Soft Matter, 2018.
Directed by Jim Hickcox.
Starring Ruby Lee Dove II, Hal Schneider, Mary Anzalone, and Devyn Placide.
SYNOPSIS:
Two local graffiti artists (Ruby Lee Dove II and Devyn Placide) decide to hold an art show in what they believe to be an abandoned hospital. Upon breaking in, they discover two crazy scientists on a quest to find the key to immortality and their menagerie of weird hybrid patients.
Kish and Haircut, a pair of graffiti artists, decide to hold an art show inside an old hospital, where a relative of Haircut had previously lived before dying. However, the art show goes awry when they discover a host of ‘patients’ that Grist (Hal Schneider) and Kriegspiel (Mary Anzalone), two unhinged scientists, have been keeping and injecting with the DNA of animals like jellyfish and lobster, in an effort to find the secret to immortality. Naturally, all of this causes a sea-god to rise from a mop bucket to try and stop the scientists from figuring out the secret to eternal life.
Marketed as a comedy horror, you might emit the odd giggle and you may come away slightly disturbed but you absolutely cannot complain that Soft Matter isn’t original. In fact, it’s positively insane! A cross between Peter Jackson’s early cult classic Braindead and James Herbert’s Others, Soft Matter has some weird gross-out imagery, some awesome, colourful lighting and a 1980’s vibe enhanced by the ominous electronica running throughout the film. Soft Matter may not be your cup of tea. It may not even be particularly good, but Jim Hickcox, the writer and director, has clearly identified some themes and he’s run with it and respect is certainly due there.
Hal Schneider is just about the only actor that stands out for a good reason in Soft Matter, playing Grist, a scientist who seems torn about what he is doing, delivering his dialogue with some decent comedic effect. Unfortunately, however, there are a lot of misses in Soft Matter, mainly the random tangents into animated scenes or the animation that occasionally springs up over the main action.
Despite its originality, Soft Matter is somewhat confusing and doesn’t delve particularly deeply into any kind of storyline. If you have a spare 72 minutes, it’s certainly not the worst thing you could watch – you will be entertained, although perhaps not in a conventional manner!
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Sadé Green
