Chimera (2018)

Kicking off with the self amputation of a finger writer director Maurice Haeems’ Chimera made me squirm in my seat. Fortunately that was just a sample of the horrors yet to come in this intelligent, but disturbing piece of biological science fiction.

Scientist Peter Quint (Henry Ian Cusick) is working on replicating the self regenerating properties of the immortal turritopsis jellyfish DNA to create super self-healing human beings. He has great motivation since the body of Jessie his wife is being kept alive on a machine, having succumbed to the degenerative disease that she passed on to Flora and Miles, their kids and now Quint is working against the biological clock to prevent the same fate happening to them. But Quint’s research is strictly off the mainstream as the USA’s religious and scientific communities have come together to deny him the desperately needed embryonic stem cells so to continue his research Quint finds himself getting into bed with some very unpleasant people who have their own dark motivations.

Masterson (Kathleen Quinlan) has her own reasons for being interested in Quint’s reseach

Desperate for foetal tissue to make the stem cells Peter is prepared to undertake some very unorthodox procedures if it means he can save his kids, but can he trust anyone to help?

Of course making difficult decisions are not made any easier by having the ghost of your comatose wife (Karishna Ahluwalia) around

This is a well made film that is both thought provoking and disturbing. Cusick is really good as the desperate father prepare to do anything to save his kids, while Kathleen Quinlan puts on a terrific turn as a really nasty villain. Fortunately the surgical procedures are brief but the real horror lies in the depths to which people are prepared to sink in order to grasp the ultimate prize.

Chimera offers an uncomfortable glimpse into our near future where deep soul searching choices have to be made. What sort of cost would you be prepared to pay for immortality? And we got The Turn of the Screw references too. We give Chimera a 555/666.

Chimera will make its UK premiere at the opening night of London International Film Festival at 7pm on Tuesday 1 May at the Stratford Picturehouse Salway Road, London E15 1BX. this will be followed by a screening at FANTBILBAO – The Bilbao Fantastic Film Festival at 4:15pm on 5 May at Golem Alhóndiga, Arriquíbar Plaza, 4, 48001 Bilbo, Bizkaia and then at the NYC Independent Film Festival at 6:45pm on 9 May at Producers Club – Theatre G, 358 West 44th Street, New York, NY.