Serum (2006)

People are voting emotionally.

Instant Favorite.

For all the hype it got I was expecting a lot more!

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Oh. My. God. This is by far the worst movie I have ever seen. And I mean EVER. (For reference, I have seen: "In Memorium", whose writer and editing was so bad that the title itself is a massive typo; Lifetime Movie Network's "The Unquiet;" "Death of a Ghost Hunter," which I considered to be the worst movie in the universe before I witnessed THIS crime against film; "Hell's Highway", by which I mean Jeff Leroy's 2001 atrocity, not the 1932 classic with Richard Dix; "Psycho Ward," another misspelled disaster; and both "Tomie" and "Uzumaki," which were made all the more abysmal by the fact that their names and concepts were attached to works by Japanese horror maestro Junji Ito. I have also seen segments of "Hard Rock Zombies", the Sci Fi channel's "Piranha" entries, and I just finished "The House By the Cemetery" and "Dracula Has Risen from the Grave".) Like "Uzumaki" and "Tomie," a huge part of the reason this movie sucked so very badly was the massive letdown of the movie itself compared to the movie that was advertised. The synopsis on the jacket is promising. I wasn't expecting miracles, but I figured that the plot would make up for whatever failures of acting or direction might present themselves. Boy was I wrong.The acting isn't just bad, it's atrocious. If you were to select a random group of 10-year-olds and give them the script, the performance you would get would be more energetic and believable than what this movie subjects its audience to. The costumes are all wrong--the corporate executive that is supposed to be pressuring the doctor to push on with his experiments regardless of the risks is wearing a polo shirt and khakis on the helicopter pad as he circles the doc, half-mumbling badly written bully lines. The performances of the female cast are only marginally better than the male, and unlike most bad horror where the women at least give the impression that on some level they are TRYING to be that god-awful, the performances here are so flat that it doesn't appear they are trying anything at all.The worst part about the movie, however, is that it becomes apparent after the first fifteen minutes that the two main characters are supposed to be about twenty years younger than the actors portraying them. When they go home for a family dinner the "boys'" father looks about 3 years older than they are. One gets the impression that they are friends or relatives of the people on the production staff who never had a day of acting class in their lives but thought it would be cool to appear in a movie. Given that, I can't even complain about the flat climax and lame ending.In short, even if bad is your thing, skip this one. My friend, who is a connoisseur of horrid horror, was begging me to turn it off after less than half an hour. It's just that awful.

Serum starts as Eddie (Derek Phillips) is delighted to learn he has been accepted into medical school to carry on the family tradition of becoming an MD like his father Richard (Dennis O'Neill) & his uncle Eddie (David H. Hickey), however his joy could be short lived as Eddie is involved in an accident & is run over by a car. Taken to the nearest hospital it doesn't look good for poor Eddie so his uncle Eddie convinces his brother Richard to let him save Eddie with the serum he has developed, a serum which will give the recipient the power to self heal any sort of wound or illness. Desperate for his boy to live Richard agrees but the procedure has unwanted side effects like turning Eddie into a brain eating zombie which is just not a good thing...Executive produced, written & directed by Steve Franke I'll be perfectly frank myself & say Serum is awful, Serum is one of those no budget horror films which tries to rip-off other any number of other's & ends up being slightly more fun than having you fingernails pulled out with pliers. The script is terrible, it has the whole Re-Animator (1985) feel to it with mad scientists wielding huge syringes trying to eradicate death but it's so boring it's untrue, the first forty minutes is nothing more than a really dull soap opera that amounts to nothing expect to pad the running time out with Eddie arriving home after spending some time away & finding his ex-girlfriend has hooked up with someone else, arguments with his step-mom, getting drunk with his mate & generally boring the audience stiff. So, once the tedium of the first forty minutes is over & if your still watching it it takes another twenty minutes to get Eddie re-animated & then he kills a couple of people, police catch up with him & shoot him, the end. Thank god. Serum is devoid of any of the characteristic's that one would associate with a good film, the character's suck, the dialogue is poor, it takes itself far too seriously, it's dull, it's slow, it's forgettable & considering it's meant to be a horror film there's an alarming lack of blood, gore or horror. Not recommended, did I mention Serum was boring? I thought so.Director Franke does nothing to liven this thing up, although competent there's no style here at all. The gore levels are none existent, there's a bit of splashed blood, a bitten neck, a couple of scars on a dead woman's face, a couple of scenes where a needle pierces skin & that's it. Don't expect a Re-Animator in the gore department because if you do your going to be sorely disappointed, much like I was in fact. Filmed in what looks like one house, one restaurant & a lab the film has no variety either & just looks cheap throughout. There's a couple of scenes of nudity but that's nowhere near enough to save it.Technically the film isn't too bad, at least it looks like proper cameras were used, I can't really comment on the special effects because there aren't any but generally speaking Serum looks reasonably professional. Apparently shot in Texas, or should that read it should have literally been shot in Texas? The acting sucks although again I think they were proper actor's rather than friends or family of the director.Serum is a terrible film, it's dull, slow, boring, has no gore & feels like a horrible soap opera for the first forty minutes. I don't understand why anyone would feel the need to watch this when they can watch Re-Animator or one of it's sequels again instead, seriously I recommend you give Serum a miss. There I've just saved you from wasting 90 minutes of your life, you can thank me later.

Dr. K(David H Hickey)has been trying to master a formula that would end all disease and handicaps, but needs live donors to complete his work. His doctor brother Richard(Dennis O'Neill)has a son named Eddie(Derek Philips)who is accepted to medical school. Eddie has a girlfriend named Sarah(Lizabeth Cardenas)who is pre-law and plans to attend law school herself the coming fall. She and Eddie resume their relationship when Sarah calls things off with her current boyfriend who is also shagging the lady of Walt(Bill Sebastian;Eddie's best friend who recently paid for his cheating girlfriend's boob job). Eddie accidentally gets hit by a car and appears on the throes of death when Dr. K makes a suggestion to Richard..let him "recuperate" Eddie using his secret, illegal methods. When Dr. K applies his serum to Eddie horrifying results occur. Eddie's face bulges massive warts while he has also acquired a taste for human flesh. Many will die so that Eddie can feed this uncontrollable appetite he can't quench. Soon he may even pose a threat to his father and girlfriend..Eddie Monster must be stopped.Typically awful direct-to-video horror flick suffers from a severe lack of budget, acting, and overall talent. The premise, which seems like an interesting fright-fest, fails to deliver even as a zombie flick. The gore is limited with a few munching scenes but most of the violence occurs off-camera. The use of time to move the story along can really get annoying.

I love movies but am not a big fan of horror films. However, many of my students love them and tell me I should see this one or that one, which I do from time to time. I watched "Serum" and was greatly surprised. Naturally, there was the gore and violence that I do not normally like, but the film also had a story, which was refreshing. The filmmaker created an interesting plot and took the time to develop the characters, which made you more invested in them. Obviously, it was a small budget film, but it didn't matter because you liked the characters and wanted to find out what was going to happen next. And, I thought the production value was better than many other independent movies I've seen.