A disillusioned field surgeon suffering from PTSD makes a man out of body parts and brings him to life in a Brooklyn loft.
Suffering PTSD with traumatizing memories from war, Henry (David Call), a surgeon, becomes obsessed with a new experimental procedure that will bring back the dead and rewire the brain alleviating any painful past memories. In order to receive help with his project, he reaches out to old friend Polidori (Joshua Leonard) who agrees to help only if Henry uses the new medication he is working on for his pharmaceutical company as part of his project.
When Adam (Alex Breaux), a dead soldier awakens, he has no recollection of who he is, and like a child, he has to learn how to communicate all over again. He has memories that aren’t his and he doesn’t understand why he keeps thinking about a woman named Lucy (Chloë Levine) or why he has certain mannerisms, like running his hands through his hair. When Polidori finally meets Adam in person, he rushes the experiment along with hopes that top executives will see how well his medication works but Henry doesn’t think it is ready.
Through the eyes of Adam, the pieces of the story are put together and we finally understand who he is, why he doesn’t remember anything and how he ended up on a table with a new brain and body. We also find out that when Henry was in battle, a soldier named Adam died when a serum he designed to bring back the dead didn’t work.
Walking around looking like a relative to Frankenstein, with stitched-on body parts and a strange walk, we discover that Henry and Polidori murdered innocent people in order to use their body parts in the experiment. Adam’s body, brain, and memories are actually that of a man named Alex (Owen Campbell) who Henry stabbed to death shortly after leaving his girlfriend Lucy’s apartment. As the film escalates, Adam becomes more aware of what Henry and Polidori have done to him and becomes violent turning on his creator and then others.
I feel like I have seen this story before but it just wasn’t believable for me. All of a sudden, Adam becomes a violent, emotional killer. By the end of the movie, Adam is this sentimental being that feels like the world is against him and is on the run. I tried so hard to like this film but it just didn’t do anything for me. It isn’t scary, suspenseful, sad, emotional or anything else, it is all a bit messy.
In Theaters Friday, September 13th
