In my opinion, Depraved is not a horror movie per se. It's certainly not the cheesy B-movie the title and the movie's poster suggest.
What we have is a low-budget but very effective take on the classic Frankenstein story with a dash of Monkey's Paw. Only this time, it is from the perspective of "the monster" - who is much less of a monster than the people who pieced him together and is rather more of a hapless individual trying to learn to fit in in a confusing society.
There is tension here, but no cheap jump scares. Depraved is a sad, bleak, hopeless tale and some of the scenes emotionally affected me in a way few movies ever could. It is not very easy to elicit genuine sympathy for a movie character, especially if that character is a stitched-together abomination.
There are problems with Depraved, sure. The trippy visual effects look very cheap, some shots are reused to an annoying degree in "flashback" scenes, and several plot points, events and character interactions border on the impossible (along with the central premise, which requires a heavy dose of suspension of disbelief). This last issue, however, also gives the story a slightly surreal, ethereal quality that works to its advantage. There are also some plot threads that remain unresolved and could definitely be built upon some more. All of that being said, however, Depraved is still a unique and evocative movie and a gripping watch.
