A small-town public defender finds herself faces with something taking over the population around her.
Written by Mark Andrew Hamer and Russ Lindway and directed by the former, Replicator takes the people replacement/podpeople idea and brings it to a small town with modern issues and people. The story here is decent, but it could have been a whole lot more. A lot of it feels like it’s subdued or held back, feeling like something is missing. The film takes a while to start and a few of the sub-stories or story elements do not feel like they were either needed or developed fully. Of course, this is something many won’t have any issue with. The writing is, as stated above, decent but could have used another pass or perhaps a new pair of eyes to help with the bits that don’t work, the start that takes too long, and some of the characters feeling off. Of course, the way the script is brought to the screen here works along with the story (especially given that the director is one of the writers) and perhaps there was not enough distance between the script and the direction. Overall, the film feels a bit long and slow in parts, but the story works fairly well in the end.
The cast here is one of the strengths of the film (along with the special effects) with a few stellar performances including Jim Azelvandre as the father of the lead. He does the role justice and really becomes someone you can’t like really quickly and effectively. His work here makes the character stand out and steals scenes. KateLynn E. Newberry as Neila is good, also stealing a few scenes on her way through the film. Lead Brey Noelle, as Darby, works well in the majority of her scenes with a few scenes that feel a bit off, which could have a been a script or direction thing. The cast overall works decently well, helping bring the film up with them.
The special effects here do truly shine, the work from the effects team creature design / head of special effects makeup David Greathouse is fantastic. The creature design is solid and the application of the effects is generally really good. The gross stuff is gross, the blood is good, the ooey-gooey works.
Overall, Replicator is a decent film that is decently entertaining, but the slowness here doesn’t fully work for it. While slow burns can work really well to build tension, here the tension is lost by this slowness. This seems to be something that came from a mix of the script and direction. The performances are generally good and the special effects are solid, so many should enjoy this. It must be noted that a strobe warning should come before the movie to help those who need to avoid this.