REPLICATOR (2024)

New On Demand from Cranked Up Films!
Directed by Mark Andrew Hamer.
Written by Mark Andrew Hamer, Russ Lindway.
Check out the trailer here!!

Brey Noelle plays Darby, a headstrong public defender who comes from a troubled past with her father Ron (Jim Azelvandre), who shows up on her doorstep claiming he needs a place to stay and, oh yeah, he’s dying of cancer. Her best friend Neila (KateLynn E. Newberry) wants to be there for Darcy, but has a few dark secrets in her past getting in the way. When a murder occurs, a sheriff (Brian Spangler) and a medical examiner (LeJon Woods) discover a strange mish-mash of organs in the body along with a strange pattern made from blood spattered around the crime scene. These two seemingly different stories converge in strange and body horrific ways.

REPLICATOR is a strange movie. Not only does it have a unique monster as the centerpiece with some odd properties, but the way the whole thing is put together is especially wonky. I think the main way I can describe the offset way the script works is that this movie feels more like an episode of “Darcy the Headstrong Public Defender” than an actual movie. You know how in TV series there is a main plot and then a subplot that usually has something to do with the lead’s bigger story? That’s what this movie feels like. It feels like the filmmakers were stretching to make the main conflict (the body stealing monster from another dimension) with the more personal conflict (Darcy’s relationship with her dad, her affair with the sheriff, and her friendship with Neila). All of the plotlines eventually make it to some kind of crossroads, but there is a lot of effort made to make it there.

There is a subplot of Darcy having a casual affair with the local sheriff, who happens to be married. In a TV series, eventually this would go somewhere, most likely with the sheriff’s wife finding out and some drama occurring. But we never get there in REPLICATOR, which makes you wonder why that little detail was highlighted in the first place. It feels like character-clutter that really has nothing to do with the plot. The same thing happens with a big revelation Neila reveals to Darcy later in the film. There is a whole scene dedicated to this secret, but in the end, whether the secret is revealed or not or even existed really has nothing to do with the main plot. So why is it there?

This dislocated sense to the script is ever-present, making me wonder if these little details weren’t added much later on to pad the script. Or if the screenwriters somewhere lost focus and needed an editor or supervisor to wrangle them back to the main subject. Or if the screenwriters at first meant this to be a series where these subplots were to be developed and these scenes merely planted scenes that would blossom later. Either way, this off-kilter way of scripting a standalone movie made it feel unsupported, with characters saying and doing things that made little sense and distracted me from everything else in the movie.

REPLICATOR is decently acted. Apparently, lead Brey Noelle is a Hallmark movie queen and she does convey the drama decently. KateLynn E. Newberry is decent as well, offering up some okay dramatic scenes. The guys get less screentime or dramatic muscles to flex, though It’s fun to see LeJon Woods continue to pop up in genre roles. Woods serves as the comedic relief here, but sometimes his jovial nature goes against the drama that is occurring in the scene, making him seems aloof and insensitive.

The gore is solid. The opening scene has a strange tentacle dissolve an arm clean off with goppy melted skin and blood. This was a nice scene, but ultimately had no context, so it felt like they just threw an effects shot at the beginning. The rest of the gore is hit and miss. Some of the practical stuff works really well, but as soon as CG is used, the integration in with the rest of the live action is rough. Still, I will give it to REPLICATOR for coming up with a monster with unique characteristics, even though they are more of the creeping unknown aspects of a Lovecraftian joint.

All in all, it’s not a complete waste of time. REPLICATOR has some beautiful and talents leads going for it and some solid gore and creative ideas. It’s just some basic writing fundamentals that feel off and kind of distracted me from fully supporting it.