Claudio Carvalho While traveling to fish in a frozen lake with two friends, the director of animated movie Thomas Kempton (Alex McArthur) loses his backpack and returns alone seeking it in the track. However, he has an accident with his vehicle and asks for help to two locals, the insane cannibalistic sisters Vanessa Boulette (Laura Esterman) and Ann Boulette (Sage Allen), and he is abducted by them. Later their friends kill Ann and rescues Thomas, but they are chased by Vanessa in her snowmobile. After an avalanche, Vanessa is considered dead by the law enforcement, but Thomas becomes obsessed by her life, tracking down her daughter Clara Hansen (Maria Cina), who was adopted when she was six and does not know her origins. Thomas gets close to Clara trying to disclose her past and gets involved to a dramatic family situation."Suspended Animation", a.k.a. "Mayhem", is a very weird B-movie, since it begins in a suspenseful situation that recalls 'Misery", shifts to a heavy drama and has a very unfair conclusion. I liked the unknown cast: Laura Esterman and Sage Allen are great in the role of the two deranged sisters, showing a stupendous black humor in the beginning of the story while telling Thomas what would happen to him. Maria Cina is very beautiful and has a top-notch performance in her dramatic role. I felt sorry for the unfair fate of her character and I did not like the selfish lead character, capable of jeopardizing the life of another person to save his own. This movie could be a little shorter, but anyway it is underrated in IMDb. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): "Mutilados" ("Mutilated")

Lambers-3 This is really the worst movie I've ever seen. I've never seen such bad actors in one movie, the worst of them was Laura Esterman. She was so overacting. The movie also doesn't really have a story. First we watch two chicks torturing a man. After he fled and seemingly killed the two women, he follows a line of murders and gets to know another chick and her sadistic son (with very disgusting pimples on his neck, I almost had to puke). And you are crying at your TV "what the hell does that mean??". In the end, the two stories seem to be connected but the way the director did this was ridiculous. And what should this movie tell us?? The evil is genetically inheritable?? Really, Really bad movie. Don't even consider watching it. There's not even the promised gore and brutality in it. It could change your view on movies in a negative way.

elliotdowning What starts as a cheap Misery rip-off soon deteriorates into a pointless and slow-moving telemovie with teenage tearaways jumping out of cupboards.After Alex McArthur is kidnapped and presented with pickled appendages by insane sisters Vanessa and Ann, Alex returns home to search for the retina-challenged incestuous spawn of Vanessa. With her troubled, spotty son causing raccoon-torturing incidents, Alex becomes a little too involved in a twisted family album. (What we have written here would imply a far greater film than the one that we actually viewed) Despite this, one really has to give credit to the wardrobe department on this one, making a 2001 production really have that eighties look about it. Laura Esterman's beautiful wig-work is also a point of interest for water-cooler discussion. (Can't even figure out why it was appropriate for her to be wearing a wig) If it's confusing and pointless drivel you're after, then look no further than Suspended Animation - aka the more generically-titled Mayhem. Don't expect scares or entertainment from this film, rather confusion caused by the fact that you are 38 minutes into the film with no end in sight.

MovieAddict2016 I received a copy of "Suspended Animation" in the mail earlier this week. It was postmarked from a company in New York, with attached sheets of paper naming the cast and crew, and an interview with the director, John D. Hancock, from Phantom magazine. I'm still not quite sure why I was sent a copy, and I'm not really that sure how I was sent a copy. I don't have any mailing address on my Website, and I don't have it listed publicly on the Internet. I can only assume the DVD was given to me so that I could review the film. But it's a puzzling affair of how that company in New York got my address.The movie was filmed in 2001 and given a limited theatrical release in October of 2003. I believe that the DVD I received is a preview DVD of what will hit stores some time in 2004. Perhaps the company in New York thought I'd review the DVD, too? I suppose I can, although there's nothing to review -- it has fine quality and sound, basic picture menus, and a single theatrical trailer. It probably doesn't need much more.The film is about an animator named Tom Kempton (Alex McArthur), and his fascination with his own kidnapper. It all starts when Tom and his buddies are out on their snowmobiles during winter. Tom gets behind and flips his snowmobile when he's trying to catch up; he seeks shelter in a nearby log cabin, which is home to a pair of strange sisters -- one rather obese and the other frail and sickly. They slip Tom a drug and he wakes up tied to a chair. It's then that he realizes the sisters are cannibals, and that they plan to make him their next meal. After making a daring escape with the help of his friends, Tom finds himself unable to move on with his life. He can't think of anything but the small sister, Vanessa, who kidnapped him and chopped off his pinky finger (which was successfully re-attached, or so I can only assume). Tom hunts down Vanessa's adopted child, draws her as a cartoon out of fascination, and eventually fights and helps murder her serial killer son, Sandor (Fred Meyers), who has a pimple-popping scene so stomach-turning it could rival the most gruesome horror films.The only thing worse than the killer getting up one last time for another scare is the two-killer theory. Here, it's a three-killer theory. There's a surprise twist at the end that leaves open one of three options: the remaining killer is one of the sisters, back from their graves, their brother, or Vanessa's daughter. And, if you're enough of a horror freak, you may even think it's Sandor coming back from the grave.I've got to say that though the surprise ending didn't surprise me, I was expecting something else to happen. I expected something much cleverer and much more startling than what did happen at the end. I had worked out a complex theory of who the real killer might be and it never happened. By the time the credits started to roll, I wasn't quite sure what the message of the film was. First it starts out as a sort of "Misery Redux," then it turns into "Deliverance" on snowmobiles, then it turns into "Single White Female," then it turns into "Psycho," then it turns into nothing. Is the point that the gene for wanting to kill people runs in families? Is it that you should not dig deeper into matters already resolved? Or is it just a wandering horror-thriller that isn't sure what it wants to be?The movie was penned by Dorothy Tristan, John Hancock's wife. It's based on her novel, which I have never heard of -- and now I can understand why. I'd like to give "Suspended Animation" a good review because I enjoyed the beginning as a sort of remake of "Misery," and I feel bad picking on a movie sent to me in hopes I would do the opposite. But if I followed that, it would be nothing but a bribe.I won't be totally unkind to the movie. John Hancock, the man behind Robert De Niro's "Bang the Drums Slowly" and the cult family classic "Prancer" (also very dark), directs well -- for what it's worth. And to be fair, "Suspended Animation" has a few interesting scenes, but the casting of Alex McArthur never helps much, and the flimsy script only harms what could have been a really tense and scary movie.2.5/5 stars.