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This 1996 movie has a great promise to pose a lot of questions as to the nature of identity. A pity really, that it has a budget of around ?5.99.

The premise is anything but simple.

Andre Fuller, a street criminal with no morals, accidentally witnesses the murder of his parents by the corrupt, totalitarian government when he was young. Andre becomes a thief and a gun-runner because of this, selling his ill-gotten weaponry to any group willing to fight the oppressive government regime.

In dealings with one such resistance cell, led by a young, angry woman called Gabriel, things go a bit awry, and Andre ends up framed by one of his own gang, for her rape and murder.

Life corporation, or the government as it is also known, is testing a new method of capital punishment, and Andre gets to be one of the guinea pigs. His mind is transplanted into a repaired Gabriel?s body, and is brainwashed into being an acceptable member of society, with the new name, Celeste.


The film is based on the novel ?Shadow of the Witch? by Hank Stine. However, due to an insanely low budget, and a director who appears to have ADHD, much of the film?s potential for discussing the ramifications of identity when a mind can switch from body to body, and gender is not set in stone, has been lost.

The questions are there. Many are posed during the increasingly ludicrous set pieces and low-tech explosions, however, they are never fully answered. A shame as this film had the potential to be so much more.

 

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