Woodyanders 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.

lost-in-limbo Not completely a direct sequel to William Malone's 1981 "Scared to Death", but "Syngenor" sees the return of Malone's alien creation (this time there's even more and a new creation to boot as well). As a low-budget, late-night b-grade offering, "Syngenor" is actually very well pulled off. I was expecting it to look much cheaper. It remains trashy fun throughout, namely due to the spontaneously intense and ham-fisted performance of David Gale. You could never tire watching this guy perform! It might be his show, but the rest the performances do shape up rather nicely. A delightful Starr Andreeff and snappy Mitchell Laurance agreeably work off each other. Riva Spier is enticingly manipulative. Also showing up is Melanie Shatner (William's Daughter) and character actor Lewis Arquette. Carter Brown is the CEO of Norton Cyberdyne, a corporation that deals with military defence technology. His latest creation under the project name "Dark Skies" is that of some genetically made super-soldiers known as Syngenor --- Synthesized Genetic Organism. However problems start occurring when one of them is released from its basement enclosure to leave a bloody aftermath, which involves the death of their original creator Dr. Valentine. Growing increasingly paranoid that somebody (within) is trying to knock him from his perch; Brown's sanity soon begins to spin out of control. Also he has to deal with a pesky news reporter and Valentine's daughter. Pulpy hokum, which has many dumb and unintentionally humorous qualities… but in the end that's what makes it. Really it could have been more enjoyable than it was. The plot is nothing new (by starting off rather mild-mannered and then transcending into demented craziness) and the script is sub-standard, but bestowed a conceptual base of satirical barbs and tongue-in-cheek sparks. The tightly knitted execution at times was a bit shoddy (with some cheaply staged action --- like the onslaught in the basement involving an oddly dressed security squad), but the pacing keeps on the move and the optical / special effects (done by Robert and Dennis Skotak) and make-up stand up better than you would think. The Syngenor designs (a man in a suit with an amatronic head) look quite decent, as they're crafted with specific details. Although when they go after their prey, it can be rather laughable with their slow movements as they dawdle around waving their arms. Super-soldiers? Locked away in the basement? The feature was mainly filmed in the Ambassador Hotel, in Los Angeles which has an infamous history. Some moments have an atmospheric edge, while other sequences are truly devoid of it. Composers Steve Rucker and Thomas Chase provide a typically unhinged music score. Slightly enjoyably low-end creature-feature oddity that's brought to life thanks to David Gale.

Mr Parker At one point, they shoot one of the monsters in this so many times that he looks like he's dancing, waving his arms up and down. It almost looked like he was doing the "Robot". To add insult to injury, you could clearly see a thick root of cables coming from one of his feet that was obviously used to set off the bullet squibs. My God! This is one of those movies that is so funny, you may not be able to watch it from lack of oxygen and blurred vision caused by tears. It is such a ripoff of Aliens that it's pretty awe inspiring. They stick a big cannon in this one poor monster's mouth and pull the trigger repeatedly, similar to when Hicks blasted an Alien to smithereens after jamming a shotgun in between it's drooling jaws and yelling, "Eat this!" There's even a scene set in airducts with the monsters chasing them. What I remember most about this was that the creatures posed almost no kind of threat. They walked around REALLY slowly and were really just there to get shot to pieces by the obligatory military hit squad. This is one bad movie that for some reason, gives me warm and fuzzy feelings. My interest was piqued by an ad I saw in Fangoria years ago for these really detailed rubber masks that they were selling. One of them was called "Syngenor" and looked really nice but it was a bit out of my price range. Then I found out that the mask was based on a character design from a movie and I decided that I had to see it! And then I did! And you know what? It was terrible! But funny also!I sort of remember that water played a big part in this somewhere. And that in the movie, some researchers were designing these creatures to be the perfect soldiers or some other hoo-hah. It's bad alright but it's not that bad that it's unwatchable. I'm gonna go ahead and give this one big fat star and a half. Only out of sympathy and the fact that this movie has made me laugh to the point of getting internal damage do I spare it from a zero, which realistically, this chuck deserves.RATING: * and a 1/2 out of *****

brother_beavis This was one of my favortie movies as a kid. It used to scare the crap outta me when I was young, and even though its not that scary now I still love it. There is a somewhat good amount of gore and violence, and the creatures look great for a low-budget flick, even though they do sound a little bit like elephants when they scream. I heard that this is actually a sequel to amovie called "Scared to death", which I haven't seen... yet. Anyway, Syngenor is out of print, but if you find it, pick it up. You won't regret it.