The Projected Man

Most helpful review The Projected Man

• No Flies On Me

   

  By TheAwfulDoctorOrloff (22 reviews) from Edinburgh , 29 Jun 2011

  [Highly rated reviewer]

  This is one of those obscure films that sound vaguely interesting, but aren't included in any but the most exhaustive list of 'cult' movies, because they simply aren't very good.
  
  This film has exactly the same plot as 'The Fly' - scientist builds matter-transporting machine, he recklessly transmits himself, it goes wrong, he turns into some sort of monster and goes mad, much hilarity ensues! The only real difference is that no flies are involved; the hero is a messed-up version of himself with no insect body-parts, just a cheap bit of latex on his face.
  
  Which is an indication of why the film doesn't work. Every time it tries to match the excesses of a true cult movie, it falls completely flat. Instead of the likes of VIncent Price, the cast consists of blandly handsome young people who can't act, or B-list character actors who mostly seem to know they're in the wrong movie. In the title role, Bryant Halliday has enough of his face showing beneath the not particularly overwhelming monster make-up to overact, but instead of portraying the anguish of a man who is physically and mentally merged with a mindless insect and is struggling to cling on to his humanity, he's just an ugly guy who has gone mad for no particular reason, and rants a lot to no particular purpose.
  
  The inevitable love triangle features two people with the on-screen chemistry of a couple of planks that happen to be stacked together. The inevitable revenge plot is so clumsily inserted that we're never told who the bad guys actually are, though since their boss spends all his screen time being menacing down a phone while sitting in a chair that hides his face and stroking a cat, there's obviously supposed to be a half-assed James Bond in-joke that doesn't come off.
  
  Every single aspect of the film is oddly mishandled. One female character exists in order to be stupid, get things wrong, whine interminably, be menaced and/or rescued by male characters, and look fetching in a mini-skirt, but the monster needs a girl to carry around for no reason at all because that's what monsters do, so we're stuck with her. Ridiculously inappropriate comedy characters are suddenly introduced in a crucial scene which is supposed to be pure tension and horror. Interesting suggestions that the full power of the Projected Man (the script is so clumsy that the other characters actually call him that) has yet to be unleashed, and may threaten the world, come to nothing because the special effects budget is far too low to show this.
  
  Almost nobody seems to have a properly explained motive for whatever it is they're doing, absolutely none of the characters are likable, and for some inexplicable reason that sums up how misjudged the entire film is, the brief shot of partial nudity they were obliged to include to prove this film is for grown-ups is not of one of the attractive female characters. Instead, we get a gratuitous glimpse of a semi-nude corpse. Even the ending doesn't work. With an actor capable of expressing real emotion it might have, but we're stuck with Bryant Halliday, so it just sort of stops because the film is long now enough, and it was about to get too expensive.
  
  Overall, this might have made a decent enough 'Doctor Who' story (in fact, I'm pretty sure that 'Doctor Who' did recycle several elements of it), but as a movie, it's just a slow-moving ho-hum rip-off of things that were done far better by American studios and Hammer. Worth seeing if you're a mad scientist teleportation movie completist. Otherwise, don't bother.

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