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In one of the first scenes of the movie, we meet Donna (Dana Namerode), a young woman seeming nervous who performs piano in a band of friends. Donna lies on a massage table getting Reiki treatment. After learning she had cancer, she is ready to take any unusual approach to prevent losing her right hand to amputation. She meets Sam (Johnny Whitworth), a man who assures her of a good outcome from an unusual alternative to the doctor's recommendations, while she waits for an appointment at her physician's office.
Desperate to expose the facts about a subatomic universe, Sam is a quantum physicist. He unintentionally finds a radical cancer cure as he tries to unlock doors to this other world and raise the machine's efficiency. Ready to validate his work and establish it as a pillar in both disciplines, Sam breaks into hospitals looking at patient records. Desperate for a participant ready to be the first patient in his human experiments, ethical standards and appropriate research methods are devalued.
The screenplay deftly explores Sam's slow spiral into craziness in a way that provides laughs-out loud moments. Sometimes, like when Donna goes to her cancer support group meetings and other patients start to accept their futures, a more somber tone takes front stage. The movie does, however, often suffer from tonal whiplash as a result of combining genres and using humor where it does not necessarily suit. Maybe Reeder uses this to materialize the inherent kookiness of a script this kind of nature. Though there's no doubt the movie has entertainment value, whatever the intention it doesn't always work.
A whole embracing of more horror film aspects would have strengthened The A-Frame even more. Avoiding these to apply mystery and even humor usually results in the declining quality of the viewing experience. Framed as a Cronenberg-style movie, it only damages The A-Frame with time, particularly given the few and far between body-horrors in the work. We are meant to simply believe that Sam is a mad scientist devoid of further background knowledge; we never learn about his mentality.
Film history has seen extensive investigation of the mad scientist cliché. Usually, the narrative centers on the quest of scientific progress that produces strange side effects making the research risky. But what would happen should an accidental discovery of a ground-breaking achievement? Should the innovator rush to test human participants or keep researching the protocols? In Calvin Lee Reeder's imaginative Sci-Fi Horror thriller The A-Frame, ethics and accelerated creativity fight for the hunt of life-saving discoveries. The A-Frame satisfies its promise to amaze and delight even with its flaws by combining an interesting mix of genres and ideas.
Reeder's most recent work starts provocative and thought-provoking discussions on morality and scientific progress. Conceptually, given the "post-pandemic" environment we live in now, the story is one that is simple to find intriguing. Whitworth's Sam looks driven in building a name for medical advancement and quantum physics. But when things go wrong, he adopts that mad scientist attitude and veers his priorities from moral practices to reaching his objectives, regardless of the number of people he may have to damage in the process.
A quantum physicist designs a device producing a tunnel to a subatomic universe. While trying to demonstrate the machine's effectiveness, he unintentionally comes onto a radical cancer treatment.
The A-Frame debuted at the Tribeca Film Festival scheduled for 2024.
Particularly Whitworth treads a tightrope between attractive and eerie in such a way that it causes some doubt and anxiety. These conflicting emotions will keep you on the tip of your seat and offer hope that things will turn around at last. The more subdued performance of Namerode adds nicely to counter the developing wacky plot.
Reeder's The A-Frame is an interesting trip over the mind of a mad scientist, a story of ethics, scientific discovery, and false hope. The artistic idea offers some provocative criticism on the need of applying moral practices to forward scientific progress in medicine. Whitworth and Namerode carry the narrative by their performances and strong chemistry, even if the movie does not correctly mix its Genre-Blending and tones. While The A-Frame provides the entertainment exactly when it is needed, it may play its cards too conservatively.