Clonus

REVIEW
The makers of Clonus (a.k.a. Parts: The Clonus Horror) – a low-budget 1979 science-fiction thriller about an experimental medical facility where clones are created to be later harvested for replacement organs given to their genetic forbearers – should sue Michael Bay until he bleeds gold coins: to the best of my knowledge, no acknowledgment has yet been made that the storyline of Bay’s current blockbuster The Island is exactly the same as the basic plot for Clonus. Having said that, this might be the only set of circumstances wherein one could actually think that the Bay production might be an improvement -- Clonus is the classic example of a promising premise sunk by lackluster execution (a similar affliction plagues another 70s minor cult item, Jeff Lieberman’s Blue Sunshine), and in other words, it’s precisely the type of film that should be remade. Nothing was wrong with the original versions of Dawn of the Dead and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (not to mention the Japanese ghost stories of director Hideo Nakata, i.e. Ring and Dark Water), so their remakes seem entirely unnecessary, but a flawed effort like Clonus could benefit from another interpretation (but I’m still not paying money to see another Michael Bay film regardless).

Set largely in a guarded utopian compound in which clueless clones are created and raised under a watchful eye that ensures that the clones are kept in isolated states of blissful ignorance, Clonus follows one hapless genetic duplicate as he escapes the complex, in search of the mythical “America” to which the clones are theoretically being trained to advance (when in fact, they’re cryogenically frozen). On the run and understandably confused in L.A., the clone eventually learns of his true nature…as well as the identity of his human predecessor. Sounds like a potentially fascinating, prescient concept for a science fiction film, no? Alas, Clonus is ultimately sunk by a plodding, pedestrian TV-movie approach that finds director Robert Fiveson putting slumming supporting actors like Peter Graves and Keenan Wynn through the paces, in service of a by-the-numbers chase thriller with little suspense, even less visual style, and a disappointing absence of any real narrative tension or momentum. Clonus certainly isn’t completely dreadful – and it gets a fair amount of mileage out of its intriguing premise alone – but it’s little more than a largely tedious time-killer, and one is best left seeking an exploration of the cloning concept elsewhere…but not in a Michael Bay vehicle.

-- Travis Crawford