LD50 LETHAL DOSE (2003)

The LD50 test is a terribly cruel experiment that involves the poisoning of animals to try to gain knowledge of a substances possible effect on humans. This test can cause the animals to die very slowly and painfully over a prolonged period of time. The movie LD 50 Lethal Dose, directed by Simon De Salva, is a movie which inflicts similar cruelty to its test subjects-the viewers. It poisons them with bad editing, horrible direction, and weak writing. Possible side effects can range anywhere from drowsiness, nausea, diarrhea to sudden death, you have been warned.
I had a bad feeling about this movie as soon as I noticed that Melanie Brown, aka Scary Spice of the Spice Girls was in it. If I want to watch Melanie Brown in a horror movie I would rent Spice World. Not only is Spice World far more frightening than LD 50, but it's better directed, written, and edited which is sadly not saying much. And at least you get to see Melanie bounce around like a nutter. When it comes down to it though, her performance wasn't all that bad, except for one point where she is psychically forced to go flying into midair. Her facial expression and scream were so ludicrous that I nearly pissed my pants with laughter. That said, the cast is actually more than sufficient. But what can decent actors do with a horrible script and horrible direction? I think you know the answer to that one.

The film follows a group of animal rights activists who raid a testing laboratory where animals are being cruelly treated. It all goes to hell and they have to leave one of their buddies behind when he gets caught in a sort of bear trap. That's right folks, do not go breaking into animal testing labs because there is a good chance you will get your foot caught in a bear trap. So anyway, they leave their friend behind because they don't care about humans (they are animal activists after all) and they don't want to get caught. About a year later their captured comrade gets word to them that he needs to be rescued. Being the great friends that they are, they go to infiltrate the laboratory where he's being kept, and.....to make a long idiotic story short, it turns out he's been experimented on and now has super mental powers that can make people fly around in midair, make their bodies bleed like a Scanner, control their minds, and all other sorts of dumb shit.
This unfortunate mess of a film has near nonexistent direction with simply no semblance of style, technique or a will to drive the story to a logical conclusion. The editing is just as pitiable with several scenes popping up seemingly at random. The movie feels like an undercooked 'Bubble and Squeak' with several ideas being thrown into the project without any coherence. The running time feels at least 30 minutes too long with the majority of this being crammed full of tedious dialogue and cliched characters. The only thing that kept me watching the movie was my insanely absurd hope that Melanie Brown would take off all her clothes and run around the murky laboratory singing the Spice Girl's hit song Wannabe which would eventually make the retarded looking monster's head explode. Sadly, that just never happened.

The only positive thing I can say about this movie is that the young cast shows glimmers of talent and most of them should have no problem finding work in the future, especially Katahrine Towne. They make the movie somewhat watchable at points, but having said that, LD 50 Lethal Dose is still a pathetically lame effort.