Jim Harper (Steven Tompkinson) is an unassuming schoolteacher, a Brit teaching the bored children of wealthy Swiss parents. A crush on a students older sister, Rochelle (Lydzia Englert), leads Harper to sneak his way to a mountain retreat where her pharmaceutical firm Risinger-Genoud is gathering notables in the corporate medical community. Unfortunately for Harper, her company has stumbled upon an experimental drug called Metazine that they wish to keep secret.

After his subterfuge to get into the conference is uncovered and he is captured, Harper is actually killed in the process of trying to escape. In efforts to revive him, they decide to give him the drug and turn him into a living guinea pig. The drug is amphetamine based and was originally given to Chechnyan soldiers. All of the soldiers who took it have fallen into a coma, though for some unexplained reason they share a connection that allows them to feel one anothers pain reflexes.

Yeah, okay, here we get to our first major failing point (actually second if you consider the stalkerish way Harper tries to meet Rochelle by sneaking into her super secret retreat)- They never explain how they intend to use this drug. The only hint given is that they think they can turn it into a ‟Prozac for the soul.‟ How you can turn an amphetamine that leads to coma where the drug takers share a physical/psychic link is beyond me. The way the drug works, Gallagher should have called his novel/mini-series The Corsican Syndrome.

Anyway, Harper escapes (again) and goes on the run. At a loss for what to do, he gets back to London and befriends a shrink who sets him up with a caretaker's job and introduces him to some people who pal around with him, including another patient, the lovely Linda (Maria Lennon). Always a good idea to have your psychiatrist hook you up with another one of his patients. Share the psychosis. Back to the story, little does Harper know that the doctor and Linda work for Risinger-Genoud and his friends at the local pub are all paid off employees?, locals? (it isn't really made clear). They continue to experiment on Harper, drugging him, which he thinks are just drunken blackouts. No joke, I cannot make this stuff up.

Folks, that is just the first 25 minutes.

This sucker is dense, and I don't mean in a good way. Innocent man with some secret weird psychic virus on the run from an evil corporation- you could call it The Contaminated Man by way of Hitchcock made by a b-level cast and crew. It was a novel, cut down into a mini-series, and then cut down even further for the DVD release. The effects of all of this amending are really strong. There is zero time establishing any kind of backstory to Harper, he's English, he's a teacher, he's in Switzerland, there you go. When the Risinger-Genoud henchman assaults him, it's a big surprise that the meek looking Harper retaliates by slamming the guys face into a storage locker. The rhythm of the film is one of odd, cut and paste spurts, totally awkward, rushed, and annoying. But editing aside, you can tell that the entire premise and most of the plot dynamics are a bit of a mess, built upon coincidence and executed sloppily.

Its an extremely weak vehicle, filled with horrible logic gaps and lacking sci-fantasy elements. The company goes from experimenting on the soldiers to dogs (literally, from Russkies to Huskies). Harper delays his first escape when he see's a dog in an underground lair, hooked up to some contraption. He gets a stun gun to the back for halting his getaway, which stops his heart and sets up the excuse for him to get injected. It also makes no sense why, after the corporation finds him again, that they set-up some false life ruse to keep experimenting on him. Why not just abduct him and whisk him away to a lab? Why risk employing Average Joe's who'll go turncoat after they feel guilty for falsely being his friends? The supposedly big evil corporation also has one henchman- that's right, one lonely little Peter Lorre wannabe- who does all the dirty work. The effects of the drug are muddled and harebrained. Harper has visions of the Russian soldiers talking to him from the realm of the dead, at one point hilariously shown as a bunch of comatose guys on a carousel. Why, I have no idea, guess they thought it would look cool. Harper's also, at plot convenient, select times, privy to the coma soldiers pain, as well as the freakin' dogs (highlighted by a silly bit where every time some Metazine victim is in pain you hear them scream along with a dog howl). He can also psychically project pain or imagined pain onto other people, but this idea is only explored in the finale where it is used in an unimaginative fashion.

Did I also mention the lousy direction and plot hysterics? Characters who leave their computers with secret documents open for anyone to read. Characters who get attacked because they blindly open a door instead using the user friendly peephole. What about our hero escaping because the henchman blindly runs into and stumbles over some knee deep trash blocking a hallway. There is more, but I wont belabor the point.

The DVD: Koch

Picture: Full-screen. Standard tv fare really. It is a fair budgeted series with some okay locations, though most are stuck to your atypical doctors office, hotel room, etc. The transfer does a pleasing job with the limited elements. Any lacking visual details are only due to the production quality and not technical transfer quirks. And besides, it is British, which means everything and everyone looks naturally pale. Hell, its Brits and Swedes, so that like pale added to pale. Plus, it takes place in Winter, so thats pale people in pale enviorns. Did I mention it was pale?

Sound: Dolby Digtal 2.0 Stereo. No Subs. Again, good job with standard tv fare. The mix is pretty plain, not exactly mediocre, not exactly thrilling.

Extras: Production Diary Notes.---Stephen Gallagher: In His Own Words (text).--- Steven Tompkinson Filmography.

Conclusion: The first sore point is that hey are trying to pass off a 3 hour mini-series into some kind of more manageable movie length thriller. If I were in charge of acquiring this property, I'd just release the whole shebang. It seems like a lot of wasted effort to try and edit the thing into a 90 minute movie because the second, and most important, sore point is that Oktober, no two ways about it, flat-out sucks. I cannot think of any good reason to waste your time with the flick. Maybe worth a rental if you are a Britflick fanatic.