production’s strongest efforts were made, and its brief brilliance. The soundtrack, in stark contrast, is dull and lackluster, pale, lazy and completely unmemorable.
Apart from that, there’s no awful faults or defects, and the story is gently intriguing, evolving in complexity and depth in its later chapters; nevertheless, it’s hardly a groundbreaking rollercoaster into the of world of mad scientists gone wild, which forms its element, and honestly, it’s all been chronicled before and better in your average Star Trek or Outer Limits episode. For a film that’s about the dangers of experimentation, it could well have used some.
4/10
Possession Media 