Metalbeast

At the U.S. Secret Operations Center a small group of doctors led by Kim Delaney are experimenting with a metallic skin on a frozen cadaver. This particular body is that of a secret agent that succumbed twenty years earlier to self injection of a blood sample from a...werewolf. Barry Bostwick plays the evil Colonel harboring the blueprints for this gruesome experiment. Thus the Government has given life to a wolf-like creature with metal skin. The only reason I watched this is Kim Delaney. I'd watch her do a puppet show! Also in the cast are: Brian Brophy, Carole Davis, Tim Duquette and Kane Hodder as the MetalBeast. Pretty bad movie except for the last twenty minutes or so.

After finding, killing and extracting a blood sample from a werewolf in Europe, a soldier injects himself with it's DNA, turning himself into a werewolf in an American military base, where he's captured and cryogenically frozen. Flash foreword 10 years, where scientists are given the man's body for an experiment involving a metal-based, organic, self-restoring skin. Upon giving the soldier the skin graph, he awakens and turns into a werewolf, but this time faster, meaner, shinier and bullet proof. I picked this movie up the other day from my local video store for $2, as they are going out of business and need to sell all their videos. I grabbed as many as I could carry home, "Project: Metalbeast" being one of them. Despite the terrible title and having heard nothing of it before, "Metalbeast" turned out to be an okay way to kill 90 minutes in my book. It's got a script that's more intelligent than your usual straight-to-video horror flick, a decent score, some likable characters, a couple of gory bits (the highlight being the death of the creature at the end), and even John Carl Buechler's creature effects weren't bad, though the Metalbeast itself looks more like a Hedgehog on crack than a werewolf. Granted, the film never steps very far out of genre territory, and the portrayal of both the scientists and the military are as clichéd as can be but in the end, "Project: Metalbeast" offered a fine dose of gore, monster action, and a interesting concept that puts a nice spin on the werewolf myth.

$2 well spent, I say.

6/10.

I saw "Project: Metalbeast" last time when I was a kid. After that, I completely forgot about it. Recently I watch it again, and have to say, it's wasn't that bad.

Story starts with two soldiers coming to Hungary who kill a werewolf. They take his blood for the purposes of military experiment (this never gets old) to create a super-soldier. Of course, things turn rotten, and project is shut down. Flash forward ten years after those events, research continues, but naturally, everything goes wrong.

Shot on low budget, Metalbeast surprised me. It looked lot better then most of the direct-to-video(TV) movies of it's era. FX are also very descent with nice amount of gore. Script is also lot better then it appears to be, with some interesting moments thrown here and there. Of course, movies doesn't go too far from it's genre, leaving most of the clichés intact, but surprisingly, they kinda work in this movie. While true acting talents are pretty limited, Barry Bostwick and Kim Delaney (who would latter star in NYPD Blue) save most of the picture.

Negative side: Movie suffers from pace. It tends to slow down from time to time, has relatively slow start, but luckily becomes bit faster as the movie progress. Some dialogs are corny, but that's not a big problem. You are watching a movie about genetically enchanted werewolf with "indestructible" skin after all. I start laughing just when I say that.

Overall, "Project: Metalbeast" definitively is not a masterpiece, but it's a descent and unusual take on werewolf genre. If you are fan of werewolf movies, you might like this. You might like this if you don't have high standards for horror movies, but if you are looking for Hitchockian movie, you should avoid it.

I RENTED this movie and i thought it would be a waste of time like these unheard of low budget movies usually are ,but i was little surprised to see that it was actually pretty good(not great or anything but pretty good for a low budget film) so if you like werewolf movies like i do and your lying in bed bored go ahead and rent it(if you like werewolf movies).my wife hated it of course but for the true horror fan it's not a complete waste of time.out of four stars for a low budget movie i give it ** stars

In 1974, two American agents are sent to Hungary by his superior Miller (Barry Bostwick) to get werewolf blood for a secret project for the creation of an invincible warrior. One of the men dies and the other decides to inject the blood in himself, being killed by Miller. There is a shutdown of the secret project. Twenty years later, the scientist Anne de Carlo (Kim Delaney) is carrying out a research of mettalic skin to replace burned ones under the command of Miller, and the body of the dead agent is delivered for the experiment. The agent is transformed in a kind of killing metallic werewolf.

"Project: Metalbeast" is a low-budget movie, with a screenplay wirhout originality. I do not know how many films I have seen with similar storyline. The villain performed by Barry Bostwick is the best this movie can offer. My vote is four.

Title (Brazil): "Metalbeast"

Note: On 07 June 2024, I saw this film again.