Victor, a pioneering and experimental genetic scientist, has done the impossible, cloned a living human baby and named the girl Elizabeth.  Obsessed with learning from his creation, Victor works tirelessly, neglecting his wife and two children.  He also neglects a dark secret from his past that threatens everything he’s worked for and achieved.  Religious group and lawful prosecutors blind him from the underlining and he continues with his research, diving deeper into the mysteries of Elizabeth.  When Victor’s dark past catches up with him and reveals itself, he becomes forced into protecting his family and his creation Elizabeth from harm.

The Billy Senese sophomore written and directed film about the inevitable consequences of cloning shares a familiar similarity to being an adult version of Larry Cohen’s monster baby macabre “Its Alive.”  Instead of hideous and murderous Davies baby, “A Frankenstein Story” caters more to realism with a deformed, genetically developed child growing up in pain and in secret.  Senese tunes into a style that’s comparable to the likes of “Contagion” director Steven Soderbergh, soaked in a contrast of composure and slightly solemn.

The “A Frankenstein Story” title is a UK title.  In the USA, the film goes more recognizably under “Closer to God,” which is a line withdrawn from the film, and while I do think “Closer to God” is a more suitable title, the gothic-like title has holds water in an off color way.  Aside from a man creating a human out of biological genetics instead of using body parts and electricity, the Senese film homages the old Mary Shelley tale in some other respects.  Lead actor Jeremy Childs plays Victor and we all know Victor is a the first name to the titular character Victor Frankenstein in Shelley’s story.  Also, Senese, wether intentionally or not, has envisioned and dressed Childs as the creator and the monster.  Victor is toweringly tall, freakishly broad shoulders, and has a square like face, making him appear like The Creature.

Senese’s narrative has promise at the very beginning and the very end with everything else in between being quite stagnant in developing and displaying Victor’s awfully well hidden secret.  There also isn’t any exposed motivation between Victor, and some of the other characters, in behind the laboratory conceiving of Elizabeth.  The only conclusion that’s explicit is that Victor becomes obsessed with being God, a very fine line between being human and the Almighty, putting the science more in the background and putting his fatherly strides first in defeating nature.

The High Fliers Films DVD hit retail shelves in the UK this past Tuesday, January 25th.  The disc was a DVD-R review screener and contained just the film so I can’t speak upon or review the bonus material or the film’s quality.  However, we’re not totally sold on Billy Senese take on the mad scientist genre, even with a semi-favorable review.  The last 15 minutes is intense, tragic, and compelling that the second act needed so desperately to keep interest and to keep the story developing along.