Matthew Warner blows the competition out of the water. How? Because the writer and director is a high-performance, CGI-animated engine of creativity. In fact, he’s the most complete example of a one-man-band filmmaker I’ve seen. Yes, folks, it’s all on display here in the stylized, chilling, elevated sci-fi thriller, The Cryonic Pharaoh.
Based on the director’s original short story, our story is a dark take on Rip Van Winkle and focuses on a man waking from a 10,000-year cryogenic coma. But, something’s rotten in Denmark for this underground bunker Buck Rogers. The cryonaut, after getting his bearings, discovers that all the other team members sent down into the bunker on a mission to help return the species to the surface following the apocalypse are all dead. The spooky part of this equation is that he doesn’t remember a thing. Did he do this? Is the bunker haunted by someone or something?
“The cryonaut…discovers that all the other team members sent down into the bunker…are all dead.”
The missing memory element makes watching The Cryonic Pharaoh so satisfying. Our mysterious protagonist’s part in his descent into psychological hell reveals itself as the plot unfurls like an onion in this THX 1138-sterile version of The Shining, tossed with tasty chunks of Pandorum and Passengers, and a dash of Day of the Dead. The more the only man awake reaches back into his memory, the scenes which provoked his own severely delusional illusion, the scenes of what actually happened, float to the surface, and the question becomes whether this bunker should remain sealed in order to keep in the angel of death or set him free? Especially since our hero discovers trace evidence that he may not be alone.
Warner’s work on The Cryonic Pharaoh is at once impeccable and efficient. It is intriguing and enticing, and gets moreso the deeper the story goes. As a self-contained artist, this type of ingenuity and industry deserves attention. I close my eyes, and in an ideal world, I see a live-action feature of this directed by David Fincher and written by Alex Garland. Well done, Mr. Warner, well done.
"…intriguing and enticing..."
