Oktober Movie Review

Mild-mannered man's on the run from evil corporation. Why? Because he carries a secret enzyme that could turn him into a powerful biological weapon.

Believe it or not, the internalized bioterror story has been made before, and like Oktober it didn't make much of an impact (it was called Contaminated Man and went straight to cable as far as I remember). Why doesn't this story work? Because in a movie, when you can't see the danger, it doesn't exist. The deadliness of the killer enzyme just isn't that credible as a threat. (Contrast with Outbreak, which at least had wheezing, sore-covered cadavers popping up all over the place. Enzyme boy doesn't even know he's the carrier monkey.)

Stephen Tompkinson stars as our enzymatic miracle man, and he doesn't make a terribly memorable impression. The story (based on director Stephen Gallagher's own book, which I can't find anywhere), is slow and plodding. Even when the manhunt for Tompkinson is on, the tale revolves around the kind of silly coincidences and pat plot points you see in every made-for-TV movie ever made.