When you hear the world "cryo" it usually involves fitness recovery. When you do cryotherapy you may feel like you are in some futuristic machine. For fans of pop culture icons like FUTURAMA or IDIOCRACY you will be very familiar with process of freezing to preserve someone over time. Instantly throw all of these notions out the door when you sit down to watch the very intriguing student film project from Barrett Burgin, CRYO. A cat and mouse tale of who can you trust encompasses this sci fi thriller. CRYO is a mystery driven feature that will have you guessing until the end. For most it worn't be the films saving grace.
CRYO features five individuals who have all woken up in cryo sleep chamber with no recollection of how they got there and who they are. Soon identities start to present themselves as each person finds out what tools they bring to the surface. Still with an unknown world outside of the underground facility and no direct answer on what the experiment is a level of mistrust starts to build. A classic how did we get here movie that does a fairly good job of making the viewer guess to what is really going on. Typical things start to happen so unfortunately for CRYO it starts to taper off as each lie or act is done among the group. We have all seen these films before and I believe its a reason why THE THING has always been the standout to this style of film. CRYO really tries to grab the attention of the viewer with subdued twists and turns to keep one guessing. It's just too bad for CRYO that we have seen this act too many times before and there is no fresh air that it can bring to the genre. The ending of the film has its moment for a short time but not enough substance to make CRYO a repeated watch.
Fans that enjoy a nice and easy "who dunnit" sci fi thriller won't have any issues with CRYO. Honestly for a school project film CRYO is very well done with out using any crazy cgi or practical effects. Like most films in the festival CRYO is more of a human interest film laid on top of an apocalyptic setting. I'll be curious to the response of the film for most as while it's one of the better student productions out there. It's still too predictable of film to make it shimmer in the sci fi genre troupe.
2/5
CRYO is directed by Barret Burgin and stars Jyllian Petrie, Mason D. Davis, Morgan Gunter and Curt Doussett.
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