Shadowzone
“It’s coming out of the darkness.”
Government-sponsored human deep sleep experiments in an
underground facility in Nevada have yielded quite a monumental breakthrough…a parallel
dimension exists in the deepest sleep. *Something* (noted as “John Doe” by the
computer) is able to travel from “the other side” of deep sleep and enter our
dimension. It is dangerous and lethal.
***
***
“John Doe has come to visit.”
If this whole situation wasn’t scary enough, those in the
facility (built in the 60s as an underground bunker) are trapped thanks to the
installed sensors recognizing radiation (even if minor, John Doe is radioactive
and as long as it remains the facility will be sealed shut). Get this, too:
they realize that this John Doe can “expand and contract its molecular
structure at will”. It escapes from a sealed sleep chamber into the water
drainage system and now moves throughout the installation. Yeah.
Add yet another problem: when the installation goes under “lockdown”,
the main transformer shuts down, the air dissipating. It needs to be
operational or no more oxygen. There were two test subjects. The male test
subject was the source for the John Doe to enter our universe (it killed him
when accessing his brain; a head explosion was the result) while the sleeping
female subject remains in her tube until able to be awakened.
Why we’re looking for Shivers, I’ll never know. Shit. He got
a shotgun and we got a light.
Being able to shift its shape into whatever form it sees fit
(like a pet monkey, fooling scientist, Dr. Kidwell (Shawn Weatherly) in a great
bit of surprise), with the film once again having the cast split apart and
falling victim to John Doe throughout the installation, Shadowzone provides
quite the monster. How to describe John Doe isn’t easy. It reminds of me of a
lifeform not fully formed, as if we see it at a cellular level during the
growing process. And man is it ugly! Well, I imagine we are grotesque to its
kind, but to me, sheesh, is it hideous. Also included in the story, John Doe can use the thoughts of humans it interacts with and manifest a grotesque form from them. What was on the mind of Kidwell--her monkey--or Cutter--catching another rat--when manifesting into a creature that kills them.
Here’s the deal. This creature is violent. Shadowzone,
however, will disappoint those expecting gruesome displays towards the members
of the deep sleep project, head by the secretive Dr. Van Fleet (James Hong) and
“eccentric” (just another word for loopy), Dr. Erhhardt (Louise Fletcher, a pro
at establishing equal parts intellect and kookiness; she has this thing about
lip chap stick that adds a visual quirk to her character). John Doe doesn’t
necessarily have to kill but does so anyway. It had vacated its place of living
for our realm only to understand that it cannot survive in the human parallel
universe, needing to return to where it came from. John Doe needs the female
sleep subject under in order to return. Erhardt can help but she’ll also need
the assistance of Captain Hickock (David Beecroft), sent by the government to
find out why a test subject died during their funded experimental project. It
was Hickock who would determine if the project should be suspended. His need to
see if there were dangers in the deep sleep process itself is what spurned the
entry of John Doe (he wanted the process of going deeply under to be prolonged,
in doing so allowing the “access tunnel” to stay open long enough for it to
pass through; I’m doing the best my feeble mind can muster to explain this…).
When the others fall one by one (like computer tech, Wiley (Miguel A. Núñez Jr.)
, ill-tempered cook, Cutter (Lu Leonard; catching giant rats with traps and
threatening to feed Shivers them if he doesn’t do something about the vermin
problem), and shaking-and-shivering mechanic, Tommy Shivers (Frederick Flynn)),
only Hickock and Erhardt are left to see that the gateway is closed and John
Doe is gone forever.
Fletcher’s scientist is the kind that is more emotionally
responsive / receptive to how cool the creature is—its capabilities, and such—rather
than those she once knew having died because of it. Beecroft is the one who
wants it gone/dead, and he’s the character that is more emotionally affected by
what John Doe has done to others, having seen the horrified face of Wiley
(having wired the elevator, he isn’t able to make it before the door closes,
his face in the window pleading for help) just before it killed him, hearing
the screams of Kidwell prior to death (turning around to not see her pet
monkey, but a monstrous version of it), and seeing the splattered remains of
Shivers after he blasted up a corridor with his shotgun.
Getting back to the violence, it is all of the off-screen variety. I think the budget perhaps was the culprit in this regard. I feel that if you like Shadowzone it will be because of the science fiction story not gore and monster mayhem. That is actually where I think this film excels. The film has, at the very least, a bit of a different story than the typical “characters trying to survive in a trapped installation as a monster is on the loose” so familiar to us sci-fi horror fans. Sleep experiments giving an access pathway for monsters to enter into our world from some sort of parallel universe/dimension…well, it is certainly different. What kind of demented imagination came up with the monster? It is right out of a nightmare. Just ghastly. Gotta love it.
The cast might be another strong reason why Shadowzone will
appeal to sci-fi horror fans. While he’s in the film at the beginning only,
Hong (Blade Runner / Big Trouble in Little China) might interest fans with his
casting. He is your prototypical inquisitive and dedicated scientist, hoping to
convince away the death of a test subject as merely a stroke and get Hickock in
and out of the installation without a hitch so his bunch can continue their
experiments. Fletcher had been riding her success with One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest? for a while but she has that
ability to add a bit here and there in a performance that gives us something
worthwhile when the part is right. Like her nasty bitch in Flowers in the Attic just to name a film off the top. Beecroft
occupies his bland hero role efficiently. Miguel A. Núñez Jr. has some funny
expressions and lines, as well as, offers a sense of natural realism among a
group of oddities. Weatherly is the hot blond in nerd disguise who loves
animals and would prefer to run the sleep tests on humans instead. Flynn just
remains in a state of panic and fear. Leonard bitches and gripes the whole
time.
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