Mutation (2006) — Triskaidekafiles

MUTATION

WRITER: Brad Sykes

DIRECTOR: Brad Sykes

STARRING: Brian Schwartz as Detective Gorrick

Eddie Croft as K

Jessica Moon as Brooke

John-Damon Charles as Sean

Janelle Herrera as Pilar

Anita Maria Taylor as Rochelle

Lexi Karriker as Mavis

Alexandra Scarborough as Joey

Erin Holt as Janet

Jim Patneaude as Dr. Friedel

QUICK CUT: A group of girls have a rough time cleaning out an old building to shorten their parole community service sentence, but learn a lot about each other along the way.

THE MORGUE

Brooke - A young woman working with a group that helps rehabilitate trouble women who have gotten in trouble, and do work or community service to try and get back to being useful parts of society

Sean - Brooke’s boyfriend, and a cop.

K - A notorious gang leader who was killed years ago. He’s an expert in martial and armed combat. Silent, but deadly.

Detective Gornick - The cop who stopped K years ago, at the cost of his own partner. He’s brash, bends the rules as he sees fit, and is eager to get a win under his own belt, and not share the credit. His hubris bites him in the ass, and sends him into a spiraling mess in the present. Also well schooled in martial arts, which is handy

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! We are finishing up February with another film by Brad "Camp Blood" Sykes, called Mutation. I don't normally do films by the same people quite this close, but I came across this one while researching the whole Camp Blood franchise, and it just felt like a good fit for now.

Lets get this vibe train going, with the movie starting outside a rundown place, with two cops staking the place out. Steve and Charnetsky debate going in and collaring the guy they're chasing, or waiting for backup, but Steve wants the collar to be all theirs.

They quickly establish that Steve is willing to break the rules, as he kicks the locked door in. I remember when this sort of stuff read as "cops willing to do what it takes to get the bad guy". Nowadays, it reads very differently.

Of course they split up once inside, because that's the smart move. And almost immediately, Charnetsky finds a burned corpse, and he runs into discount Mark Dacascos, and gets stabbed in the gut.

Meanwhile, Steve finds a woman tied to a chair next to a bunch of knives, and quickly works to free her.

...I will neither confirm nor deny that she is the reason I grabbed this movie. Yes, this is her first full length movie role.

Anyways, his partner shows up, and warns them that K is escaping. Gornick runs off after him, and they get into a fight, that eventually leads to Gornick stabbing K with his own knife. Well, short movie!

Hah, no, I could be so lucky. Either way, the sound effects in this are deliciously over the top. Always the sign of a fun martial arts sequence. At least the foley artists are having a good time.

Katie helps Steve's stabbed partner out of the building so he can dramatically die on the pavement, and we cut to five years later. And that's a wrap on Miss Featherston, everyone!

Ah well, we all gotta start somewhere.

We're now at the Richert Institute, and they are futzing about with a green liquid, which is always a good thing in horror movies.

Doctor Friedel is working on a serum to reanimate the dead, and...oh geeze, he's even named it trioxin? Talk about a trifecta of bad ideas.

And to keep a long story from getting any longer, the doctor is reckless and jumps past tissue samples to testing it on a cadaver. Hmm, do we have any handy?

But before they can reanimate a corpse, we meet our actual main cast, Brooke, who is on her way to supervise a cleanup project at a familiar location, and her boyfriend Sean, who is a cop.

The doctors have brought in their cadaver, and yes, it is discount Mark Dacascos. They don't know that though, since he is nothing more than a serial number, and has been cryogenically frozen for future research like this.

Doctor Friedel also says he doesn't really care who the cadaver is. I mean, sure, it's not like you're bringing back a supervillain or crime lord, or anything...right?

Nurse Janet administers the serum and...nothing happens. Ah well. At least, not right away. The doctor leaves to and while he's gone, the corpse arises, and kills her. Damnit, Janet.

Back over in movie plot B, Brooke gets dropped off, meets the troubled girls who have been assigned to work at cleaning the place up, to get some points for good behaviour and community service.

The group is really nothing more than canon fodder, with one or two interesting traits to try and tell them apart. Which is STILL difficult because they’re almost all brunette white girls. One of them is doing "voodoo shit" to try and cleanse the place of bad vibes.

Meanwhile, K is wandering around, and looking a little purple for the wear, as he draws closer to his lair and the actual plot.

Over in plot C Officer Sean investigates Richert labs, and the dead body. While there, a call comes in of another body killed in a similar way and exCUSE me? Janet is dead with a needle in her eye. How does K replicate THAT on a whim?

The girls are still cleaning out the former lair, and Rochelle comes across one of K's knives. She feels all the bad vibes off it, and has a total freakout.

Also, Joey invited over her boyfriend, Ken N. Fodder, and they kill some time by banging in one of the backrooms. Geeze, we already have to disinfect this place, you are not helping.

We swing back to the labs so everyone can realise they've brought K back to life, and Friedel also tells us that the serum is having some side effects; his strength and resistance to pain may have dramatically increased, and a little later on, they'll reveal he can regenerate too. Oh GREAT. Good one, science.

The dark, gritty reboot of Grimace that no one asked for.

They drive this home with a brief scene of K killing some guys who attempt to mug him. And I'll give the movie this; the majority of the plot might be little more than a cleaning montage, but at least they drop in a death every so often to keep things going. And the fighting isn’t the worst I’ve seen.

So it's time to switch back over to movie C, and some of the girls are getting into a very Dallas style catfight over claiming some of the junk left behind. That, too, is a way to keep the plot interesting.

Brooke's detective boyfriend shows up at the most recent murder, talks with the medical examiner about K, and mentions Gornick. Hey, the movie does remember him.

I'm not back in this movie 'til I finish my drink! This is Gornick's time!

Steve doesn't want to help, even if he believed this plot, but don't worry, he'll come around shortly.

Back with the Cleaning Ladies, Joey decides to take out some of the trash they've accumulated, and unfortunately runs into K.

He is getting even more mutated, and lumpy, but it sure isn't stopping his killing spree.

The girls can't find Joey, what with the whole being dead part. Eventually, Mavis goes outside for a smoke break, and finds a telltale blood stain. It leads her to the dumpster, where Joey's body has been stashed.

She said she was taking out the trash, I didn't realise she had such a low opinion of herself.

With this latest occurrence, the ladies decide to get out of there, but find they are suddenly locked in the lair. Brooke remembers another door, but before they go, they arm up with whatever junk they can find.

Before they can get to the door though, they run right smack into K, and he eventually kills Mavis.

You know, is this a bad time to ask what K's goals are? His motivations? The dude never says a single word of dialogue, we know nothing about him aside from "criminal" so why is he doing what he's doing?

Sure, this isn't necessarily a problem in slasher movies, Michael Myers is very unknowable, but you get the sense he has SOMEthing driving him, in the first film.

Meanwhile, Gornick decides to be helpful, and calls Sean back, to tell him the address of K's lair, which everyone else knows is the same place Brooke is cleaning out. Hooray for plots coming together in the last 20 minutes.

The girls can't get the back door open either, and all they've done is barricaded themselves in a handy room for K to get them. Fortunately, these are very angry women with criminal records, and they beat the snot out of him.

Secure in the knowledge that K is down for the count, the women leave the room to go...elsewhere. They find another door, but even that's locked.

Pilar remembers a club she saw, and goes to get it, with no worries, since they know K is dead. Yeah, about that...

Rochelle senses the death, and tries to make a run for it...and right into K’s knife. Wow, he is just, tearing through the girls at this point. All that's left is Brooke and...

...Are you shitting me? She actually trips. It's so cliche it almost circles around to being unbelievable.

Brooke comes to in a chair, taking the place of Katie from the start of the movie. Well, I am a bit of a sucker for some bookending.

Sean, Friedel, and Gornick who isn’t far behind, all arrive for the last ten minutes to save the girl, and there is a lotta deja vu here, that's for sure.

Pruneface gets shot by Sean and goes down. The doctor is ready to administer the serum that will take care of this problem, but oops, all murder.

But all that just means that Gornick and K can have a rematch. Unfortunately, K is now juiced up, making the fight...honestly, only slightly more difficult, but still in K's favour.

Sean shoots the bad guy AGAIN, and they declare him dead, and say he's not breathing. Which they all forgot the doctor said literally right before he was stabbed.

They leave the building, and Sean goes to phone the incident in. Oh, this is gonna be some lovely paperwork.

Sean asks Gornick what made him come back, and he says that Sean's story was "just crazy enough to be true". WAS IT??

But surprise, as they try to leave, K comes back AGAIN, and hoping to buy Brooke some time to get the serum, Gornick gets into round three. FIGHT!

The good news is, she actually gets the needle, and goes for a piggyback ride on K, jabbing him good in the shoulder.

Unfortunately, while K turns into a puddle of grape Fanta, Gornick took a fatal blow, and dies much like his partner did.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Not too bad. Very of the era for low budget stuff, and it’s fine.

Audio: Just as average, and watch out for that boom mic.

Body Count: A decent amount, and peppered throughout the plot, which is always nice. I can think of similar movies where they just killed time and would have only killed the girls with zero other deaths, in the last twenty minutes.

1 - At 9:30 Gornick gets the drop on K and kills him with his own knife.
2 - And shortly after, Charnetsky dies from his own stab wound.
3 - K stabs Nurse Janet in the eye with a needle.
4 - A random victim gets her neck slashed off camera
5 - One of the muggers gets killed by K
6 - And apparently the other mugger, but we never see it
7 - Joey gets tossed in the dumpster
8 - K snaps Mavis' neck
9 - Pilar gets her throat ripped out
10 - Rochelle gets slashed across the neck
11 - K guts. Dr. Friedel
12 - The serum turns K into a pile of goo.
13 - Lead dies from his wounds like his partner before him

Best Corpse: They’re all kinda bland, but something about how Mavis gets her neck snap, really sold it to me.

Blood Type - D+: There’s a little bit of blood, and some basic effects, but not much of note. The big makeup effect is K’s purplification. Which isn’t bad, but looks kinda silly.

Sex Appeal: A very brief sex scene is tossed in.

Drink Up! Every time someone asks, “Hey, have you seen ___?”

Movie Review: Honestly, this isn’t a very notable movie, almost everything here is done better elsewhere, but it’s also not TERRIBLE. Sykes puts together a solid enough flick on a budget, that has it’s share of memorable moments. But you can tell it’s cheap, and the acting isn’t much to write home about. The fighting is probably above average for this level of movie. I do think it’s a shame K never says a word. It could have fleshed out his character and motivations some, and given just a pinch more weight to the proceedings. Even if it was just before he died, that would have effectively drawn a line between the two versions of the character. But, it’s not terrible, and if you’ve got a microbudget itch to scratch, or your a Katie Featherston completist, it’s worth checking out. Sykes does competent work putting together an all right movie on a budget. That seems to be where he lives. He might not be original, or the most thrilling, but he has some skill. Three out of five stabby knives.

Entertainment Value: Having so many characters look vaguely the same definitely takes something away from the movie, as my eyes glaze over every time I try to think of who was who. And the acting is decent enough that there’s nothing quite laughable enough. The highlight is the makeup on K, but that doesn’t carrt too much of the movie. It’s all a bit forgettable, aside from “lumpy purple dude who knows kung fu”. Two out of five delinquent girls.