“Depraved” (2019) is a contemporary take on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein set in New York predominantly from the creation’s point of view, but later switches to his creators, Henry (David Call) and Polidori (Blair Witch Project’s Joshua Leonard). Even though it is classified as a horror film, it feels like a little indie sci fi tragedy film with horror elements in the final act.
While uneven in patches, much like Adam (Alex Breaux), I really enjoyed “Depraved.” I went into it not realizing that I was watching a Frankenstein remake. I figured it out quickly, but writer, director and horror acting legend Larry Fessenden makes the story fresh and disorienting from the beginning. So when it begins to hit familiar territory, the story was still unpredictable. Fessenden nails the psychology behind the story and explores the characters in a way that Shelley chose not to because of the difference in setting and era. He also uses the story to focus on issues that men face.
The underlying moral of “Depraved” seems to be that each man is his worst enemy and should listen to his girlfriend if he does not want to die. Instead of dealing with their trauma, they literally run away from it and set goals for themselves that absorb and distract them, but ultimately the trauma sabotages the goals even when they are achieved.
The relationship between the three men, the creators and their creation, changes throughout “Depraved.” The first act focuses on Henry as Adam’s father figure because Adam is a child in a man’s body. I was excited at the prospect of exploring how the relationship between the creator and his creation would be if Dr. Frankenstein did not reject his creation as a monster. Breaux, who gives Christian Bale energy (compliment), nails his transformation from a boy to a young man. Adam is so eager to be with and impress his dad, but the underlying tension is the violent nature of his origins, the Achilles heel in his relationship with his creators. Unwittingly Adam’s journey to self-discovery is a murder mystery, and Fessenden leads up to this discovery with harmless quotidian entertainment to found footage elements. When Adam begins to surpass Henry in a couple of ways, Henry lashes out. Adam begins to learn about negative emotions and actions, which are the seeds to everyone’s happiness and destruction. A sad early scene is when Adam erases the blackboard when his accomplishments begin to outweigh Henry’s as if it would erase Henry’s competitiveness. There is a great shout out to Blade Runner’s Roy Batty except he gets shamed for not wearing clothes as if he was a girl. As Adam matures and gets more curious, Henry and Adam’s relationship alternates between father and son to buddies. As other people compete for their attention, it punctures Adam’s sense of security and is a bad influence on his behavior.
“Depraved” begins to turn its attention to both his father figures, and Henry begins to confront his ambivalence about being a father figure, a theme introduced at the beginning of the film. Once Adam is someone Henry must share, Henry sees him as an “it,” a possession. These men, his creators and ancestor, want and create relationships then regret it, but you cannot unscramble an egg. Fessenden begins to show us more about the creators’ background, but way earlier, I kept asking myself, “Is ping pong an essential thing that Adam had to learn?” They are not good fathers and want to make life without women, with rotting flesh.
Polidori, a shoutout to the author of “Vampyre,” is a manipulating, pot stirrer. He is the fun, but abusive uncle. While the performance is uneven, and the monologues are heavy-handed, Polidori is a fascinating character. After he openly and repeatedly hurts Henry, Polidori makes it clear that it changes nothing. They are still friends and going to socialize. They are toxic, but together forever. They are more committed to each other than the women in their lives and are in a homosocial parental relationship. With parents like that, the odds were against Adam.
The preexisting relationship dynamic between the creators and their significant others is also riveting. Liz, Henry’s girlfriend, is a goodie two shoes, but also a ride or die. To me, she is so weird. I vacillated between wondering if she was dumb or into Adam. Georgina (Maria Dizzia), Polidori’s wife, finds everything boring, is dripping with contempt and does not react emotionally. The best scene in the denouement is a dinner party with her WASP parents, and her mother, Mrs. Beaufort (Alice Barrett), steals the show. Georgina’s minimalist acts of hospitality and her mother’s polite refusals are the most devastating rejections in “Depraved.” When Liz enters, Mrs. Beaufort uses her as another weapon to wield against Georgina. These women are the 53%-choosing to be passive and subservient to their men. As appalled as they are at their significant others’ actions, it would never occur to them to divorce themselves from them even though there is no love between them until the worst case scenario. All of them will never split up though if anyone could break the cycle, it would be Liz.
Fessenden’s visual style is layered. It is traditional with computerized images illustrating what is transpiring underneath the skin and in the brain’s synapses. While this technique may become dated, I do not recall any other director using this it so I consider it original or rare. The oneiric sequences are edited to tell the story of Adam’s awakening without tedious prose dumping. When the story begins to merge with the traditional Frankenstein story, he references the expressionist style of Whale’s 1931 film. There is even a shout out to George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” (1968). He gets a warm place in my heart for shooting scenes at the Met.
Should “Depraved” have overlapped or diverge from the well-known story? When Adam has an unchaperoned night on the town, it is faithful to the original story and his inexperience/mental development but considering how well-read Adam is and how he was able to interact with Liz, it felt as if his patchwork conversation assembled from various prior interactions served a comedic function, which worked, more than a reflection of where he was in his development at that point. On the other hand, he is also emotional and inebriated with a severe and confused overestimation of his father’s capabilities. He imitates his father. It also feels like an allusion to John Steinbeck’s “Of Mice and Men.”
Before the denouement, “Depraved” fills in Henry’s backstory, which felt unnecessary and redundant by that time; however, I did enjoy the intercutting of the audio between Adam and Henry during happier times contrasted with Henry’s coldness and decisive move against Adam. Fessenden wanted to make a statement about war and PTSD, but the execution makes it resonate less than the other themes. By the end, the vengeance and poignant contrast of love and life wasted overshadow everything for a powerful bleak ending with a delicious postmodern take on today’s wilderness, being alone in an urban crowd.
There were a couple of moments that I wished were clarified. Did Lucy think that she was ghosted or that her boyfriend was missing? What was the significance of the symbols on the necklace?
