Mutação Maligna

Another horror film from that age where the sun was setting on the Italian exploitation film industry, only this one is directed by George Eastman, which I'm sure no one's mentioned on here yet.

This one involves a guy called Houseman who's a basketball playing, hip genetics professor who kind of looks a bit like Clark Kent. Some lady looking into funding of research forces all projects to show what they are doing which leads to Houseman having to hurry things up and inject himself with some serum that may stop people ageing. He's not angry at that chick by the way, and they end up in the sack fairly early on in the film. Also, this chick has a kid and he looks terrified of all the actors, just like that kid who acted alongside The Hoff in Witchcraft.

The prof hasn't watched Cronenberg's The Fly remake, however (although I'm sure Eastman has), so it comes as a surprise to him when he's feeling great but having blackouts which involved beating the crap out of Laura Gesmer, and then eventually getting worse and worse until it seems like Luigi...I mean George...has replaced half of this film with the last half of Phantom of Death. So he either goes all green eyed or ends up like an ancient old man. And you know that chick has the serum that could cure him...

I'll be frank here: It's fifty eight minutes into the film before we get our first kill. Nearly an hour! Before then, you've a lot of genetic talk, romance, an old enemy trying to one up our Prof, loads of ancient computers and such like. Luckily the acting is pretty bad and it's all neon and eighties like.

Thinks finally pick up a bit when Houseman gets even more mutated and starts wasting the cast (about time too), there's a smattering of gore here, but not enough. I'm giving a six because the cheese factor is very high, and the two 'twists' at the ending are hilarious and kind of worth all the wait, but this is kind of a poor film from an era of poor films.

Meet Peter Houseman, rock star genetic professor at Virgina University. When he's not ballin' on the court he's blowing minds and dropping panties in his classroom lectures. Dr. Houseman is working on a serum that would allow the body to constantly regenerate cells allowing humans to become immortal. I'd want to be immortal too if I looked like Christian Bale and got the sweet female lovin that only VU can offer. An assortment of old and ugly university professors don't care for the popular Houseman and cut off funding for his project due to lack of results. This causes Peter to use himself as the guinea pig for his serum. Much to my amazement there are side effects and he, get this, metamorphoses! into something that is embedded into our genetic DNA that has been repressed for "millions of years". He also beds Dr. Mike's crush Sally after a whole day of knowing her. She has a son. His name is Tommy. He is an angry little boy.

Metamorphosis isn't a terrible movie, just not a well produced one. The whole time I watched this I couldn't get past the fact that this was filmed in 1989. The look and feel of the movie is late seventies quality at the latest. It does not help that it's packaged along with 1970's movies as Metamorphosis is part of mill creek entertainment's 50 chilling classics. There is basically no film quality difference whatsoever. The final five minutes are pure bad movie cheese that actually, for me at least, save the movie from a lower rating. Pay attention to the computer terminology such as "cromosonic anomaly". No wonder Peter's experiment failed. Your computer can't spell! This is worthy of a view followed by a trip to your local tavern.

A young basketball-playing professor of genetics is doing research on the genetic sequence, using human fetuses. He hopes to be able to find a cure for all diseases and aging. He's pressured into concluding his research because he hasn't published, so the university is having trouble justifying funding him (I think).

He does a trial injection on a monkey, which quickly dies. He then tries it on himself. He starts a relationship with the single mother of an extremely annoying little boy; she's the one who had been demanding results from the research.

Initially, he seems to have no effects from the injection, except some new strength. He then realizes that he had some memory loss, and starts recalling what happened. Additionally, he starts to appear very unhealthy.

Since the movie is named metamorphosis, he does eventually change into something else. You won't believe your eyes - either what he turned into, or the absolutely crappy costume the actor is wearing to depict what he's turned into. Incredibly, there's a further change in store - the end of the movie is really, really absurd.

About the only thing this movie has going for it is that Laura Gemser is in it, but she has a very small part.

I'd once seen a the video box for this with a sculpted plastic form glued to the boxcover. Possibly it might even have had some electronics in it at one time, perhaps eyes that light up (the main character's eyes occasionally turn green in the movie). The copy I watched had a box that only showed tear marks where the glue had held on the plastic, which had been removed. The novelty boxcover, if it still had it, would have been the only reason I would have held onto this movie; I'm definitely getting rid of it.

Grade B-Movie for THE FLY (1986) Fails with it's poor effects and it's star Gene LeBrock who is trying to stop human aging but he becomes his own genie pig. Not good at all and has a lack of direction. METAMORPHOSIS may be a B-Movie but still is terrible.

The Pits

Mixing in about equal parts "The Fly" and "Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde", this flick is reasonably well-done on an obviously low budget, but the minute it stops regarding its hero as a human and starts treating him like a standard movie monster, it completely loses its point. Perhaps that's why the drawn-out climax is so unexciting. But it deserves some kind of award for having in its cast one of the most dislikable kids that ever appeared in a movie. (**)