Syngenor

U.S.A. / 1990 Directed by George Elanjian Jr. Starring Starr Andreeff Mitchell Laurence David Gale Color / 98 Minutes / R Format: DVD (R1 - NTSC) Elite Entertainment

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New Synapse Edition (Oct. 2008)

		Review by Brian Lindsey

4     5   10 = Highest Rating

I was surprised to learn that this low budget Aliens rip-off is actually a pseudo-sequel to an obscure 1982 horror film called Scared To Death. The creature in that movie was also dubbed Syngenor (short for SYNthesized GENetic ORganism) though apparently the flick otherwise has no relation to the 1990 follow-up. The monster design was simply dusted off eight years later and an entire film built around it.     No surprise, then, that Syngenor ended up a pretty crappy movie. Yet this hasn't deterred Elite Entertainment from giving the film a noteworthy DVD release. Its main selling point, not so subtlety hinted at by the big sticker on the cover, is the presence of cult favorite David Gale (the disembodied Dr. Hill of Stuart Gordon's classic Re-Animator) in the cast. Gale's over-the-top performance — one of his last roles before he died in 1991 — certainly makes the DVD worth a look for his fans, but an irritating technical fault (see below) will leave buyers frustrated.     Carter Brown (Gale), CEO of big-time defense contractor Norton Cyberdine, is under a lot of pressure. He suspects someone in the company is trying to undermine his position, using the troubled Syngenor project as a means to bring him down. Designed as "supersoldiers" to fight America's future wars in the Middle East, these genetically-engineered mutants were created by Dr. Ethan Valentine (Lewis Arquette), an eccentric scientist who recently quit the company over his dissatisfaction with the project. (More likely due to the poor working conditions... Valentine's lab is tucked away in the building's dingy basement.) His Syngenors, who resemble a cross between the monsters from The Slime People and H.R. Giger's Alien, don't need water to survive; instead they ingest the spinal fluid of their victims for sustenance. (Okay...) Brown really starts losing it when the company PR man and two hookers are found slaughtered in the basement. One of the creatures has escaped. The unstable executive copes with the stress by periodically injecting a glowing neon-green solution into a big zit on his neck. (Allusions to the "re-agent" formula in Re-Animator are certainly intentional here.) Oddly enough, just what chemical he's hooked on, or what it's supposed to do for/to him, are deliberately left unexplained. One thing's for certain: the more Brown injects himself the nuttier he gets.     Meanwhile, the escaped Syngenor somehow travels across Los Angeles without being seen, making its way to the home of its creator, Dr. Valentine. (Did it stop on the way to look up his address in the phone book?) It attacks and kills him, also going after Valentine's twenty-something niece Susan (Starr Andrieff) when she arrives at the house. She survives, reporting what happened to the authorities, but the cops have been bought off by Brown. She's positive the answer to what killed her uncle lies within Norton Cyberdine's corporate headquarters. (Which means more Syngenors. Their next victim is Brown's bubbleheaded receptionist, played by Melanie "Daughter of William" Shatner.) Susan teams up with nosey reporter Nick Cary (Mitchell Laurence), who's doing an investigative piece on the company, to gain entrance to the building. Discovering the secret of the Syngenors, the duo becomes trapped inside when the now stark-raving mad Brown locks the facility down, murders his employees, and releases the remaining monsters from the basement.     Syngenor is yet another example (they are legion!) of not having enough money to properly film the script at hand. Not that the script is really all that good... in fact, it's pretty bad. (The scribe has since gone on to write/produce for TV's Enterprise series.) Production values, especially many of the props, are rather cheap-looking. L.A.'s long-closed Ambassador Hotel, where Robert Kennedy was assassinated in 1968, stands in for Norton Cyberdine's company HQ; cardboard boxes and bed sheets hung on the walls fail to disguise the hotel kitchen as the Syngenor lab. (These highly dangerous creatures are kept secured in what looks like a walk-in freezer with a padlock on the door.) Carter Brown's mega-powerful corporation apparently consists of less than 20 people — the executive staff, a security squad, a night watchman and one lone receptionist. The poor security guys are forced to wear the most ridiculous uniforms imaginable: bright blue jumpsuits and hardhats, with silver-painted hockey kneepads stitched to the shoulders. While this may be good for a chuckle, it shows that common sense wasn't exactly omnipresent on the set. I can't believe no one suggested that simple (not to mention cheaper) S.W.A.T.-like attire would've worked better.     Fortunately the monster suits are actually quite decent — or would be, if they weren't so brightly lit. Too much lighting results in the complete botching of the film's main action set-piece, in which the goofily-garbed security guys fight the Syngenors in the basement. It doesn't help that the monsters — supersoldiers, remember? — move slower than elderly people with gout.     There are some unintentional laughs to be had here, just not enough. In truth, the only reason to ever watch this film is David Gale. He's practically bouncing off the walls once his character goes mad. Much of this oddball behavior Gale improvised on the spot, as if he recognized what a complete waste of celluloid the film would be if someone or something didn't give it a big jolt. At any rate, he seems to be having an absolute blast playing a total nutcase.

Syngenor isn't exactly a title one would expect to receive a lavish DVD treatment but Elite has made the effort. The 1.85:1 anamorphic transfer was struck from original elements and looks as good as it possibly can. In addition to French and Spanish dubbed tracks, English audio is available in either newly-created Dolby 5.1 or 2.0 mixes. (As the film was originally recorded in the Ultra-Stereo process so prevalent in the 1980s, I think the Dolby 2.0 mix is the better-sounding one. The 5.1 Surround track came off somewhat brittle to me.) Where Elite went the extra mile was in the extras department: a full-length audio commentary (with producer Jack Murphy, writer Brent Friedman and actress Starr Andreeff), four short featurettes (David Gale at the 1990 Tokyo Fantastic Film Festival; Gale's audition tape; mold-making in the 'creature shop'; behind the scenes at a publicity photo shoot), an image gallery of stills/promotional materials, filmographies, and a slate of trailers for other Elite releases. There's also supposed to be an Easter Egg hidden somewhere, but I've yet to find it.     With all these bonus features I could easily award the disc an "8" DVD Rating if it weren't for a pesky technical glitch... It occurs 46 minutes and 20 seconds into the film (Chapter 11), during the layer change.     Instead of the normal momentary pause the disc freezes solid for about 10 seconds, then suddenly skips ahead 14 seconds in the scene. Nothing really important is missed but it's still pretty irritating. I tested the DVD on a Sony model DVP-S530P, then a Magnavox MDV421, and got the same result both times. The problem is worse when it comes to PC players. In two different DVD-ROM drives (one using WinDVD, the other PowerDVD software) the disc locked up completely at the layer change; in both instances I had to reboot the computers to clear it. (Note: This problem is being corrected with a 2nd pressing of the DVD.) 11/18/03

UPDATE The Elite disc reviewed above has been OOP since 2005. The title will be reissued by Synapse Films in October 2008.

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