It’s kind of amazing what Fractals doesn’t have going for it. At best, it has really interesting location shooting around Scranton, Pennsylvania. Tomasz Magierski doesn’t seem to have the best film stock to deal with, but he shoots the daytime exteriors well. Even if the film doesn’t have any personality, it seems–on these rare occasions–like it should.
Writer-director Jerry Sangiuliano doesn’t have a lead character, even though he somehow has enough budget to convincingly present three not quite leads. Convincingly might be a stretch, but Fractals looks nowhere near as cheap as one would expect.
The three “leads” are Farrah Forke as a coed in distress, Joe Lombardo as the cop (who’s also inexplicably romancing the coed) and Terry Londeree as the mad scientist who doesn’t know he’s a mad scientist. But Sangiuliano doesn’t stick with any of them long enough for Fractals to actually have a point. Sangiuliano skips over to side characters for the thriller set pieces. The set pieces don’t have good thriller gore, instead they have wacky fractal animations.
Why?
Because video graphics drive people into murderous rampages. All those bad late eighties fractal graphics do it every time.
Lousy music from Larry Gelb doesn’t help, neither does Sangiuliano’s seeming inability to decide how to frame head room.
The acting’s weak, but Londeree’s nearly funny as he goes crazy. Both Forke and Lombardo try, but they can’t make any sense of the script. Forke’s slightly better, but not much.
Fractals is bad stuff.
ⓏⒺⓇⓄ
CREDITS
Written and directed by Jerry Sangiuliano; director of photography, Tomasz Magierski; edited by Sandi Gerling and Keith Reamer; music by Larry Gelb; produced by Dianne Sangiuliano; released by Crown International Pictures.
Starring Farrah Forke (Laurie Stevens), Terry Londeree (Dr. Phillip Rothman), Joe Lombardo (Frank Turi), Elle Thompson (Yvonne), Donna Bostany (Michelle), Robert T. Hughes (Wrightnour), Gene Malone (Captain O’Keefe), Shura McComb (Ted), Heather Ann Barclay (Denise), Bill Hilkert Jr. (Pete) and Charles Lopresto (The custodian).
RELATED
Leave a Reply