Hottoceame The Age of Commercialism

Cathardincu Surprisingly incoherent and boring

Dotbankey A lot of fun.

Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Claudio Carvalho While traveling to fish in a frozen lake with two friends, the director of animated movie Thomas Kempton (Alex McArthur) loses his backpack and returns alone seeking it in the track. However, he has an accident with his vehicle and asks for help to two locals, the insane cannibalistic sisters Vanessa Boulette (Laura Esterman) and Ann Boulette (Sage Allen), and he is abducted by them. Later their friends kill Ann and rescues Thomas, but they are chased by Vanessa in her snowmobile. After an avalanche, Vanessa is considered dead by the law enforcement, but Thomas becomes obsessed by her life, tracking down her daughter Clara Hansen (Maria Cina), who was adopted when she was six and does not know her origins. Thomas gets close to Clara trying to disclose her past and gets involved to a dramatic family situation."Suspended Animation", a.k.a. "Mayhem", is a very weird B-movie, since it begins in a suspenseful situation that recalls 'Misery", shifts to a heavy drama and has a very unfair conclusion. I liked the unknown cast: Laura Esterman and Sage Allen are great in the role of the two deranged sisters, showing a stupendous black humor in the beginning of the story while telling Thomas what would happen to him. Maria Cina is very beautiful and has a top-notch performance in her dramatic role. I felt sorry for the unfair fate of her character and I did not like the selfish lead character, capable of jeopardizing the life of another person to save his own. This movie could be a little shorter, but anyway it is underrated in IMDb. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Mutilados" ("Mutilated")

mwold With little knowledge or context, I was happily surprised by this film! It's thoroughly engaging, and I would agree with some other reviewers in that this film is fairly effective exceeding expectation and throwing in a good handful of unexpected twists & turns. Some of the negative reviews are surprising and seem quite ridiculous as this is flagrantly far from being the worst film ever made. Obviously it's not high high art, but that clearly isn't the intention. If ultimately you want something that entertains and engages, which seems to my problem as of late (in that entertainment isn't that entertaining these days)! This is a well done thriller. Enjoy!

elliotdowning What starts as a cheap Misery rip-off soon deteriorates into a pointless and slow-moving telemovie with teenage tearaways jumping out of cupboards.After Alex McArthur is kidnapped and presented with pickled appendages by insane sisters Vanessa and Ann, Alex returns home to search for the retina-challenged incestuous spawn of Vanessa. With her troubled, spotty son causing raccoon-torturing incidents, Alex becomes a little too involved in a twisted family album. (What we have written here would imply a far greater film than the one that we actually viewed) Despite this, one really has to give credit to the wardrobe department on this one, making a 2001 production really have that eighties look about it. Laura Esterman's beautiful wig-work is also a point of interest for water-cooler discussion. (Can't even figure out why it was appropriate for her to be wearing a wig) If it's confusing and pointless drivel you're after, then look no further than Suspended Animation - aka the more generically-titled Mayhem. Don't expect scares or entertainment from this film, rather confusion caused by the fact that you are 38 minutes into the film with no end in sight.

atallackson During the early passages of John Hancock's `Suspended Animation,' you think you've got it figured out: It's `Deliverance' meets `Misery.' But the pleasure in experiencing `Suspended Animation' comes from the way Hancock and his screenwriter, wife Dorothy Tristan, throw you a curveball, taking the film somewhere unexpected. If the first half of `Suspended Animation' reveals the very nature of evil, then the second act is about the obsession with it. Hancock and Tristan show how, for some, closure can't be reached until the evil that fuels relentless nightmares is confronted and dissected. The film stars Alex McArthur as Tom Kempton, a Hollywood animator with a beautiful wife, Hilary (Hancock veteran Rebecca Harrell), a stunning home, but a somewhat stalled career. Needing a vacation, Tom heads to northern Michigan for a snowmobile trip with two buddies, Jack (Dan Riordan) and Cliff (Jeff Puckett), but the excursion takes an unexpected detour when Tom's snowmobile crashes in the forest. Tom stops by a nearby cabin for help, only to fall into a trap set by two deadly serial-killer sisters, Vanessa (Laura Esterman) and Ann (Sage Allen) Boulette. They've killed before and are ready to make Tom their latest victim. Hancock and Tristan take almost fiendish delight in seeing how far they can go to make audiences squirm here, particularly since sharp objects are lying about, along with jars containing parts of the human anatomy no man would like removed. Tom survives the ordeal - after a dynamite snowmobile chase that features not just an ax, but an avalanche - but can't let go of what happened to him. He meets the sisters' brother, Philip (J.E. Freeman), who is doing time in jail, then tracks down the daughter of one of the sisters, Clara (Maria Cina), a waitress and aspiring actress whose son, Sandor (Fred Meyers), may have picked up a few nasty habits from his disturbed relatives. For all its squeamish moments, `Suspended Animation' becomes a fascinating glimpse into depravity and insanity. A bizarre, unsettling dynamic unfolds between the Boulettes, who foster a considerably warped notion of the concept of `family.' That leads to an impressively restrained, surprisingly quiet finale, where Tom witnesses the tragedy of the Boulette family unfold before him, even as his life, and that of his wife, are in danger. McArthur is quite good; `Suspended Animation,' however, belongs to the ladies. Esterman and Allen, as the two sisters, create a dangerous, at times hilariously unstable team. You're never sure when the two might explode, while Esterman, later on, takes Vanessa to another level, revealing a desperation that is sad and pathetic. Cina is a find. Her performance is so natural, so unassuming, it doesn't come across as acting. She's the most sympathetic character, the heart and soul of the film. `Suspended Animation' is one of the creepier films in some time, a superb example of taking a formula story and transforming it into the unexpected. Rating: 3 stars