Search - Syngenor (Special Edition) on DVD

A pretty good man-made monster film

Daniel Jolley | Shelby, North Carolina USA | 03/26/2003

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Syngenor was actually a much better film that I was expecting it to be. Syngenor, by the way, is short for Synthesized Genetic Organism. Norton Cyberdyne has designed the soldier of the future, a product of genetic engineering and plain old strong metal engineering, a creature designed specifically to fight in the deserts of the Middle East, a terrible force essentially indestructible. Unfortunately for all concerned, there is a power struggle taking place in the highest echelons of the company, and the plotters take the bold move of "accidentally" letting a Syngenor escape. When he kills the scientist who essentially created him (and quit before the prototype was really complete), the scientist's niece decides to seek justice on her own. The police won't investigate the murder, but she knows who and what is responsible. An annoying reporter looking for a good story joins forces with her, and their efforts lead us into the heart of Norton Cyberdyne. The president of the company, played by Davie Gale of Reanimator fame, is going quite insane under all the pressure. As things progress, more and more Syngenors are released to roam the building and basically just kill indiscriminately. These things are able to reproduce asexually ever twenty-four hours, so you've got Syngenors all over the place pretty quickly. There is a lot of action, as you can imagine, in the succeeding battles between man and Syngenor. This movie is basically one of your better than average science fiction B-movies. It was great to see David Gale in action again, but his character actually becomes pretty annoying as his grip on reality quickly weakens. Gale goes well beyond the call of duty in terms of hamming it up. The acting is pretty good all the way around, though, and the Syngenor are pretty cool monsters who are much more than guys in rubber suits. It's always nice when the special effects guys take pride in what they do and give us a creature we can respect rather than laugh at. Naturally, you pretty much know how things are going to turn out, and you can figure out the Syngenor's vulnerability much more quickly than the desperate heroes who could really use that information do. The plot does sort of branch off into seemingly important directions that are never expounded upon or explained, but this is forgivable and offset to some degree by the fun mano-a-monster battle scenes. In the final analysis, Syngenor is a fairly impressive sci-fi B-movie that I found quite entertaining and fun to watch."

Entertaining sequel

A. Snyder | 05/06/2009

(3 out of 5 stars)

"Nowhere on the cover art will you see that this film is a sequel to the 1981 film Scared to Death. That's because the media company does not want you to know that is a sequel as people will be less likely to impulse buy if they read that it's a follow-up. Despite it being a sequel, Syngenor is easily viewed on its own.



Unlike the first film which had 1 Syngenor (SYNthesized GENetic ORganism) running amok, we now get many. It's a basic story of military creation turning on their creators. David Gale of Re-Animator makes a likeable over-the-top performance as the heavy in charge of the project (look for many tributes/nods to Re-Animator).



Synapses new Special Edition DVD does beat our Elite's old DVD as the transfer is much better. The special features are basically the same. In my opinion it's not really worth upgrading if you own the old disc but this is a fantastic buy.



Make sure to pick up Retro-media's DVD of Scared to Death while your at it!

"

A fine B-movie

B-movie fan | Iceland | 10/14/2002

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is fine b-movie. It has a real annoying women character and a journalist that wont take no for an answer. Reccomended to anyone who loves b-movies"