Verdict
Summary
Remember the early virtual reality movies like The Lawnmower Man that had cutting edge CGI images that looked incredible at the time, but now look horrendous? Well, that’s where Quadrant is. A few years from now, this movie will look laughably bad because it used raw AI images that weren’t refined or sculpted to look good enough to present to an audience. It’s a shame because the movie has a shred of an idea that could work if the filmmaking was a little sharper.
Plot:
An experimental study turns deadly when a young woman literally becomes Jack the Ripper.
Review:
Young and single and without many prospects in life, Erin (Shannon Barnes) answers an ad for an experimental study that pays $50 a session to try on a new headgear that explores the patient’s fears and desires. The scientists (played by Emma Reinagel and Rickard Claeson) seem a little shady with their very experimental headgear contraption (it almost looks like steampunk AI goggles), and they have more than one patient. The other patient is a young man (played by Christian Carrigan) who struggles with his mental health and is afraid of all sorts of things (we see the monsters as he sees them when he’s got the headgear on), but it’s nothing compared to Erin’s evil manifestations, as she sees herself in Victorian era London and she has a voyeuristic complicity in witnessing Jack the Ripper’s murders in real time. Soon, her headgear explorations take on a whole new dimension when she literally is passed the baton (the knife) by the Ripper, and she begins brutally murdering people in the real world. First, are her lovers (women and men), then she sets her sights on the scientists who scramble to understand what is happening. Has their experiment taken on a new dimension in terror, or are their patients simply going crazy?
From genre maestro Charles Band, who for many years had a fascination with bite-sized monsters and creatures (Puppet Master, Dollman, Demonic Toys, Gingerdead Man, etc.), but now Band is venturing into the uncharted waters of using AI themes and AI generated images and even AI characters for his latest films. His previous film AIMEE: The Visitor had an antagonist that was completely AI generated, which was a weird novelty, but totally within Band’s wheelhouse, and now with Quadrant he uses quite a lot of completely AI generated sets and monsters, comprising quite a bit of content for this relatively short film at only 73 minutes. A lot of the AI imagery we see in this film looks incomplete and unfinished, which gives the movie a weird, amateurish quality, but I can see why Band is fascinated with using it for his already low budget films. With some care and attention, maybe the future of using AI for a movie such as this will be beneficial, but it’s still in its early stages, so the movie as it is feels experimental and unfinished. Remember the early virtual reality movies like The Lawnmower Man that had cutting edge CGI images that looked incredible at the time, but now look horrendous? Well, that’s where Quadrant is. A few years from now, this movie will look laughably bad because it used raw AI images that weren’t refined or sculpted to look good enough to present to an audience. It’s a shame because the movie has a shred of an idea that could work if the filmmaking was a little sharper. C. Courtney Joyner wrote it.
Full Moon has just released a Blu-ray edition for Quadrant (it’s #400 on the spine), and it coms with a behind the scenes feature, a table read with the actors, and an announcement video.
