This medical conspiracy plays on the fear of hospitals. Directed by Michael Crichton, who had earlier made the influential sci-fi thriller Westworld, this one taps into his experience in the medical profession. The story revolves around a hospital where there have been a disproportionately high number of anaesthesia-induced comas in healthy young patients; a doctor becomes suspicious and ultimately uncovers a sinister conspiracy.
This is a nicely handled thriller, which plays upon the notion of something not being right in a trusted institution. As the story progresses more layers re uncovered until we find ourselves at the pleasingly sinister Jefferson Institute, a mysterious experimental facility, a brutalist architectural lover's dream. Making matters even more intriguing, there is a very ominous medical administrator working there, really well played by Elizabeth Ashley. Inside this threatening building, we discover that there are dozens of coma patients suspended from the ceiling in a large, cavernous room. The whole Jefferson Institute section of the movie is the part which made what could otherwise have been a very run-of-the-mill conspiracy thriller its striking imagery and most unambiguously cinematic moments. It turns out, of course, that this sinister place is the hub of an illegal market in human organs and the coma victims soon end up dead meat. It's a very effective set of ideas which has one foot at least in sci-fi-horror territory. Its kind of like a David Cronenberg movie with a bit more mainstream accessibility.
This is a nicely handled thriller, which plays upon the notion of something not being right in a trusted institution. As the story progresses more layers re uncovered until we find ourselves at the pleasingly sinister Jefferson Institute, a mysterious experimental facility, a brutalist architectural lover's dream. Making matters even more intriguing, there is a very ominous medical administrator working there, really well played by Elizabeth Ashley. Inside this threatening building, we discover that there are dozens of coma patients suspended from the ceiling in a large, cavernous room. The whole Jefferson Institute section of the movie is the part which made what could otherwise have been a very run-of-the-mill conspiracy thriller its striking imagery and most unambiguously cinematic moments. It turns out, of course, that this sinister place is the hub of an illegal market in human organs and the coma victims soon end up dead meat. It's a very effective set of ideas which has one foot at least in sci-fi-horror territory. Its kind of like a David Cronenberg movie with a bit more mainstream accessibility.