Category Archives: Pharmaceutical Experiments

Abduction, Abuse of Women, Amputation as revenge, Arrogant boss, Based on a Book, Bloody scenes, Could Be Hard To Watch, Detective, Disturbing Image, Drama, Father-daughter relations, Flashbacks, Forensic pathologist, Forensics, French Detectives, Grim, Jealousy, Love Story, MHz Choice, Multiple Sclerosis, Murder, Murder Investigation, Nudity, Occasional gore, Pharmaceutical Experiments, Police Culture, Prison, Psychopath, Rape, Rape Victim, Revenge, Romance, Serbian genocide of Bosnians, Serial Killer, Serial rapist, Single Father, Suicide, Suspense

Inspector La Brea (2009)

From Global Screen:

Based on the successful detective novels by Alexandra von Grothe. Mourning his wife’s death, Inspector Maurice LaBréa leaves Marseilles for Paris with his daughter Jenny. But Paris is no respite, for a ghastly copycat killer is imitating a killing spree around the Bastille that went on ten years ago.

From MHz Choice you can stream 3 episodes of this German language detective series set in Paris with English subtitles. Each episode lasts about an hour and a half.

All the crimes are ugly and brutal. Mutilated bodies are par for the course.

However, the central theme running through all the episodes is LaBrea’s loving concern for his daughter Jenny who encourages him to romance his beautiful painter neighbor who often takes care of Jenny when duty so often calls.

  • Episode 1: The Beast of the Bastille.
  • Episode 2: Murder in the Rue St. Lazare
  • Episode 3: Deadly Dreams in Montparnasse.

Somewhat old fashioned, nothing special, but plots consist of a nice contrast between the grim crimes and LaBrea’s personal life.

Acceptable Sci-Fi, Action sequences, Anxiety Attacks, Big Pharma, Controlling personality, Corrupt Pharmaceutical Firm, Discussions about Emotions, Disturbing Image, Drug trip, Ending too convenient a solution, Ethical struggles, Fight Scenes, Human experimentation, Incompetent or unfit mother, Medical Theme, Must suspend disbelief, Narcissistic Personality, Netflix Streaming, Occasionaly violent, Pharmaceutical Experiments, Psychological Drama, Psychological Thriller, Romance, Unscrupulous drive to power

Spiderhead (2022)

From IMDB:

This film is set in the not too distant future. Convicted criminals are used as Guinea pigs in the hope that they can get their sentences shortened, by volunteering to take new synthetic drugs that a pharmaceutical company manufactures. This film focuses on pills that are given to such criminals, to make them feel many emotions, but mostly “Love”. One particular patient struggles with these feelings and starts to question if it’s all in his head. And so he starts on a path to get to the truth.

From Netflix:

A prisoner in a state-of-the-art penitentiary begins to question the purpose of the emotion-controlling drugs he’s testing for a pharmaceutical genius.

From Netflix you can stream this 1 hour 47 minute complete film.

Abnesti, the director and pharmaceutical genius in the island fortress, is played by a scholarly looking Chris Hemsworth wearing aviator glasses no less.  Miles Teller plays Jeff, the convict that proves to be Abnesti’s foil.

Be prepared for a bit of ugliness as one of Abnesti’s experiments lead to a convict’s suicide.

Give the film a B- if for no other reason then that the ending is just too conveniently contrived. Still, the entire conceit is thought provoking and worth a watch.