Organizm (Living Hell)

You have to hand it to the Sci-Fi channel. They noticed that none of the broadcast or cable networks were showing anything new on Saturday night and they jumped in with a series of movies. Now typically these films are very low budget, filmed on a short schedule and are never going to make any top 100 film lists. They are new and despite the heavy use of formulas most are somewhat entertaining. Most of the cast and crew are culled from other science fiction or horror television series or flicks so there many of these films have an ensemble company or sorts. They usually cost about $5 million to make which is inexpensive even by independent standards. The special effects typically are not the greatest and frequently wind up on the E channel’s ‘The Soup’ where they are made fun of. With all of this in mind some of the films are entertaining. If you grew up watching the hooky fifties Sci-Fi flicks these are on about the same level. They are light entertainment and fun to watch. You may want to gather a few friends over and create your own version of Mystery Science Theater 3000 as you watch. One of he latest of these Saturday night specials to come to DVD is ‘Organizm ‘. You may have seen it under the original title of ‘Living Hell’. This film is not even one of the better ones for the Sci-Fi channel but strangely enough it was amusing to view. This is a beer and pizza flick if ever there was one.

The flick was written and directed by Richard Jefferies. He is no novice to either profession and has some notable credits to his name. His biggest writing credit made just before this flick was ‘Cold Creek Manor’ which even though it had a well known cast did okay at the box office but was not well received by the critical community. He was also responsible for one of the lesser Chevy Chase comedies and a rip off of Jennifer Gardner’s ’13 Going on 30’ called, ready for this, ’14 Going on 30’. He started his screen play career with another horror groaner, ‘Blood Tide’ which he also has as his only other directing credit. What does help this flick is the story is simplistic. Usually that may be considered a negative but in this case there was no reason to add a lot of sub plots and complications to further muddy the movie. Jefferies appears to have a pedantic style that can drone on if given half a chance. The up side here is the film has a brief enough running time to prevent this from getting out of control. As a director he uses a straight forward style that gets the job done. There are very few of the all too fashionable Indy director’s tricks with shaky camera work to an excessive number of jump cuts. He gets through the clichés of his own script by pacing the film reasonably well. Using the standard format for the Sci-Fi channel’s flicks the story gets going fast with the exposition place just in time to let the audience know what the characters are up against. This means the outline for the story would be something like; dreaded menace appears, people die, long forgotten evil is to blame, find a weakness in the monster and destroy it, roll credits. Normally it could be said that the movie fails too reach its potential. This is partly true. The fundamental elements of the flick are solid and a better film could have been created. Since this is a Saturday night special it does do better than many of the other members of this series of flicks.

Like many of the old Saturday afternoon horror flick matinees I used to watch in the fifties this film takes place in the American south west. The open deserts and Native American influences made this a great location for this type of flick. Things could happen in the open desert that no one would ever know about and that was usually the foundation of the flicks, this one now included. We all knew the U.S. military did all sorts of strange experiments out there. There was the nuclear bomb tests, always good for irradiated monsters of all kinds, covet medical experiments and of course Area 51. The hapless victims were also a long way from any possible source of assistance. The desert was the place to go if you wanted to frighten the audience. Frank Sears (Jonathan Schaech) is the local school teacher in a small south west town. Back when Frank was a child his mother, Elenore (Darlene Kegan) was the town’s local half crazed loony. She was always ranting and raving to anyone in earshot about a deadly menace hidden beneath a nearby military base. So would go on and on to Frank about the details of the thing buried there. Mom would repeat the section number of the creature’s location demanding that Frank never forgot them. Just to be sure he would remember this vital piece of information she cut them into his hands so the scars would always be there. It was bad enough this kid most likely had a constant wedgy from his classmates for having a crazy mom; his mom was cutting numbers into his hands. I guess children’s services weren’t around back in the late fifties. If this wasn’t traumatic enough for a child one day his father comes home and shots his mother dead in front of young Frank. He then gets to see his dad shot himself to death.

As an adult Frank is naturally disturbed by the scars on the palms of his hands. He has made repeated attempts to contact the army to find out the forbidden location. It is little wonder that if the army was trying to hide a monster of some type they would not just let a local teacher in or tell him about it. Finally, in an act of desperation he crashes into the gate and gets arrested. This at least gets him inside. As only happens in a film like this Frank manages to get a solider, Carrie Freeborn (Erica Leerhsen), to become intrigued with his tale. Since this is the American south west we need a Native American involved. Here this requirement is fulfilled by John Redwing (Fredrick Lopez) who worked with Frank’s father on the base when the creature was imprisoned. Ironically poking around for the answers the creature is released and begins to take over the world. It does turn out that Frank’s blood has a genetic marker that may prove to be the answer.

One of the main saving aspects of this film is the cast. They took things seriously but never to the point where they became melodramatic with their parts. The best of this talented cast was Erica Leerhsen. She is excellent in her part; able to give dimension to her character that lets the audience care about what is going on. She has some experience in parts like this and always delivers a fine performance. Jonathan Schaech also does very well as the lamentable Frank. He gives more emotional depth to his portrayal than you might have expected in a flick like this. Also giving a strong performance is James McDaniel of NYPD Blue fame who never disappoints as an authority figure.

This flick is out on DVD thanks to Image Entertainment. Recently they have been adding some of the better Sci-Fi channel flicks to their release catalogue and this one is not great but reasonable.

Posted 03/24/08