Sorry. I had to postpone movie night to tonight, as opposed to yesterday, as I've been busy leaving a job and anticipating the start of another, and wanting my lasting impression to not smell so... body odoury I had to choose between showering and arranging clean clothes over watching a nonsense movie. But that was yesterday and today is today, and aforementioned nonsense movie is titled; The Phoenix Project from 2015, a film about scientists reanimating the dead, and a FTW movie pick, which I'm quite intrigued... about... can you be intrigued about something? Or are you intrigued for something?... I'm not sure. Either way; intrigued. Mostly because in the handful of seconds I spent skim reading the comments, the general consensus is that this is a "good film"... !
Perry Frank (Corey Rieger) Scientist lead for the Phoenix project; aiming to "break ground on overcoming mortality" brings together his Scientist colleagues; Devin Fischer (Andrew Simpson), Ampersand 'Amps' Garner (David Pesta) and his protégé Carter Watts (Orson Ossman), that's it by the way. That's all the people in this movie, with a sound plan to reanimate dead organisms using electrolysis. Their initial test ends with fried cricket, forcing the team to literally go back to drawing board and decide to try mice instead. The second test has more success, reviving a suffocated mouse if only for a few short seconds causing much excitement to the quartet. But over the next few weeks the team aren't able to make any progress beyond the same results with Amps particularly taking it hard and after a second re-test of an already failed test... also.. fails... Amps retires to his room frustrated only to be woken up hours later by Carter who discovers the mouse moved from table, albeit dying on the floor, but it was at least alive... again! Briefly! Meanwhile throughout the film the team have been video recording themselves discussing the progress of the project and during a segment Devin hints that he may have greater ambitions beyond reviving mice... whilst Carter hints he has concerns that maybe the mouse was moved by someone. Deciding to move on to rabbits, the team does further research with Devin producing an enzyme to help cellular reanimation, but relationships begin to strain when Devin is noticed sneaking out at night and becoming suspicious Perry replays back the tape to hear him talk about "her not getting any better". Confronting Devin, he reveals that his little sister is in a coma following a car accident, angering Perry as it now brings a personal edge to the experiment, but the following morning the two reach an almost common ground until their conversation is interrupted by an irate Carter, who after speaking to the University providing the grant for funding, reveals that there is no funding. And that Perry has twice before attempted the same experiments, once nearly killing 2 people and that it's not a project at all, but an obsession, before storming away quitting saying he wants nothing more to do with it. Devin however, despite being disgusted, decides to remain as he has no other options to save his sister. Emotional conflicts aside the team press on with another test, on a rabbit this time, which again ends in failure, and after checking notes Amps reaches the conclusion that somebody moved the mouse. Confronting Perry, Perry confirms he moved the mouse to motivate Amps to continue which pushes him over the edge and he takes some time away, retiring to his room again. Pressing on without him Perry and Devin run another test, with Amps bursting in mid-test angry that they carried on without him, but all of that quickly fades away when a very obviously alive rabbit stares back at them from the table. With a successful test on a rabbit behind them, Perry makes a call to Carter and apologises to him, convincing him to re-join the team, meanwhile Devin convinces Amps that they need to take the project further; a human test subject which Amps reluctantly agrees to but as they are making the preparations, Perry discovers their ideas and shuts the whole thing down. Devin doesn't take it very well, like, at all. And recording a message for the trio reveals that his sister died 2 days ago and that he committed suicide in the bath tab last night. Dashing upstairs and dragging him from the frozen ice bath, the trio set Devin up on a metal table and use the machine to bring him back to life, but with his reanimation comes a reformatting and it quickly dawns on the team when Devin can't answer them that Devin will have no memory, no recollection or learning of anything, and has forgotten even the most basic of tasks like talking. He is a new-born infant in the body of a 40 year old...
Wow. Just wow. What a beautiful movie this was. This movie was shot on a budget of $60,000 and I know that cos I just googled it and they knocked it out the park, hell they knocked it out of town. This was just outstanding. Think Imitation Game but with a kind of Sci-Fi edge to it. Not at all the kooky, low budget, over-the-top Frankenstein-esque movie I thought it might be going in, instead this was gritty, scientific quasi-thriller with an intelligent and thought-provoking plot.
So how did they get it so right? Straight of the bat - 10 minutes in I was impressed with the cinematography and the soundtrack accompaniment. The soundtrack is simple; mostly piano and strings but in it's simplicity it compliments the cinematography perfectly. The colours are dialled back slightly, the angles are in close, and during the more heated exchanges the camera is right there, wobbly and freeriding like you see in so many indie movies, but where others have got it wrong, here it worked perfectly putting you in the position of an onlooker, and when it needed to be fixed with wide sweeping shots, they put that in. Everything about this movie was shot perfectly. From the scenes shot from a distance to convey the isolation right they way through to the intimate moments with each four of the actors.
Speaking of the four actors, everybody here was on their A game. Corey Rieger was intense, authoritative, stoney gazed as Perry, Andrew Simpson was complex, persuasive, emotional as Devin, David Pesta was hasty, clever and youthful as Amps and outstanding at conveying his characters frustration and struggles as the experiments failed, but the standout, the absolute star of the show was Orson Ossman - the naïve, young protégé turned assistant to Perry; Carter. He was playful, jolly, childlike when he had to be, but an emotional wreck, sobbing, blubbering when he had to be. He went through every conceivable range of emotion in this movie and bought a real human element to the movie in contrast to the 3 other characters who were so intensely committed to their respective disciplines. The guy was an absolute star.
They got everything so right here. The plot was engaging as the team built on failure after failure and the fractious mental state of each character came into play, if I have any criticisms; the whole Devin only being a part of the project to save his sister felt a little cliché, but the resulting development of that build was him ultimately sacrificing himself so it gets a free pass as they took the plot point and built on it successfully enough in the right direction. And the shady history behind Perry's former experiments, for me, wasn't really built enough, you never really understand his motive behind being so obsessed at making it work, and although it's mildly hinted at that he might have somebody in his life he wants to bring back it's never explored and he resists against the idea of human testing right up until Devin commits suicide.
But aside from those minor quibbles, quibbles that I don't feel really spoiled the film, I really enjoyed this. One of the great things about this blog and about this project is unearthing these films that you don't see talked about and discovering for yourself just how good they are; Assassinaut, Killer Sofa (no really!) and Race to Witch Mountain, all movies that I've really enjoyed and potentially wouldn't watch otherwise if this blog wasn't a thing. And this one joins them. An almost perfect movie shot on a toffee apple budget starring just 4 blokes. And it was outstanding. Watch this movie. Buy this movie. Very strong, almost 5, 4 out of 5.
