It seems like almost every cult horror or sci-fi film has been remade or reimagined at one time or another. So when I heard “The Philadelphia Experiment” was being remade, I wasn’t interested at all, but was still curious as I enjoyed the original. Still, I had my doubts going into this film.
In 1943, the government started a project to gain an edge on the battlefield. They created a device that would able warships to be invisible. When they conducted tests on one of the submarines, the submarine and its crew disappeared into thin air. Fast forward seventy years later, the submarine reappears on a runaway where only one crew member survived the accident. But it disappears again, when a lawman enters the submarine. Is this the appearances something sinister or just a strange anomaly? Emilie Ullerup (“Sanctuary”), Gina Holden (SAW 3D) and Malcolm McDowell (A Clockwork Orange, Silent Night) star in the film.
Usually, I cringe at the idea of remaking a film that needed no such remake. The thoughts that I had after the remake of “The Philadelphia Experiment” made me wonder that maybe the whole remake crazy has run its course. This was a flat out horrible film from start to finish. I could tell that this might have aired on SyFy at one point.
Most of this disaster of a film has to go to director Paul Ziller. One of the things that makes this unbearable was the style, in which he choose to have the film shot. It felt like the film was going ninety miles per hour with the camerawork. It made the action too intense that it allowed the film to focus more on the action than the story itself. It also didn’t help that this felt like Asylum film where no one cared about anything on the production side. Everything looked cheap from the special effects to some of the buildings and locations that they used. It became distraction, as I was watching this film.
The other thing that I hated about the direction was the performances. The intense nature of the film severely affected his direction of the character. I could tell that the performances were dull and wooden. Holden’s performance was the worse of them all. I know that you need to be acting like a villain, but the performance came off like an annoying spoiled rich brat than being sinister. It made me loath the film even more. Like her and everyone’s performance in the film, Ziller doesn’t do anything to make the performance engaging or tolerable enough that you might be interested. If the performances were interesting, then maybe this would’ve been bearable to watch.
Andy Briggs’ screenplay is no better than the film’s direction. One of things that makes this screenplay dreadful was the fact that there’s no resemblance of character development whatsoever. He spends too much time with setting up the action scenes and giving me characters that I didn’t care about it. It would’ve been nice to have seen the film slow down and help address my complaints. When that usually happens, then the film goes downhill. The other thing I like didn’t was the way that Briggs handles the submarine jump sequences. It felt outrageous and cheesy, because you had one jump that landed on top of a building and another in the middle of the desert. It felt distracting to see that in those settings. It looked like that he was writing a disaster film, not a science fiction film. I know that you have to suspend disbelief for a film like this, but the placements of the submarines made it look stupid.
This film ranks up there as one of the worst direct to DVD/TV films that I’ve seen in a long time. I highly urge to skip the remake of “The Philadelphia Experiment and seek out the original film, as that and its sequel is better than this piece of garbage.
Review Rating: One Star.
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