With the winding down of the 4th Annual Mile High Horror Film Festival, I decided to start my Sunday off by viewing the movie Septic Man. Big mistake. It didn’t have the horrific special effects and makeup that one would see in a movie about, well, crap. It was the fact that, at a running time of 83 minutes, not much happened and the movie dragged along.
Directed by Jesse T Cook (2011’s Monster Brawl), Septic Man tells the tale of the Canadian town Collinwood and their sanitation problems. It seems that something has been blocking up the pipes, people have started to become severely sick, and the town is now being evacuated. With no idea what else to do, the government sends Phil Prosser (Julian Richings) to find and employ the ‘Septic Man’ Jack (Jason David Brown). It seems that Jack once saved the town from a disaster awhile ago and it’s now up to him to figure out this scenario. Jack hesitates; Prosser dangles $200,000 and a desk job for the rest of his career in front of him. The latter being the decision clincher (not smelling like his job is a plus), Jack decides to take the job and heads home to tell his pregnant wife Shelley (Molly Dunsworth) about his plans to stay in town and clean it up. Shelley gets frustrated and leaves with the town. Jack then heads to the sewer plant and finds a manhole that, of course, he falls into. Now, he’s trapped, floating around with the dead bodies he finds (both human and rats) and is starting to slowly turn into a monster.
If this summary of the movie gets you excited, I’m sorry. I was highly anticipating this movie when I read the synopsis, viewed the trailer, and learned that this was written by PontyPool’s Tony Burgess. But, I was highly disappointed with this film as a whole. Did it have its interesting moments? Of course it did. With the subject matter alone, it’s interesting. However, there was no substance to it. As a film short, maybe this story had a chance. The ending seems to setup for a possible sequel, which would be a shame to keep this movie going. I do have to say that the makeup effects were great, even if we only get to see them with what little lighting there was throughout the film. And I will give credit to Molly Dunsworth, who acted her heart out of the paragraph or two she was given throughout the whole movie.
Rating: Even with its gruesome narrative, Septic Man fails with its running time and watery script. (5/10)
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