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The GW Hatchet

AN INDEPENDENT STUDENT NEWSPAPER SERVING THE GW COMMUNITY SINCE 1904

The GW Hatchet

Serving the GW Community since 1904

The GW Hatchet

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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

WEB EXTRA: Sundance film review: Rocky Mountain Die

Apparently, there are still some people out there who are not familiar with the cardinal rules of horror movies. Here is a quick refresher.

If you and several of your attractive friends ever decide to hang out somewhere where there is no way to reach help, you will die. The more sexually active you are, the sooner you will die. The killer is always the innocuous secondary character. High school students will go psycho at the drop of a hat, especially if they aren’t cool. If a mysterious stranger invites you to come alone to his remote mountain cabin miles from civilization, you don’t take him up on it.

Clearly, Adam Schmidt is one of those people unfamiliar with these rules. At least, so it appears in “Subject Two” (Cardiac Pictures), by Philip Chidel, the latest remake of the Frankenstein story and one far different from any seen before on the screen.

In this version, a young medical student named Adam Schmidt (Christian Oliver) is brought to the secluded Rocky Mountain cabin of Dr. Franklin Vick (get it?), played by Dean Stapleton, who is quite possibly the best creepy actor you’ve never heard of. Vick offers him a chance to be part of something extraordinary – the chance to develop a way to raise the dead, which can be accomplished through a unique combination of “cold, technology and . such.” Schmidt, who came to Vick directly after being browbeaten by his medical ethics professor, hesitantly agrees only to have Vick garrote him with a piano wire, proving that you don’t need brains to get through medical school.

Stitching him back together and injecting him with a formula, Vick brings Schmidt back to life and continues using him as the subject of his experiment.

For Chidel’s second picture (he also wrote and directed 1999’s “Far From Bismarck,” which also starred Stapleton), “Subject Two” shows surprising depth, building on subtexts and leaving the audience guessing.

While the script is not nearly as snappy as the work of, for example, Quentin Tarantino, it is enough to allow the viewers a little glimpse into the characters – though a sufficient background story seems to be lacking. Stapleton’s performance is so good it’s a wonder he doesn’t get more work, and Oliver’s portrayal of the undead Schmidt is only marred by the occasional, inexplicable flare-up of a German accent. The film leaves an open ending, throwing in at the last second a twist that describes the film’s idea of justice. It isn’t a film for the faint of heart, and it’s hardly perfect, but all things considered, it’s worth checking out.

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