What’s an Insomnia File? You know how some times you just can’t get any sleep and, at about three in the morning, you’ll find yourself watching whatever you can find on cable or streaming? This feature is all about those insomnia-inspired discoveries!

If you were having trouble getting to sleep last night, you could have logged onto Tubi and watched James Nguyen’s Replica.

Filmed in 2005 but not released until 2018, Replica tells the story of Joe Thomas (James David Braddock), a computer chip salesman who has been in a bit of a funk ever since he received a new kidney.  His sales are down.  His pet bird is mocking him by chirping loudly.  His morning drive is boring.  (We know this because, for some reason, the film shows us almost every mundane moment of that commute.)  He’s in danger of losing his job but then, while hanging out at the Golden Gate Bridge, he happens to spot Dr. Evelyn Tyler (Lana Dykstra) jogging by.  Evelyn is the same doctor who performed Joe’s kidney transplant!  Joe strikes up a conversation with her and soon, they’re dating!

(In this movie, dating means eating at a San Francisco theme restaurant, riding a carousel, and running along the beach before heading back home so that Evelyn can model a bikini for a slack-jawed Joe.)

Life is perfect!  Joe’s in love and he’s even managed to sell a gigantic amount of computer chips to Evelyn’s boss, Dr. G (Rick Camp)!  But then Evelyn is killed as the result of a very slow car collision.  Joe is in mourning.  Detective Le (David Nguyen) keeps popping up and suggesting that the car accident that took Evelyn’s life may not have been an accident at all.  (“We found semen in the body,” Detective Le earnestly says while speaking to Evelyn’s boyfriend.)  But then, one day, Joe happens to spot a woman who looks just like Evelyn, except for the fact that she has dark hair and tramp stamp that identifies her as not being Evelyn.  Quicker than you can say Vertigo, Joe is trying to get his new girlfriend to wear a blonde wig and dress just like Evelyn!

Director James Nguyen is best known for directing the Birdemic films.  Replica was actually filmed long before Birdemic but it shows that, even early in his career, Nguyen had his own definite aesthetic.  Everything that made Birdemic so memorable — the terrible sound quality, the pointless shots of people driving, the nonstop references to Hitchcock, the falling-in-love montages that suggest that Nguyen has never actually been on a date, and the suggestion that we’re supposed to take this film seriously — is present in Replica.  If Birdemic claimed to actually be about the dangers of harming the environment, Replica claims to be a film about the ethics of cloning.  While Birdemic featured the characters going out to see An Inconvenient Truth, Replica opens with Joe watching Christopher Reeve advocate for stem cell research.  Reeve is listed in the film’s credits, even though it’s obvious that Nguyen just taped an appearance that he made on a talk show.  Tippi Hedren and Kim Novak are also credited, even though both are only featured in archival footage that shows up on Joe’s television.

In typical Nguyen fashion, any attempt to say anything serious about cloning is negated by the fact that the film’s villain has invented something that he insists on calling “a clone-a-tron.”  (That said, the actor playing Dr. G overacts to such an extent that it’s hard not to appreciate his effort to bring a little life to the movie.)  The film comes out against cloning, despite the fact that Joe pretty much owes what little happiness he has to it.  All in all, it’s a pretty stupid movie but it’s also short so there’s something to be said for that.  In the end, for better or worse, this is a film that could have only been made by James Nguyen.  If you got a good laugh out of Birdemic, prepare for more of the same with Replica.

Previous Insomnia Files:

1. Story of Mankind
2. Stag
3. Love Is A Gun
4. Nina Takes A Lover
5. Black Ice
6. Frogs For Snakes
7. Fair Game
8. From The Hip
9. Born Killers
10. Eye For An Eye
11. Summer Catch
12. Beyond the Law
13. Spring Broke
14. Promise
15. George Wallace
16. Kill The Messenger
17. The Suburbans
18. Only The Strong
19. Great Expectations
20. Casual Sex?
21. Truth
22. Insomina
23. Death Do Us Part
24. A Star is Born
25. The Winning Season
26. Rabbit Run
27. Remember My Name
28. The Arrangement
29. Day of the Animals
30. Still of The Night
31. Arsenal
32. Smooth Talk
33. The Comedian
34. The Minus Man
35. Donnie Brasco
36. Punchline
37. Evita
38. Six: The Mark Unleashed
39. Disclosure
40. The Spanish Prisoner
41. Elektra
42. Revenge
43. Legend
44. Cat Run
45. The Pyramid
46. Enter the Ninja
47. Downhill
48. Malice
49. Mystery Date
50. Zola
51. Ira & Abby
52. The Next Karate Kid
53. A Nightmare on Drug Street
54. Jud
55. FTA
56. Exterminators of the Year 3000
57. Boris Karloff: The Man Behind The Monster
58. The Haunting of Helen Walker
59. True Spirit
60. Project Kill