Hybrid

Plot synopsis:
It's an experiment in human behavior. It's an exploration of the most natural of animal impulses. It's something new under the moon. And it bites. When security dispatcher Aaron Scates is blinded in an explosion, he's put in the care of Dr. Andrea Hewlitt, famous in her field for spearheading extraordinary - though controversial - medical breakthroughs. Her newest is cross-species organ transplants, and Aaron is her first human subject. When a severely wounded wolf is brought to Dr. Hewlitt's office by museum curator Lydia Armstrong, Dr. Hewlitt leaps on the opportunity and successfully transplants the wolf's eyes to Aaron-despite Lydia's objections. Aaron, however, is thrilled. Not only can he see again, he can see in the dark. He also develops an unusually acute sense of hearing, and tears into a raw steak like never before. Unfortunately, he also begins to growl, and to target people as prey. Lydia knows why. Knowing Aaron is in danger - to himself and to others - Lydia confesses that she too is a cross-breed but has learned to channel her feral instincts into a source of strength, not violence, with the help of her shaman friend, Claude Robertson. After Lydia and Aaron explore their other animal instincts in the privacy of Lydia's lair, she takes him to Claude's for a rite-of-passage to integrate the young man's spirit with that of a wolf. But Dr. Hewitt's colleagues, who have seen Aaron's wilder side, are determined to hunt the beast down and destroy him. What they don't know is that Aaron has more on his side than a shaman and an empathetic girlfriend. He's made some new friends at the zoo. They travel in packs. And they don't need a full moon to commune.

Tags: flashback

Review:
The recipient starts becoming more and wolf-like, but the effect is nothing more than "weird eyes" and running at night with dogs!
Way too long even at 90 minutes, boring, and devoid of ideas.The military want to use the eye transplants to give wounded soldiers back their eyesight, and presumably want to militarize the technology.
Crazy.Near the end of the movie, military guys are firing machine guns over and over at trees, when obviously nothing is there - easier to place the squibs I guess.
There's a pointless confrontation at the end, and believe me I'm not spoiling anything for you - there's not enough plot to spoil.I figure the whole thing was a tax write-off or a rush job to make use of unused budget money left over from some better movie..
When the operator of security cameras of the Olaris Corporation Aaron Scates (Cory Monteith) watches one of his colleague trapped in a fire, he saves him but burns his eyes becoming blinded.
Dr. Andrea Hewlitt (Justine Bateman), who is ahead of a secret research of eye transplant, decides to use Aaron as a human subject of her experiments, successfully transplanting the eyes of a wolf found wounded by the half French half American Indian Lydia (Tinsel Korey), restoring his vision.
Lydia helps Aaron to escape from the facility and go to the woods while the government troops chase him."Hybrid" is a weird little movie with a quite original story.
The unknown Cory Monteith shows a great physical shape but the plot does not work well and in the end this film is a forgettable entertainment.
The guy they got for the lead was totally weak and when running {he did a lot} looked like he was eating those minty sweets...with his backside!
Delightful.As for the hero being stupid (as written by another the reviewer who called this movie, bad) for leaving a window open when escaping, I can only point to James Bond in Casino Royale, telling his French Colleague how he knew when Le Chiffre was bluffing at poker.
The movie made it sound like Arron was going to turn into a werewolf, instead he turned psycho and bit some doctor's throat out.
I liked it.I think it's rather important to attempt to look out through the eyes of other species on the planet, many of which we slaughter, imprison and use in painful experiments.If the movie is low budget, I think the importance of the message can be taken into consideration.Running about with wolves looks pretty pleasant to those of us who work hunched over a desk much of the time.
Another way of saying that corporate people need to get back to what's important and reconnect with the natural world.I'd like to see the sci fi channel air more movies like this.
Rather than feeling down and empty after watching nonsensical gore following a lot of hype which mainly serves to keep more of our eyes glazed on advertisers' shiny mirages no matter how good the special effects can be, we can go back to our lives feeling far better and even a bit optimistic.
Wolf or Man. Now this one did have a very interesting concept at the very beginning,, you get blinded,, and lose you're sight,, would you rather be blind rest of you're life,, or get some cool looking wolf eyes,, well heck the answer is easy ,, you go for the wolf eyes, right,, well as the movie progresses our character should have stayed blind,, he starts to develop strange wolf like behavior during the movie,, like howling,, trying to attack people,, he wants to start running with the pack and all of that good stuff, you gotta love the color of those wolf eyes, those very kewl,, what i didn't care for is the use of the stupid military in this movie again,, ihate when Hollywood has to bring in the military for a needless reason,, yeah the movie is hokey in spots sure,, and Justine Bateman is great in here also i thought,, a watchable movie indeed..
Is it just me or could the movie be better with more of him running and shots of wolves growling?
The bio-engineering transplant of wolf eyes in a young man yields devastating consequences as the wild spirit of the animal motivates him to act out his primal nature.
The scientist responsible for the successful surgery, Andrea(Justine Bateman)begins to understand that their human subject, the guinea pig they experimented on, may've had psychotic tendencies that wouldn't react too well with the transplanted eyes, and thus wishes to help him cope with such a radical change in behavior.
But, Andrea's organization is one of those secret government projects and she's up against the military who want to start up a program using her "success"(..Aaron gains senses of the wolf, like nocturnal sight, that would certainly benefit men in the field).
When Aaron escapes, the military commandos will seek him out leading a manhunt as Andrea fears for her subject's well being and stability among civilization.The werewolf genre has always yielded so few really good films.
But, the film never shows Aaron transforming into a wolf, he's often seen running with the pack, shirt off, eyes glistening.
The best part of the movie was the wolf contacts used on Monteith's eyes..but, he's not an imposing presence(..I felt Monteith is just too scrawny and non-threatening which I felt works against the film)so the eyes do little to make him a real threat towards innocents.
I think people will have a hard time believing Aaron could evade and attack his pursuers when they have such an arsenal at their disposal, but in these kinds of movies, we have to see nature defeat technological progress, and crooked government must be defeated, so HYBRID just follows the formula..
Hybrid starts as water treatment planet security guard Aaron Scates (Cory Monteith) is involved in an accident which leaves him blind.
Luckily it just so happens that brilliant scientist Dr. Andrea Hewitt (Justine Bateman) who works for Olaris has developed an operation to transplant organs from one species to another, Hewitt decides Aaron would be perfect for her first human experiment.
Hewitt & her team transplant the eyes of a Wolf into Aaron & he miraculously regains his sight.
Aaron escapes the Olaris building & goes on the run but he is too valuable to just let go & a full scale search is mounted to capture him...Directed by Yelena Lanskaya this is yet another Sci-Fi Channel offering that is quite simply put terrible in every possible way, I think it probably started out life as a straight 'Creature Feature' but ended up as one of the most boring & dull Sci-Fi Channel films I have seen that doesn't even feature any sort of monster or creature.
The initial set-up is OK with Aaron getting Wolf eyes but then Hybrid ditches the sci-fi elements & becomes some sort of horrible drama as it focuses entirely on Aaron's mental state as he wonders around doing nothing in particular with some Native American woman.
Yep, you don't think the Sci-Fi Channel could make a film about Wolves & put loads of rubbish about Native American mythology in there as well do you?
The script can't make it's mind up whether it's all in Aaron's mind or it's real, the ending is hilariously bad with a half naked (rememeber this was made for telly) Aaron running through a forest with a pack of Wolves set to some horrible music that I think is supposed to be emotional but makes it even more funny.
There are so many things wrong with Hybrid, it's slower than hell, there's virtually no action, there's no Werewolves & the film goes round in circles trying to get into Aaron's mind yet it's all so ridiculous, silly & boring you won't care one bit & there's never any explanation as to why despite just having Wolves eyes transplanted Aaron starts to develop other Wolf senses.As a diabetic I have problems with my eyes, hell I have had major surgery on my right eye & I can guarantee you that after an operation your eye would be puffed up, you wouldn't be able to open it & it would hurt like hell yet despite having eye transplants as soon as Aaron wakes up in bed his eyes are perfect with no swelling or even redness.
The acting is poor from all involved none of whom I have seen before & hopefully never again.Hybrid is a terrible film that is obviously marketed as some Werewolve 'Creature Feature' but is far from that & most people will really struggle to get to the awful ending which will probably have you in stitches..
I must say the person playing Aaron, Cory Monteith, did a good job.Unless you are really bored and there is nothing else to watch on television then I would say it will kill some time, but otherwise, it is a movie no actor would want on their resume..
Cory had no idea That he was going to be a Glee star.Also I like how they didn't actually make him actually turn into a wolf (Even though I like that sorta stuff) Because in most movies its stereotypical.
I loved the ending scene where Aaron is running with the wolves.To set some things Bill-625 said straight because they're a bit misleading:Those weren't monkeys in the lab.
Too many movies seem to magically have the pursuers knowing that the hero went out the window with no real evidence on their part to support the fact.The "grouchy old medicine man" has the important role of sending Aaron out on his spirit quest to connect with the wolf spirit.
By the way, I noticed that all the real wolves in the movie had puppy-like normal dark eyes, couldn't they have waited for such a specimen?
The story is lame, it's about this poor guy Aaron who gets these weird eye-transplants, which suddenly makes him feel like the donor-wolf (or at least, that's what I make of it) and then he's being chased by some military men.
I mean, I can understand that the army is interested in the results of the experiment (imagine soldiers with night-vision eye-sight!) but as the operation fails on account of the apparent nervous breakdown of the patient, it's beyond me why they're out to kill him.
Who the hell are these militaries anyway, I hope not the US army or the government, they behave like psychopaths, walking around the hospital waving automatic weapons, raiding private apartments like they're after some public enemy # 1, and displaying during the ultimate show-down in the woods a total lack of discipline, like a bunch of frightened schoolchildren, panicking and shooting randomly around.Aaron, for some unfathomable medical reason, feels like a wolf after the transplantation of the eyes.
And that the recipient of these eye-balls also adopts the wolf's craving for red (life-) meat and can jump off of a 30 feet high balcony and land unharmed on his all-fours like a cat (can a wolf even DO that??!).The acting (or the lack thereof) didn't help the credibility of all this either: everyone stumbles through their lines like wooden dolls, especially this Indian girl, she may be pretty but she can only come up with one expression (vexed) and some disinterested mumblings about the force of Nature, and it beats me why Aaron all of a sudden is all over her (but hey, there probably had to be at least one love-scene!).
In the end this sums up as being a silly and rather boring movie, hardly scary or thrilling, with unbelievable goings-on, a lot of overlong National Geographic-like visuals of wolves running around woods and slopes (who cares?!?), some pretentious Indian ramblings about Man and Nature and an uneven musical score with poppy songs at the most inappropriate moments.
When security dispatcher Aaron Scates (Cory Monteith, Final Destination 3) is blinded in an explosion, he's put in the care of Dr. Andrea Hewlitt (Emmy and Golden Globe nominee Justine Bateman, Arrested Development), famous in her field for spearheading extraordinary-though controversial-medical breakthroughs.
After Lydia and Aaron explore their other animal instincts in the privacy of Lydia's lair, she takes him to Claude's for a rite-of-passage to integrate the young man's spirit with that of a wolf.
Like Wolfen, The Howling, and An American Werewolf in London before it, Hybrid delivers a snarlingly sharp twist on the werewolf genre for an all new generation of animal lovers.not the best movie I've seen, yet I still would not recommend watching the movie..
Bland leading man Cory Monteith (I blame the script rather than the actor) stars as a security guard who has his eyes burnt out in a fire.
Monteith soon finds himself running in the woods at night while Native Americans, scientists, and the police hunt him down.The story is plot less and dull and what could have been the set-up for a fun, cheesy horror film is wasted through inactivity and dullness.
Never has a film been so boring as in the many scenes of Monteith walking around acting wolf-like.
A heck of a lot of stock footage of wolves is used but even when they tint it purple it doesn't look interesting.I don't mind B-movies in general and I realise that, due to their low budgets, they're never going to have the same technical qualities or level of acting you'd find in a Hollywood blockbuster.
Well this is just like that except unlike The Animal it's not even accidentally funny, but the acting is better and it's somehow more believable.Basically Justine Bateman helps a dude out by replacing his damaged eyes with wolf eyeballs.
Okay, after reading some really brutal reviews and having seen the movie myself, I'm still getting mixed feelings.It has the potential to be a good movie, but there's a lot of confusion, a ton of loose ends, and scenes that feel really out of place.Case in point, how does him having the eyes of a wolf give him the instincts and memories of one?
Obviously, you can't.The weird scene with the monkeys getting out of their cages made no sense either, and how he just runs up to the Indian girl's door 3/4 of the way through the movie and next minute they're doing it?
Hybrid did have a good idea going for it, but I was also dubious because it was a SyFy movie.
Not to mention with one too many ridiculous moments, the sequences with the baboons in the lab, the military actually leaving despite the hero character escaping through an open window(didn't know the military were this stupid) and the firing of the guns at nothing there were bad enough and the ending was contrived, but even worse was the idea of a man escaping the building after having wolf eyes, assaulting several people, walking around shirtless, biting a doctor's throat and killing a squad who try to apprehend him and then trying to make us think he is good when actually he is a psychopath.
Dr. Andera Hewlitt, Justine Bateman, has been able to successfully preform an eye transplant from a wolf to a baboon.
It's when Dr, Hewlitt comes across a blinded security guard Aaron Scates, Cory Monteith, who was badly injured at a explosion at the plant he worked at that she used the eyes of a gray wolf to restore Aaron sight.It turns out that the wolf was brought to a local animal hospital by half French half American Indian Lydia, Tinsal Korey, who expected the injured animal to be treated for it's wounds not used in an laboratory experiment.
to give Dr, Hewlitt a piece of her mind, on what she did to the injured wolf, Lydia is escorted out by security guards and told to stay within 50 feet of the place or else she'll be arrested for trespassing.It doesn't take that long for Aaron to realize that he not only has a new, and in good working order, pair of eyes but also a new sense of direction in life: That of a big and powerful Alpha Wolf!
Claud is the person who in the end would not only give the confused Aaron a reason for living, to reunite with his former wolf pack in the wild, but will save his life from the power-hungry military man Mobley, Will Woytowich.
The movie "Hybrid" doesn't get moving until Aaron completely abandons whatever human feeling he still has left and becomes a full fledged Alpha Wolf in the wild.
It's when Claud gets Aaron to understand his noble mission in life, with a whiff of ancient Native Amerian Indian wisdom, that he realizes that as much he likes his former life as a human being he's now and forever a child of the wild, and night.
Aaron goes on to leading the wolf pack like he did in his previous life as the big gray wolf who's eyes he's now seeing with..
Basically Dr. Andrea Hewlitt (Justine Bateman) and other scientists in a facility have been looking into ways to increase the potential of animals, and they have found a way to better the vision of some primates when they have gone blind with the eyes of wolves.
They are hoping to really prove the experiment works by finding a human to have the same procedure, and after he is blinded in an explosion, security dispatcher Aaron Scates (Cory Monteith) is the perfect candidate.
So when he wakes, Aaron is pleased to have his vision back through these new yellow wolf eyes, but he also has the advantage of seeing in the dark.
Soon enough though more developments come when he gains a high sense of hearing, he has horrible visions of wolves in the woods attacking and other things, and then he starts growling, and targeting people as if they were prey.
Lydia however understands how this has happened, being a human-hybrid herself, but she has channelled any animal like instincts via her shaman friend Claude Robertson (Pocahontas' Gordon Tootoosis).