A lot of care, craft, hard work, and talent obviously went into making "The Scientist"...but it comes up short as a horror or suspense film.
I will give kudos to the lead actor on this movie - he labored mightily to sell the role, and he has talent and range. It would be interesting to see him in something else. However, there are lots of problems with "The Scientist", and the cast can't save it.
The biggest problem is the pacing. I realize the screenplay is all about building a sense of doom and dread, and to be fair, the last 10 minutes are almost worth the wait. But only almost. Most of the scenes in the first 2/3rd of "The Scientist" just seem to drag on and on. I think the director had enough on the ball that he was going for some kind of stressing of our hopes and goodwill...but he overplays that hand.
Also, while the screenplay tries to be sensitive and show some human feeling during the scenes involving the dying wife, sometimes it turns into Lifetime Movie Network material instead of a horror movie. I will give it credit for trying to capture a sense of tragedy and loss; I just wished the movie didn't come to a dead stop so often just so we could watch the actors emote.
As you can probably tell, I wanted to like this movie more than I actually did. It tries something a little different by "documenting" how a zombie apocalypse might happen (rather than plopping us in the middle of one), it does a good job of portraying a well meaning man's descent into madness, and the last few minutes are good fun. But the whole was less than the sum of the parts this time around.
I will give kudos to the lead actor on this movie - he labored mightily to sell the role, and he has talent and range. It would be interesting to see him in something else. However, there are lots of problems with "The Scientist", and the cast can't save it.
The biggest problem is the pacing. I realize the screenplay is all about building a sense of doom and dread, and to be fair, the last 10 minutes are almost worth the wait. But only almost. Most of the scenes in the first 2/3rd of "The Scientist" just seem to drag on and on. I think the director had enough on the ball that he was going for some kind of stressing of our hopes and goodwill...but he overplays that hand.
Also, while the screenplay tries to be sensitive and show some human feeling during the scenes involving the dying wife, sometimes it turns into Lifetime Movie Network material instead of a horror movie. I will give it credit for trying to capture a sense of tragedy and loss; I just wished the movie didn't come to a dead stop so often just so we could watch the actors emote.
As you can probably tell, I wanted to like this movie more than I actually did. It tries something a little different by "documenting" how a zombie apocalypse might happen (rather than plopping us in the middle of one), it does a good job of portraying a well meaning man's descent into madness, and the last few minutes are good fun. But the whole was less than the sum of the parts this time around.