Well, this one was a doozy. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting much from Christopher Lawrence Champan’s Inoperable, but this one completely blew my expectations away. No wonder Zorya Films is releasing this title into select theaters starting December 1, 2017. Its success lies in an intricate, ever evolving story that’ll keep horror fans gasping from start to finish. A blurring of genres and terrifying events, Inoperable is a more complex mash-up of Groundhog Day and The Ward. The film follows Amy Barrett (played by Danielle Harris) as she attempts to flee a flood zone along with hundreds of other citizens as a dangerous hurricane rolls in. After a panic attack due to a pile up on the highway, Amy wakes in an abandoned hospital with the natural disaster on the horizon, and any remaining staff members and patients on the hunt for blood. It seems that torture and human experiments are being conducted at the facility, and the staff is desperate for Amy’s unwilling participation. However, as she nears escape or fails in the effort, she wakes again in the same hospital bed just as the hurricane starts to shake the building. Now she must unlock the secrets to the bizarre hospital and free herself from its walls before the storm passes… or risk being trapped there forever.
Danielle Harris, Jeff Denton, Katie Keene, Crystal Cordero, Chris Hahn, Philip Schene, Brittni Amber Lombardo Michelle Marin, Cher Hubsher, Jared Gopman, Gene Michael and Dawn Hubsher star in this incredible horror-thriller from writer, director and producer Christopher Lawrence Chapman. The biggest reason I wanted to review Inoperable was because Danielle Harris was leading the show. She is arguably one of the greatest scream queens of all time, with a gigantic resume of hit appearances in Halloween 4, Halloween 5, Rob Zombie’s Halloween, Rob Zombie’s H2, Hatchet 2, Hatchet 3, See No Evil 2 and Stakeland. However, her career slowed down in 2014 due to her marriage and lasting several years until the birth of her son in early 2017. Congratulations on your growing family, Danielle, and I’m happy to see you back in horror! And what a triumphant return it is. At first, I didn’t know if she was the right actress for the job, originally citing her performance as lacking the right level of fear and frustration. But, each time she wakes in her hospital bed, Amy – and thus Danielle – rises as a stronger, more determined version of herself. So, with respect, Danielle Harris grows and evolves dramatically during Inoperable and it’s definitely a performance worth praising.
Plus, she just doesn’t age! Jeff Denton and Katie Keene are fantastic as co-stars, though their characters spiral in a completely different and much darker direction. As I mentioned above, Inoperable is a complex story with subtle plot points branching out at random depending when Amy wakes again. What’s going to be fun for horror fans is trying to figure out why this psychologically draining and pulse raising crisis is happening to her. Is the hurricane awakening evil apparitions who are seizing the hospital? Has the hurricane allowed alternate dimensions to bleed into each other? Are these events happening in her head as nightmares spawned by the pile up? Inoperable will keep you guessing until the very end, and boy – what a gratifying ending it is! From the time Amy enters the hospital to the slow motion, scream-a-thon finish, genre fans will be treated to a trippy, bloody, heart stopping nightmare and arguably one of the most creative films of 2017. Equal parts suspense-thriller and horror-drama, Inoperable is destined to become a sleeper hit and I urge you to check it out while it lasts in theaters. Zorya Films and Millman Productions are putting out a feature length film that reads like a lost episode of “The Twilight Zone” with devilish doctors, blood splatters galore, and palpable tension that’ll make you feel claustrophobic no matter where you watch.
Inoperable was co-written by producer Jeff Miller. Philip Jensen, Ashley Eberbach and Giorgio Daveed also served as producers with Daveed handling cinematography and editing. Now, as a production, I have to say that this one was pretty solid. I wonder how they managed to book an entire hospital, but they certainly used it to their advantage. The character’s don’t stay stationary for very long. There’s lots of running, exploring, dodging and fighting that takes place during the movie and the camera work is on point to catch it all. The audio is near perfect, the scores are fitting, and the blood and special effects are very realistic. My only critique is that some of it comes off a bit cheesy, a little too out of place in such a high caliber film. Maybe it would have been wiser to try for a couple more takes? Either way, I assure you this one is far from low budget. And, while I give my highest praise to the plot, I do have to say the ending was a little predictable in a very Grave Encounters type of way. Still, Inoperable was a surprising, tangled web of horror and suspense. Check yourself into mystery and terror with this new movie from Christopher Lawrence Chapman.
Final Score: 8.5 out of 10.
