A recent group of extreme mutations leading to death has triggered a parliamentary enquiry which is looking back on the 3 notable cases, their handling and ways to prevent this in the future.
This short film has been slated to be developed into a feature so perhaps it will have another stab at making this work, but for the short film it is really at its best when viewed as a pitch. This is not because it lazily just wheels out effects shots, but rather because the attempt to make an effective narrative doesn't really work. The framing of the parliamentary committee only half works although in fairness it takes a lot of pressure off the structure of the short film given the running time. What we get is a series of very well done effects shots with various human mutations. The film opens with a jump scare from one of these (which is a bit cheap but at least grabs the attention) but the next two are better done in terms of having a bit of time and also showing off the effects.
Unfortunately as a film standing on its own, it doesn't quite do enough to really engage and as much as I liked the world I was seeing unfold, I didn't really get drawn in too much. The ending of the film is particularly misjudged as we see the film put up text slide after slide after slide about the prevalence of unlicensed pharmaceuticals. I understand they were continuing the Parliament / real world idea to add weight to the content, but it didn't work, felt clunky and the longer the words went long the more comical it seemed. Aside from this though, the effects are very good and I do like the horror potential for the mutation idea and I would watch any feature from this, primarily to see if they can do the narrative better than they did here.
