Review: Suspended Animation

At best, the film’s first 40 minutes bring to mind the kooky splendor of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks.

Suspended Animation
Photo: First Run Features

John D. Hancock, best known for the cheapie 1971 cult classic Let’s Scare Jessica to Death, returns to his horror roots with Suspended Animation, the story of a Hollywood director who channels his kidnap trauma into his latest work. Tom Kempton (Alex McArthur) is separated from his friends during a snowmobile trip and is held hostage in a sleepy cottage by the creepy Boulette sisters, Vanessa (Laura Esterman) and Ann (Sage Allen).

At its best, the film initially brings to mind the kooky splendor of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks, not least of which because it’s scored by Angelo Badalamenti. Esterman and Allen are obvious students of Kathy Bates’s Misery performance, and they’re a hoot to watch as they torture a hog-tied Tom with the pickled remains of their previous victims. Killer one-liners abound, but the film takes a noticeable turn for the worse once Tom’s friends come to the rescue.

It’s then that the campy allure of Suspended Animation dissipates and a wearisome self-reflexivity takes over. Obsessed with the missing Vanessa, who was supposedly killed during a cheesily rendered CGI snowstorm, and her long-lost actress-daughter, Tom incorporates the dead woman’s memory into his latest animation extravaganza.

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Hancock directed several memorable episodes of the ’80s edition of The Twilight Zone and here he seems to confuse cliffhangers for plot twists. The film is entirely too rote during its last half to merit the 114-minute running time. While Tom tediously searches for the aesthetic truth in his art, Hancock litters the script with inconsequential plot details and dopey one-liners (“You must be relieved to have this all over with?”) that say less about his characters’ pathologies than they evoke “scenes from the next episode” of Suspended Animation.

Score: 
 Cast: Alex McArthur, Laura Esterman, Sage Allen, Rebecca Harrell, Maria Cina, Fred Meyers, Daniel Riordan, Jeff Puckett, J.E. Freeman, Sean Patrick Murphy  Director: John D. Hancock  Screenwriter: Dorothy Tristan  Distributor: First Run Features  Running Time: 114 min  Rating: NR  Year: 2001  Buy: Video

Ed Gonzalez

Ed Gonzalez is the co-founder of Slant Magazine. A member of the New York Film Critics Circle, his writing has appeared in The Village Voice, The Los Angeles Times, and other publications.

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