‘Quadrant’ Review

Stars: Rickard Claeson, Emma Reinagel, Shannon Barnes, Christian Carrigan | Written by C. Courtney Joyner | Directed by Charles Band

Low-budget veteran, and all-around B-movie legend, Charles Band, makes his 400th career film in Quadrant – a tale of virtual reality, Jack the Ripper and nefarious scientist-types. At only 73 minutes long, Quadrant wastes little time in introducing us to our shady antagonists and its virtual reality “hook”. Scientists, Harry and Meg, have developed a psychological treatment in the Quadrant helmet, a virtual reality device that allows you to “live” your fears and confront them, in a seemingly safe environment. Enter Erin, a Jack the Ripper superfan, whose apartment resembles an adoring shrine to old bloody Jack. What could go wrong….?

As a premise, Quadrant stands out for its genre-hopping sci-fi/slasher leanings. Owing a debt to The Lawnmower Man, with a dash of Freddy Krueger and a sprinkling of The Matrix, I really wanted to enjoy the lunacy that the film’s synopsis conjures up. As it stands, Quadrant is a curious film that doesn’t satisfy the sci-fi nerd in me, or the blood-hungry, stalk-and-slash fan.

We meet scientists Harry (Rickard Claeson) and Meg (Emma Reinagel) in their strangely noir-ish, dimly lit laboratory, where treating patients goes hand in hand with lots of whiskey drinking and exposition-heavy dialogue. Treating Erin (Shannon Barnes), we are given our first look into the world of the Quadrant device and see slick, computer-generated Victorian streets, alongside fake fog and some questionable green screen work. It is here that Quadrant, from a production perspective, stands out in its use of A.I-aided special effects. The film employs an A.I “artist” and the virtual worlds depicted throughout the film are seemingly all the result of A.I technology. Now, I’ll leave the moral and ethical arguments around the usage of A.I in film, to actual artists, but it is always interesting to see how the world of low budget film-making adopts to new and emerging technologies – and here, Charles Band, goes all-in with A.I and showcases nightmarish worlds en masse, delivered via algorithms. The end results are mixed, but within its zippy runtime, we are treated to black and white, cobbled streets awash with (bright red) blood, marauding demons and morphing zombie werewolf types!

Performances do what they can with an overly serious script and lots of stagey exposition scenes. The science, the backstories and the revelations are all delivered earnestly in long (for such a short film!) monologues and the script would be much improved with a healthy dose of black comedy. Erin’s inevitable descent into madness could have been a fun little character arc – it is not. Rather bemusingly, Erin starts to physically resemble a cosplay Ripper and line delivery remains so very serious – you’ll smirk for all the wrong reasons.

As Erin enters into a new relationship with fellow “patient”, Robert (Christian Carrigan), the film steers into Natural Born Killers mode, and presents the psycho couple as co-dependent Mickey and Mallory-alikes. It’s at this point, as fantasy makes way for real-life copycat violence, you’d expect the film to go into high gear and capitalize on its wacky concept…

Nope.

As Erin morphs into an increasingly deranged Jill the Ripper, the rules of virtual reality become increasingly fluid (read: nonsensical), and B-movie tropes aplenty pad out the running time. Erin develops the power to jump between reality and the Matrix, er, the Quadrant – this enables Erin to influence those in, and outside of the magic helmet and her murderous spree just kind of happens. The film instead veers into softcore territory as Erin seduces male and female “victims” and becomes very interested in taking her clothes off every few minutes (just as Jack the Ripper would have wanted?). And then hacking them to death in a mix of physical blood effects and A.I backdrops.

As we hurtle towards last act revelations and a final showdown inside the mind (Quadrant helmet) of our fiery death dealer, Band delivers a showcase for his newly found A.I toys and concocts a fun finale that brought to mind a budget Freddy vs Jason smackdown. A hellish landscape, adorned with flames and extras from Dante’s Inferno sees us off into the sunset with a final dose of Mortal Kombat to send the audience on its way.

So that was Quadrant. Interesting in part, visually unique (for a schlocky B-movie) and with a concept full of potential. But all the blood, boobs and high-concept ideas aren’t enough to make the film anything more than an interesting addition to the Full Moon Studios canon. The man who had great fun pitting Demonic Toys against Puppet Masters leaves the funny at the door and delivers 73 minutes of Jack the Ripper sci-fi, that will never trouble the excellent, Jack-centric, Time After Time (1979, Dir Nicholas Meyer), or the classic Babylon 5 episode, Comes The Inquisitor (1995, Dir. Michael Vejar).

• Watch this if…. You want to see what directors, with no budget, can do with A.I.
• Avoid this if…. The hope and promise of interesting ideas, being floundered, fills you with a deep well of regret.

Quadrant is out now on Amazon Prime, Full Moon Features, and Tubi.