A desperate young woman joins a bunch of misfits in a top-secret drugs-trial, but the stakes get raised as the experiment expands.
First 25 minutes is excellent story-telling - pared-down scenes that give just enough information for the imagination to work on, so the pace sets off at a good clip. The altered-reality scenes are stylish and weird, elevating the intrigue and visual enjoyment. And the score is serious synth-doom (by Die Hexen) - well judged even though it never gets a rest. Performances are good, even if some of the characters are a bit sketchy.
Problems with the plot, though. It feels as if the complications are conjured up just to keep getting the characters into trouble, and I was never convinced by the overarching situation with all its implausibilites. One thing that puzzles me is that the title raises the expectation of the disguised placebo, which should have set up a Traitors v. Faithfuls game theory struggle. But that gets chucked out in a single line of dialogue, to be replaced with a ham-fisted evil corporation theme.
While the dynamic of placebo/nocebo was never explored (although that would be kinda high-falutin'), I would have settled for more emphasis on the weird, particularly with sleep deprivation opening up the boundary of reality, and then the plot somersaults wouldn't have mattered so much. The story could have had the chance to do that spooky trick in The Shining, where delusion steps over into reality, which would have been powerful with such desperate and hopeless characters. As it stands, this is more an under-powered zombie-free imitation of the classic Resident Evil.
Overall: Strong opening let down by shambolic motivations.
First 25 minutes is excellent story-telling - pared-down scenes that give just enough information for the imagination to work on, so the pace sets off at a good clip. The altered-reality scenes are stylish and weird, elevating the intrigue and visual enjoyment. And the score is serious synth-doom (by Die Hexen) - well judged even though it never gets a rest. Performances are good, even if some of the characters are a bit sketchy.
Problems with the plot, though. It feels as if the complications are conjured up just to keep getting the characters into trouble, and I was never convinced by the overarching situation with all its implausibilites. One thing that puzzles me is that the title raises the expectation of the disguised placebo, which should have set up a Traitors v. Faithfuls game theory struggle. But that gets chucked out in a single line of dialogue, to be replaced with a ham-fisted evil corporation theme.
While the dynamic of placebo/nocebo was never explored (although that would be kinda high-falutin'), I would have settled for more emphasis on the weird, particularly with sleep deprivation opening up the boundary of reality, and then the plot somersaults wouldn't have mattered so much. The story could have had the chance to do that spooky trick in The Shining, where delusion steps over into reality, which would have been powerful with such desperate and hopeless characters. As it stands, this is more an under-powered zombie-free imitation of the classic Resident Evil.
Overall: Strong opening let down by shambolic motivations.