Cloned: The Recreator Chronicles (2013)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company: Recreator Labs
 

Runtime: 90 mins

Format: Screener

Plot: Three teenagers stumble upon a secret laboratory while on a camping trip and encounter superior clones of themselves. Duplicates; Doubles; Recreations; they are exact copies of Craig, Tracy and Derek, and the teenagers are no match for their physically stronger, faster, and all-around better selves. Their only hope is to outwit them and to escape before they are replaced.

Review: Alongside a screener for Attack of the Herbals, I was also sent another screener by MTI Home Video for a movie they recently distributed here in The U.S and Canada titled Cloned: The Recreator Chronicles, a movie I had heard nothing about before seeing this screener, but was pretty excited to check out based on just the title alone - after all, I always love me some clone action!

This one starts off with a group of fun-loving teens going camping in the woods one weekend and during a really bad storm have to seek shelter in a nearby seemingly-abandoned cottage. Shortly after, identical clone copies of them pop up out of nowhere to save them from being attacked by the murderous couple who own the cottage, but it isn't long before its clear that these aren’t exactly identical clones – they are stronger, faster, mind game-playing evil clones that are out to replace the originals, which provided plenty of great tension-filled scenes. Actually, one of the things I enjoyed most about this movie was that it was never dull. It pretty much started off jumping right into the main plot pretty quickly, with something interesting happening almost every step of the way, or some sort of attention-grabbing scene going on to keep your focus rooted on the movie. Granted, there is a short bit in the middle where things slowed a bit, but it was only for a little bit and even during that it was still kind of fun to watch the characters interacting with their mysterious cloned copies.

Which brings me to another of the movie's really strong points. Each of the main actors here all did an excellent job, especially considering that each had to essentially play two characters, a good version and an evil version of themselves, which all of them did really well, never making it confusing as to which one we were watching. There was even some good twists toward the end as well, one of which I really loved that had to deal with one of the characters and their clone essentially switching roles for the climax. Of course with a movie like this, the majority of the fun comes from watching the evil versions of everyone as they loved to play mind games with the Originals and screw around with them - in both meanings of that phrase. See, another thing the movie has going for it is that it has plenty of good eye candy; steamy sex scenes, changing-clothes scenes, shower scenes, skinny dipping scenes, and walking around naked scenes. The only thing I love more then an evil clone babe? An evil clone babe that seems to have an allergy to wearing clothes!

There are a couple minor things I wasn't a fan of though. For instance, it takes way too long to start explaining what's going on in the movie, so during a lot of the scenes instead of really paying attention, your mind is instead focused on trying to come up with explanations as to what the deal is with these clones, where they came from, why they're doing what they're doing, and all that. I feel if they had explained some of that a bit earlier in the movie instead of saving it for the final little bit, it would have made things a bit more clear and my mind wouldn't have been wandering to try to piece things together quite so much. Especially since it's not like it's a part of some big twist or anything, I mean, we know right off the bat that these are evil clones, so it's more of just filling in some backstory on them a bit sooner then it actually does.

I also wasn't such a fan of the fact that none of these people seem to be freaked out or even care by the fact that exact duplicate copies of themselves just showed up at the door. They go around for most of the movie acting normal about this, as if these people were long-time friends that showed up to party with them. They eat and drink with them, play games with them, chat with them, screw around with them (again, in both senses of the word), as if it was no big deal that they're mysterious clones. I would have liked to see much more of the reactionary mental impact of that, but they kind of get over it and move on really quickly. The sole exception is the one teen that leaves right away because he doesn't want to deal with any of it and returns later in the movie to help save the day (which itself is kind of a plot hole since the clones are supposed to know what their Originals are going to do at any given time, so why didn't his clone know he was sneaking around and planning an attack?).

This movie was a pleasant surprise to me that while far from great, was a decent enough little time waster on this rainy day that I certainly don't regret watching. The fact that the actual title during the opening credits is simply 'The Recreator Chronicles', and then the subtitle of 'Cloned' comes up a few minutes later into the movie has me thinking that this was merely Part 1 in a pre-planned series. However, direct-to-video B-Movies, especially this day in age, very rarely get sequels so I wouldn't hold my breath for one, although I'd be thrilled if we actually get it. 

7/10 rooms in the Psych Ward