Suspended Animation (2001) Reviews

• I guess it runs in the family.

  lost-in-limbo2006-06-20

  Tom is a Hollywood animator who heads out on a snow trip with some pals. Where he crashes his snowmobile and seeks refuge from two sisters, who just happen to be cannibals. But before he becomes dinner, his pals find him and rescue from this horror; but the police only find one of the bodies. 3 months later, Tom plans to make an animated feature about his experience and he learns that the police have discovered the body of the missing sister. But this ordeal has hit him so hard that now he's truly obsessed about the sister that he learns that she had a daughter who she gave up. Which she just happens to be an aspiring actress. So through work-related meetings he becomes good friends with her. He gladly finds out she has no idea about her real mother and his horrific incident, although he realises her teenage son has inherited his grandmother's evil frame of mind. Oh, what torture! Well, some scenes and dialogues were excruciating, but actually, I didn't think the flick was too bad, but again it was far from good. The fundamental problem was that it's overlong and there's just too much on the plate to congest. I found this independent flick an intriguing attempt in the thriller foray and there's some skill behind the camera, but the unbalanced material isn't a particularly successful mix. After what I thought was an okay opening 40-minutes that simply revisits "Misery" with its icy and isolated backdrop and a pair of kooky cannibalistic sisters, it just loses steam. The mid-section is very stodgy - by virtually becoming more of a character study involving the survivor Tom becoming infatuated by this whole ordeal and wanting to make something out of it by getting involved in one 'insane' family. It's one really strange fixation! But during this chewy period I found the story's progression rather colourless and the continuity lacking. So many details that are brought up are left unexplained or simply pushed aside. While, the dry dialogues really do stretch creditability and sometimes ramble on pointlessly. Although, a little of the sardonic humour helps a bit. The over-exaggerated climax isn't remotely surprising, but the constant use of three different endings was just too contrived. Every time I thought it was finished, something else was tacked onto the following scene. Now the performances would fit right into a soap opera… say like "Passions". Pretty scratchy and at times rather hokey was the acting. Alex McArthur gives an understated performance, but Maria Cina as the daughter Clara Hansen is surprisingly good. Fred Meyers as the teenage brat Sandor Hansen is simply laughable with his angst and blimey; he has one real nasty habit. Angelo Badalamenti's score is extremely harrowing by playing around with many sequences and it gives the film a touch of elegance. The direction by John D. Hancock I could give the cold shoulder, but I thought he done an adequate job with what he had to work with. He staged one or two suspenseful and minor grisly scenes, despite most of it be telegraphed. But more often you could say I found it hard going and terribly cliché-ridden to be entirely effective entertainment. "Suspended Animation" takes on a systematic pattern that has a decent looking production, but the material is pretty much a scramble and saps most of the suspense right out of it.

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• John Hancock sent me a copy of this movie, and that's about the only good thing I can say about it...

  MovieAddict20162003-11-28

  I received a copy of "Suspended Animation" in the mail earlier this week. It was postmarked from a company in New York, with attached sheets of paper naming the cast and crew, and an interview with the director, John D. Hancock, from Phantom magazine. I'm still not quite sure why I was sent a copy, and I'm not really that sure how I was sent a copy. I don't have any mailing address on my Website, and I don't have it listed publicly on the Internet. I can only assume the DVD was given to me so that I could review the film. But it's a puzzling affair of how that company in New York got my address. The movie was filmed in 2001 and given a limited theatrical release in October of 2003. I believe that the DVD I received is a preview DVD of what will hit stores some time in 2004. Perhaps the company in New York thought I'd review the DVD, too? I suppose I can, although there's nothing to review -- it has fine quality and sound, basic picture menus, and a single theatrical trailer. It probably doesn't need much more. The film is about an animator named Tom Kempton (Alex McArthur), and his fascination with his own kidnapper. It all starts when Tom and his buddies are out on their snowmobiles during winter. Tom gets behind and flips his snowmobile when he's trying to catch up; he seeks shelter in a nearby log cabin, which is home to a pair of strange sisters -- one rather obese and the other frail and sickly. They slip Tom a drug and he wakes up tied to a chair. It's then that he realizes the sisters are cannibals, and that they plan to make him their next meal. After making a daring escape with the help of his friends, Tom finds himself unable to move on with his life. He can't think of anything but the small sister, Vanessa, who kidnapped him and chopped off his pinky finger (which was successfully re-attached, or so I can only assume). Tom hunts down Vanessa's adopted child, draws her as a cartoon out of fascination, and eventually fights and helps murder her serial killer son, Sandor (Fred Meyers), who has a pimple-popping scene so stomach-turning it could rival the most gruesome horror films. The only thing worse than the killer getting up one last time for another scare is the two-killer theory. Here, it's a three-killer theory. There's a surprise twist at the end that leaves open one of three options: the remaining killer is one of the sisters, back from their graves, their brother, or Vanessa's daughter. And, if you're enough of a horror freak, you may even think it's Sandor coming back from the grave. I've got to say that though the surprise ending didn't surprise me, I was expecting something else to happen. I expected something much cleverer and much more startling than what did happen at the end. I had worked out a complex theory of who the real killer might be and it never happened. By the time the credits started to roll, I wasn't quite sure what the message of the film was. First it starts out as a sort of "Misery Redux," then it turns into "Deliverance" on snowmobiles, then it turns into "Single White Female," then it turns into "Psycho," then it turns into nothing. Is the point that the gene for wanting to kill people runs in families? Is it that you should not dig deeper into matters already resolved? Or is it just a wandering horror-thriller that isn't sure what it wants to be? The movie was penned by Dorothy Tristan, John Hancock's wife. It's based on her novel, which I have never heard of -- and now I can understand why. I'd like to give "Suspended Animation" a good review because I enjoyed the beginning as a sort of remake of "Misery," and I feel bad picking on a movie sent to me in hopes I would do the opposite. But if I followed that, it would be nothing but a bribe. I won't be totally unkind to the movie. John Hancock, the man behind Robert De Niro's "Bang the Drums Slowly" and the cult family classic "Prancer" (also very dark), directs well -- for what it's worth. And to be fair, "Suspended Animation" has a few interesting scenes, but the casting of Alex McArthur never helps much, and the flimsy script only harms what could have been a really tense and scary movie. 2.5/5 stars.

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• Obsession and Injustice

  claudio_carvalho2007-08-07

  While traveling to fish in a frozen lake with two friends, the director of animated movie Thomas Kempton (Alex McArthur) loses his backpack and returns alone seeking it in the track. However, he has an accident with his vehicle and asks for help to two locals, the insane cannibalistic sisters Vanessa Boulette (Laura Esterman) and Ann Boulette (Sage Allen), and he is abducted by them. Later their friends kill Ann and rescues Thomas, but they are chased by Vanessa in her snowmobile. After an avalanche, Vanessa is considered dead by the law enforcement, but Thomas becomes obsessed by her life, tracking down her daughter Clara Hansen (Maria Cina), who was adopted when she was six and does not know her origins. Thomas gets close to Clara trying to disclose her past and gets involved to a dramatic family situation. "Suspended Animation", a.k.a. "Mayhem", is a very weird B-movie, since it begins in a suspenseful situation that recalls 'Misery", shifts to a heavy drama and has a very unfair conclusion. I liked the unknown cast: Laura Esterman and Sage Allen are great in the role of the two deranged sisters, showing a stupendous black humor in the beginning of the story while telling Thomas what would happen to him. Maria Cina is very beautiful and has a top-notch performance in her dramatic role. I felt sorry for the unfair fate of her character and I did not like the selfish lead character, capable of jeopardizing the life of another person to save his own. This movie could be a little shorter, but anyway it is underrated in IMDb. My vote is seven. Title (Brazil): "Mutilados" ("Mutilated")

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• Definitely worthwhile for the first half hour, don't bother about the rest!

  johannes2000-12006-10-20

  This movie (of which the title of my copy on DVD read: "Mayhem") started out so well: for the first half hour it's exciting, original and entertaining. The two cannibalistic sisters are a treat to watch, especially the fat one (Sage Ellen, she's very, VERY good!!!), they're played with a sardonic kind of humour and panache. Of course the whole situation reminds one of Misery, and even Dreamcatcher came to my mind, due to the snow, the cabin and the snow scooters. But still the story seemed to take it's own original turn, for instance I really liked the fact that there's no explanation whatsoever for the behavior of the sisters, which gives it exactly the creepy and inescapable feeling that is needed. Unfortunately, after the main character Tom Kempton (Alex McArthur) is saved, the movie sort of collapses, all the tension and pace evaporates in a sullen and overlong mid-section, where nothing much happens: the guy broods endlessly over what he had to endure by his tormentors and decides to stalk a supposed daughter of one of them. Here the movie takes an ill-fated twist. Apparently the director (Hancock) tried to give it a David Lynch-like broody and mysterious atmosphere, but alas, he's no David Lynch, and the goings on are not only boring but also very improbable. The only good thing about this part – as about the whole movie - is the excellent musical score, which is no wonder, since the composer is Angelo Badalamenti, who composed the music for numerous great movies and (not?) coincidentally also did Mulholland Drive. The last part of the movie gets it again into a sort of thriller-mode, with wild attacks by psychopathic killers: the (grand)son that inherited the bad genes and the sister that miraculously survived, though it's never explained how. It's definitely too much, as if the director or writer had three alternative endings in their mind and decided to use them all one after another. It also seemed to me that there was much potential in the story that wasn't used to it's fullest by the writer. The bad son supposedly had done some hideous deeds of his own: it's disappointing that we don't see anything of it and the (circumstantial) evidence that's produced is hardly as chilling as everyone seems to make of it. His mother is a daughter of a cannibalistic killer, so why not let her, like her son, display some evidence of inherited evil?? And why not let the main character fall in love with the woman he stalks, I was all the time waiting for it to happen! That would at least have added an interesting layer to the story. Now it felt as if all potentially interesting story lines dead-ended or fell down with a puff. All in all it's rather an unbalanced movie, with a very promising start but a disappointing last 2/3. Mister McArthur doesn't really help, apart from his good looks he's not very convincing as an actor, at least in this movie, he walks around like he didn't much believe in the whole project himself, and the husky voice he uses in virtually every scene made him sound like he's in a radio play impersonating someone in perpetual sexual heat, it gradually annoyed the hell out of me! I did like Maria Cina though, she's beautiful and seems like a solid actress. And young Fred Meyers had exactly the repulsive looks and attitude that fitted the character of a psychopathic teenager. It's all the more sorry that both of them had to work on such a weak script. My final verdict: 4 out of 10 (but Sage Ellen gets a 10 plus!!!)

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• Nice surprise

  mwold2006-11-05

  With little knowledge or context, I was happily surprised by this film! It's thoroughly engaging, and I would agree with some other reviewers in that this film is fairly effective exceeding expectation and throwing in a good handful of unexpected twists & turns. Some of the negative reviews are surprising and seem quite ridiculous as this is flagrantly far from being the worst film ever made. Obviously it's not high high art, but that clearly isn't the intention. If ultimately you want something that entertains and engages, which seems to my problem as of late (in that entertainment isn't that entertaining these days)! This is a well done thriller. Enjoy!

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