Sex Machine (2006)

The microcinema effort Sex Machine, written by John Oak Dalton and Christopher Sharpe and directed by Sharpe, is an interesting cross between film noir, horror and pulp comics. The story opens with the protagonist, a heavily bandaged man, awakening to find himself standing over three corpses while holding a smoking gun at another man kneeling on the ground, pleading for his life. The protagonist finds that his right arm is from a black man, his left from a white man, the arm heavily tatooed with the phrase Sex Machine. His head covered in gauze much like the invisible man and an electrode located under his skin in his neck shorting out, sending painful electrical charges through this body.

That's the opening of the film. Pretty cool.

The protagonist Frank (ala Frankenstein) escapes and hides in a hotel room while he deals with the pain of recovering from the surgery that pieced him together while, at the same time, struggling to understand the flashes of random memories that penetrate his mind. Once he's able to put his past into some coherent mess, he heads back home to his best friend and old girlfriend, struggling how to pursue a normal life while being hunted by the people that created him.

The film itself is very impressive conceptually, cinematically and directorially. I've rarely seen a microcinema effort look this good or directed with such inventive and interesting visual ways. Major kudos to Sharpe and cinematographer Shogo Nakagawa from such a great look.

The acting is hit and miss, which often occurs in films at this level and the pacing is uneven, but lead actor John Howell is wonderful as Frank and manages the complex role very well.

Because microcinema is filmmaking with minimal budgets, it allows the filmmaker to take chances and Sex Machine does just that.