Syngenor

A review by Michael O'May

What is a Syngenor?

Syngenor:-noun. 1. Synthetically Engineered Organism. 2. The Last shit I took. –verb. The process of visual molestation, “I felt Syngenored after watching high school musical”

Really for like 17 some odd years I’ve had no idea what Syngenor was beyond the poster I got inside a gorezone magazine, the monster looked cool, that’s all I knew. That fucking poster has been on one wall or another of mine for a long time and I never bothered to track it down and watch it. Well that changed a week ago when I found a loaded DVD for 5 bucks.

Does the movie live up to the hype of its cool poster?

No.

Seriously would I bother if it did?

The movie sucks and at the same time its fun. The level of madness and stupidity that this film descends too is pretty amazing and for that I’ll give it a review. First of all right off the bat I have to say if this movie didn’t have David Gale, it would be beyond redemption. His performance, like all his performances is a joy to watch and as always he steals the show.

The plot is hard to get a hold on as it tries and fails to focus on too many pointless plot points. You have a niece investigating her mad scientist uncle’s death via SYNGENOR. You have a wise cracking reporter who follows said niece around and not doing shit except fucking her also trying to figure the whole SYNGENOR thing out. You have a hostile corporate takeover story full of yuppies and backstabbing. You have David Gale going crazy via injecting glowing green liquid into his neck (not re-agent but you could have fooled me). And to top it all off there’s a basement full of SYNGENORS that want nothing more than to drink your spinal fluid.

The mystery surrounding the death of the mad professor is solved pretty quickly once the SYNGENORS are discovered. I hate to spoil it for you but they killed him, but a reason was never given as that would involve good writing. The SYNGENORS get a pretty funny explanation via a fake corporate publicity video that explains they are super soldiers built for desert warfare that drink spinal fluid to survive, all the while showing the monsters in funny situations like holding kids and driving cars (weird shit if you ask me)

ON the corporate end of things you have a bat shit crazy David Gale locking SYNGENORS in his basement. Anyone who tries to usurp him in his monster making business gets sent to the basement and quickly eaten up while he shots green shit into his neck and does something fucking wacky like wear a rabbit mask. It’s a far cry from his performance in ReAnimator but any is better than none if you ask me.

The SYNGENORS look cool to a degree but it’s pretty obvious in many places that it’s just a really shitty and very cheap costume. The design of the SYNGENORS clearly borrows heavily from H.R. Geiger and the Alien franchise but doesn’t have the funds to make it work 100%. Everything has a very clunky, cheap, rubber look to it, fingers don’t bend, and the guys in the suits constantly bump into things. It works well for a poster, because well the poster doesn’t have to movie around, but in motion on film they suck.

The one thing that did deliver in this whole deal was the DVD it’s self, it’s packed pretty hard with extras, commentaries, the works, I just don’t understand how they will go the extra mile for a movie like this yet Night of the Creeps still isn’t on DVD. A personal favorite of mine for the disc is the short feature that chronicles David Gale’s trip to Japan to promote the movie.  They put a short Japanese guy in the SYNGENOR suit to follow Gale around the whole time and its pretty fucking funny to see the crowds freak out over the cool new monster, even though he’s like 4 foot 1.

All in all one word sums this movie up, SUCK. But that’s not saying some hard liquor, a blow job, or even severe brain damage wouldn’t make it enjoyable. I had ate an entire pizza and made fun of it pretty hard while I watched and it was a good time. If you can find it for 5 bucks like I did, by all means check it out.

1 Z’Dar out of 5

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