''Depraved'' is a 2019 American horror film written and directed by

Larry Fessenden Laurence T. Fessenden (born March 23, 1963) is an American actor, producer, writer, director, film editor, and cinematographer. He is the founder of the New York based independent production outfit Glass Eye Pix. His writer/director credits inclu ...

and starring

David Call David Steven Call (born August 14, 1982) is an American actor. Personal life Call was born in Issaquah, Washington. He is a graduate student of the Tisch School of the Arts and the Atlantic Theater Company Acting School. Acting career Call's ...

and

Joshua Leonard Joshua Granville Leonard (born June 17, 1975) is an American actor, writer, and director, known for his role in ''The Blair Witch Project'' (1999). He has since starred in films such as '' Madhouse'' (2004), '' The Shaggy Dog'' (2006), '' Higher G ...

. It is a modern version of

Mary Shelley Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (; ; 30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel '' Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' (1818), which is considered an early example of science fiction. She also ...

's ''

Frankenstein ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus'' is an 1818 novel written by English author Mary Shelley. ''Frankenstein'' tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific exp ...

''.

Plot

Suffering from PTSD following his stint as an army medic, Henry now works feverishly in his Brooklyn laboratory to forget the death he witnessed overseas by creating life in the form of a man cobbled together from body parts. After procuring a brain from an unwitting victim, his creation—Adam—is born. But it soon seems that giving life to Adam was the easy part; teaching him how to live in a dark and troubled world may be perilous.

Cast

as Henry *

as Polidori * Alex Breaux as Adam * Ana Kayne as Liz *

Maria Dizzia Maria Teresa Dizzia (born December 29, 1974) is an American actress. Dizzia was nominated for the 2010 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Featured Actress in a Play for her performance in '' In the Next Room (or The Vibrator Play)''. Early lif ...

as Georgina *

Chloe Levine Chloe (; ), also spelled Chloë, Chlöe, or Chloé, is a feminine name meaning "blooming" or "fertility" in Greek. The name ultimately derives, through Greek, from the Proto-Indo-European root ', which relates to the colors yellow and green. T ...

as Lucy * Owen Campbell as Alex *

Addison Timlin Addison Jayne Timlin (born June 29, 1991) is an American actress, best known for her roles as Jami Lerner in '' The Town That Dreaded Sundown'' (2014) and Colleen Lunsford in '' Little Sister'' (2016). She is also known for playing Sasha Bingham ...

as Shelley * Chris O'Connor as Mr. Beaufort * Alice Barrett as Mrs. Beaufort * Andrew Lasky as Sam the Bartender * Jack Fessenden as Eddie * James Tam as Mr. Zhang * Zilong Zee as Mr. Ling * Noah Le Gros as Soldier Adam * John Speredakos as Officer Spano * Hope Blackstock as Officer Flores * Stormi Maya as Strip Club Bartender * Rev Love as Stripper #1 * Hannah Townsend as Stripper #2

Release

''Depraved'' made its worldwide debut on March 20, 2019 at the

IFC Center IFC Center is an art house movie theater in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. Located at 323 Sixth Avenue (Avenue of the Americas) at West 3rd Street, it was formerly the Waverly Theater, an art house movie theater. IFC Center is ow ...

's What The Fest!? Film Festival. On May 13 that same year, it was announced that

IFC Midnight IFC Films is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its Sun ...

acquired American distribution rights to the film.

Reception

On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

, ''Depraved'' holds an approval rating of based on reviews, with an average score of . The site's consensus reads: "A thrillingly effective update on a classic story, ''Depraved'' jolts a familiar monster back to life with a potent blend of timely themes and old-school chills." On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...

, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100, based on 10 critics, indicating "generally positive reviews". David Ehrlich of ''

IndieWire IndieWire (sometimes stylized as indieWIRE or Indiewire) is a film industry and review website that was established in 1996. The site's focus was predominantly independent film, although its coverage has grown to "to include all aspects of Holl ...

'' graded the film a B. Anya Stanley of ''

Dread Central Dread Central is an American website founded in 2006 that is dedicated to horror news, interviews, and reviews. It covers horror films, comics, novels, and toys. Dread Central has won the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Award for Best Website ...

'' awarded the film three stars out of five. Katie Rife of ''

The A.V. Club ''The A.V. Club'' is an American online newspaper and entertainment website featuring reviews, interviews, and other articles that examine films, music, television, books, games, and other elements of pop-culture media. ''The A.V. Club'' was cr ...

'' awarded the film a B- and found that Fessenden did something interesting with what is "the umpteenth adaptation of a centuries-old classic." Jeannette Catsoulis of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' called it Fessenden's "most coherent and visually polished work to date" while still finding it a little "overlong."

TheWrap ''TheWrap'' is an American online news website covering the business of entertainment and media via digital, print and live events. It was founded by journalist Sharon Waxman in 2009. Awards ''TheWrap'' has won awards for its journalism, incl ...

's William Bibbiani was more critical saying "as a whole it contributes little to the “Frankenstein” tradition, other than a reminder that this has all been done before, mostly better."

References

External links

* * {{rotten-tomatoes, depraved 2019 films 2019 horror films American science fiction horror films Glass Eye Pix films Frankenstein films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films