Jocelyn Stamat, “Laboratory Conditions” (2017)
A very tight little film with an unexpected twist, “Laboratory Conditions” initially presents as a crime or murder mystery starting in a small urban hospital. Dr Emma Holloway (Marisa Tomei), on duty late at night, finds that one of her patients George Lockwood (John Kearney), not expected to survive the night, has suddenly gone missing. She sees a mystery van in the hospital car park and guesses his body might be inside that van. She follows the van to a nearby medical school and discovers that some of the staff employed in the neuroscience department, led by Dr Marjorie Kane (Minnie Driver), are conducting a secret and dangerous experiment with Lockwood. Dr Holloway protests what Dr Kane and her team are doing, that Lockwood and his family have not given their consent for his body to be used in whatever experiment Dr Kane is doing. Dr Kane goes ahead with the experiment with Dr Holloway an unwilling spectator. Dr Holloway ends up seeing rather more than anyone had anticipated and comes to realise that Dr Kane’s experiment has opened up a portal for forces from another, more demonic dimension to come to Earth.
The stereotyped plot does have a whiffy smell of horror once Dr Holloway starts seeing Lockwood’s soul. What keeps the film together is the excellent acting from Tomei and Driver whose characters quickly fall into a duel over Lockwood’s body. Paulo Constanzo provides a good foil as Dr Kane’s deputy who is sympathetic towards Dr Holloway’s concerns. Both Dr Holloway and Dr Kane represent very different sets of values, each set contradictory in itself: Dr Holloway wants her patient back, she is concerned that he has been taken away against his will and that he may be in pain in his last moments; Dr Kane is fascinated by the possibility that science will finally be able to demonstrate that souls do exist and that the moment of death or when a soul leaves a body can be pinpointed and measured. Dr Holloway’s sensitivity towards her patient’s needs allows her to have the gift of second sight that Dr Kane, with her zeal, her lack of empathy for others, and perhaps desire for fame will never experience. Neither doctor nor Dr Kane’s team, save perhaps one (Lisa Renee), anticipates what happens when Lockwood finally dies, apparently escaping the clutches of Hell.
The film maintains and directs suspense and tension very well with its dark colours and shadows, its ominous music and the fine cast of actors who carry the whole plot and its themes. The duel between the two doctors is conducted completely in their dialogue, the emotion in their voices and their body language. Not a moment is wasted as the plot and the tension come to a brisk climax and Dr Holloway finds herself having to make a decision that might put an end to Dr Kane’s experiments but also jeopardise her own survival as well as the rival doctor’s life.