The movie opens with some people in the middle of a barren, rocky area coming across a heavily injured person. Carefully putting him on a stretcher, they take him away. These people are scientists working in a secret lab, and Doctor Stockton (Lance Henrikson!!!!) is convinced by his colleges that their dying guest is perfect for their experiments, and so injects him with a mysterious virus.
Cut to several months hence, where the scientists (minus Doctor Stockton) are discussing the very man they found previously. First off, he's become bigger (they mention this like it's the most normal thing for a vegetated human they're injecting with chemicals to do) and the rather shifty head doctor reveals he's been giving the subject a far higher dosage of the virus than they had agreed. Unbeknownst to them the subject, called Thor (I forgot what it stood for) has regained consciousness and seems to have a greatly improved sense of hearing, being able to hear the scientists talking from many rooms away. Suddenly, something goes wrong and he appears to have some sort of seizure. Desperate not to lose their months of research, the head scientist attempts to revive him and just as it seems they've lost him, the power cuts and the subject suddenly becomes very active, slaughtering one of the other scientists and capturing the head scientist. The remaining two scientists desperately try to work out what to do.
They aren't going to be alone for long however, before the subject regained consciousness, the female scientist Joanne had contacted doctor Stockton. It turns out he had left the project after he discovered that his discovery of the virus, a virus that could restore the cellular structure of humans, was to be used to create a new form of soldier, again. Stockton is just about to go camping with his son Scott (Giovanni Ribisi) and his daughter Wendy and her randy boyfriend Rob. Needless to say Stockton isn't happy to hear from Joanne asking to help with Thor (this was before Thor started killing people) but eventually starts to feel obligated and decides they can call off at the lab before camping. Scott doesn't want to go at all (thus establishing who is to play our 'troubled teen' for the movie), but eventually they all set off, not knowing there’s a murderous scientific experiment waiting for them. Meanwhile Thor is dispatching the scientists with relative ease, he’s very strong, has the aforementioned extra-good hearing, has a nifty fast healing ability, and has a nasty pointy new tongue which is very good for piercing people’s skulls in order to feed his new hunger for brains. Add to this that he’s also very upset about what the scientists did to him in the first place. Plus everyone is trapped in an underground bunker that is actually rather difficult to get out of. Bummer.
So far, so formulaic, right? Well, partly. Heck, the science fiction genre is absolutely full of this kind of story – take alien/monster/mutant, add enclosed spaces with lots of corridors, combine with a generous serving of people running away and/or getting killed, top with cheese. I have to be fair though, I became very fond of this movie while I was watching. I think the main reason was our eponymous Mind Ripper fellow. Usually in this kind of movie its some hideous thing with claws and drool-tipped teeth chasing their prey around, they’re as fantastical and unrealistic as can be. Mind Ripper is different though. Thor was a man, a man who had tried to commit suicide, only to be brought back as a vicious and bloodthirsty mutant. He even talks to a couple of the characters, and this causes the viewer to see him in a different light, even empathise with him. He never asked to be like this, but a foolish scientist who was determined to see results caused this to happen to him, I really started feeling very sorry for him. How many other movies of this ilk can you say that? Even classics like Ailen still showed the protagonist as an utterly inhuman creature that will happily slaughter everything else. Mind Ripper gives the mutant some human qualities, and that set it apart for me.
Unfortunately, a lot of this does get thrown out of the window in favour of gore and suspense, and even a little bit of character development from our young cast. The gore is okay, its kept to a minimum which sustains the impact from when it does happen, and there are a couple of decent scares. The character development though, mainly from Scott as he starts to feel remorse for the way he treats his father, is pretty superfluous and of no benefit to the plot. The actual execution of the film is pretty functional, nobody is given all that much to do except shout and wave guns around, ironically it’s the handsome Dan Blom as Thor who gets to do most of the acting as he agonises over his transformation into a brain-eating monster. There are a couple of nice shots here and there, but what can you do with a small budget and a bunch of corridors?
You can entertain, that’s what you can do, and Mind Ripper certainly achieves that. Formulaic it can be, but it still contains a few novel ideas, some nasty deaths (for the sicko who lives in us all) and a couple of scary moments should keep sci-fi horror fans contented. With exception of the extremely weak ending, this is a solid and fun movie that b-fans should definitely consider spending some time and money on.
Lets just forget that this is known as Wes Craven's Mind Ripper. His son Jonathan Craven co-wrote it, and while Wes is executive producer I have my doubts as to his level of involvement in this movie's making. Nevertheless, I'm never one to turn down a film involving people trapped in a government lab with a monster, and this actually manages to be more intriguing than some.