Just securing a ‘certified fresh’ rating on Rotten Tomatoes is a major accomplishment in and of itself. Achieving that distinction and cracking the platform’s list of the top 200 horror movies of all time is an honor bestowed on only a select few. Writer/director Leigh Whannell is among the elite filmmakers who have achieved both noteworthy distinctions. His ‘certified fresh’ sci-fi horror Upgrade claims the #77 spot on the Rotten Tomatoes top 200 list. Well played, sir.
The setup for this Rotten Tomatoes-approved chiller goes as follows:
A brutal mugging leaves Grey Trace paralyzed in the hospital and his beloved wife dead. A billionaire inventor soon offers Trace a cure—an artificial intelligence implant called STEM that will enhance his body. Now able to walk, Grey finds that he also has superhuman strength and agility—skills he uses to seek revenge against the thugs who destroyed his life.
The flick received a wide theatrical release but only pulled in about $11 million at the box office. If you missed this action-packed effort during its cinematic exhibition, I implore you to stream Upgrade while it’s on Netflix. What have you got to lose? Absolutely nothing. If you’re a physical media fan, you may even want to track down a copy of the flick on Blu-ray. It’s pretty exceptional.
Although some may argue that it’s not quite the same level of prestige, Upgrade was also featured in my Rondo Hatton Award-nominated Dread Central column, The Overlooked Motel. In my coverage, I likened the film to Robocop meets early Cronenberg. And I think that’s a fitting description. This picture exists at the intersection of body horror and paranoid tech thriller.
In my write-up, I went on to say, “The fight choreography and the accompanying cinematography are truly next level. Grey (Logan Marshall-Green) looks like a human but moves like a machine. And instead of cutting away or showing the action from a distance, we see everything up close.”
Aside from Logan Marshall-Green in the lead role, the film also features appearances by Melanie Vallejo, Steve Danielsen, Abby Craden, Harrison Sloan Gilbertson, Benedict Hardie, and Richard Cawthorne.
Stay tuned to the site for more updates on which genre films are available to stream and where to find them. If you’d like to chat more about overlooked and underrated genre pictures, seek me out on Threads.
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