Syngenor (1990)

I love this movie so much

Overrated and overhyped

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The powerful multi-national corporation Norton Cyberdyne creates a deadly army of mutant soldiers called Syngenors that get loose and go on a murderous rampage inside the building. Director George Elanjian, Jr., working from a hilariously inane script by Brent V. Friedman, treats the silly premise with admirably misguided seriousness, relates the dippy story at a snappy pace, delivers a nice sprinkling of goopy splatter (there's a decent dab of tasty gratuitous bare distaff skin as well courtesy of one token topless blonde bimbo), and handles the action set pieces with a sidesplitting lack of competence (the monsters do these gut-busting herky-jerky robot chicken-style moves when shot!). The reptilian humanoid Syngenor beasts look pretty gnarly. Best of all, the late, great David Gale of "Re-Animator" fame positively galvanizes the proceedings with his fierce, intense, and gloriously loopy portrayal of paranoid and unhinged CEO Carter Brown, who injects glowing gunk in his neck, kills off most of his top executives when he thinks they've betrayed him, and flips his lid with deliciously unrestrained scenery-gnashing hammy panache. While Gale clearly dominates the whole show with his highly entertaining eye-rolling histrionics, the rest of the cast nonetheless acquit themselves well in their roles, with especially stand-out contributions by the ever-appealing Starr Andreeff as the spunky Susan Valentine, Mitchell Laurence as likable journalist Nick Cary, Riva Spier as the ruthlessly ambitious and treacherous Paula Gorski, and Charles Lucia as slimy yuppie Stan Armbrewster. Popping up in nifty bits are Lewis Arquette as amiable scientist Ethan Valentine and Melanie Shatner as cute underage secretary Bonnie Brown. Both James Mathers' slick cinematography and the lively hum'n'shiver score by Thomas Chase and Steve Rucker are up to par. A good deal of kitschy fun.

Rented the newly released DVD of this and I'm glad I didn't buy it.Carter Brown (David Gale) is the head of a corporation who develops synthetic creatures that to be used to fight wars in the Middle East. It's a creature that's adverse to water, but no matter since the desert doesn't have very much water to begin with. It also looks very similar to the gill man in CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, so there's not a whole lot of imagination here.Anyway, these SYNGENORS escape from the lab and invade the building killing people, but it's not very scary or gory or anything. In fact, the whole film looks like one big bore with David Gale looking like he's sleepwalking through the whole thing. He made a better ham in the RE-ANIMATOR series and the injecting of the green fluid into his neck is a silly cue from those earlier films. Never heard of any of the rest of the cast except for Melanie Shatner as the receptionist, and that's only because she's Bill's daughter.The Elite DVD has a short clip of David Gale visiting Japan in order to help promote this film, which I understand, was a big hit over there. Why, I don't know. Maybe they thought the creature was 'cute' or something.It might've worked better if Roger Corman had a hand in it, but as it stands, it only gets a charitable failure.2 out of 10

scientist engineers a group of genetically engineered cyborgs for use as "supersoldiers" to fight U.S. wars in the Middle East. However, things get ugly when the cyborgs malfunction and turn on their creators, escaping from the abandoned lab and stalking the halls of the Cyberdyne (Wasn't that stolen from "The Terminator"?) building, eating people and reproducing every 24 hours A-sexually. The main Syngenor, the Lizard-like monster spends most of the time slobbering and slowly stalking his prey, while the other types of Syngenor walk around roaring like Elephants and killing the Company's army (The "Soldiers" were the goofiest-looking clothes you'll ever see) spend most of their time running threw hallsways, while the company's insane CEO, David Gale, kills his co-workers. "Syngenor" is a low-budget monster movie that, without the presence of David Gale or the nifty-looking monsters, would have failed misserably. The monsters look cool and original for their budget, and David Gale's performance is hysterical--in fact, I'd go as far as saying that this is his best roll EVER, even beating "Re-animator". Over-all, a fair attempt at horror film-making, see it if only for gale. My rating for "Syngenor"- 6/10.

I bought (yes! bought) this movie at my local store for the very low price of £3.99, so I wasn't expecting an oscar winner, but having seen this truly awful pile of crap, I think I deserve a refund. The acting was atrocious - among if not THE worst I have ever seen. I mean what was with the boss of the company who kept sticking green goo in his neck? he overacted something dreadfully the dialogue was apalling and the main actress Starr Andreeff (What a name!) was terrible, What action scenes there were - were lousyI have wasted 90 minutes of my life on this awful movie - I suggest you DON'T do the same!Rating 1/10