User reviews

This film was a very typical monster movie that incorporated all of the usual dumb cliches. It's got a slow moving, fake looking monster, really stupid victims who deserve to die, and a lame story about the monster resulting from a genetic experiment gone awry. (Why did the professor even make the monster in the first place? It never really says why. I guess that's just what scientists do.) Still, this movie is an okay time-waster if you happen to enjoy bad sci-fi or horror. It's certainly not the best, but I have definitely seen worse. I give it a 5/10 rating.

William Malone didn't exactly deliver a good movie here. Far from, actually, but heck, it was his first one. Still, you'll have to tolerate some atrocious 'chop-chop' editing, some bad acting and a plot way too basic for its own good. All the events in this film move at the pace of a snail that's stuck in the mud. The whole story is played by the book, and it's one with not many pages in it (just enough to write down the premise: a murderous creature is loose in the city and two people must stop it). Surprisingly, things do remain watchable most of the time, somehow. The creature design is pretty cool, but also nothing more than a man in a rubber suit. A bit of full frontal female nudity during the opening-scene and a lack of gore throughout the entire film is what we get. But my guess is that it's still worth a watch for lovers of obscure creature features (honestly, I myself didn't mind watching it). "Scared To Death" always seemed to me a bit of a stupid, unsuitable title for this kind of film though. Given the place where the creature resides, why not dub it... "The Sewer Dweller"? Malone's first outing even got some sort of a semi-(un)official sequel nine years later, called "Syngenor" (1990). Would have been much easier if they had called that one "Syngenor 2" and this one simply "Syngenor". Aw, what the hell am I talking about.

While Star Wars Episode V and The Howling were winning awards from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, this film was also a winner as Best Low-Budget Film. Low-Budget filmmakers could do worse in watching how William Malone (House on Haunted Hill ) managed to make an interesting film with award winning special effects for $74,000.

It was Malone's first film and it starred Diana Davidson, whom I am sure no one remembers as they girl who was shot in the swimming pool in Dirty Harry. It also stars John Stinson, Jonathan David Moses, and Toni Jannotta, in her only film. Malone made sure that he had a good selection of beautiful victims to keep your interest.

The staging was good in the respect that terror was built up gradually with a lot of suspense, and the creature was only partially shown until it got towards the end. You never really knew what you were dealing with.

And, of course, when it is all over, you don't really know if you solved the problem.

An ex-cop who's a writer now, gets brought back on the job after a string of weird murders with the killer leaving a web like substance… Is it human or not?

Really this is nothing but cheap (and that's very cheap) z-grade trash, but still 'fairly' amusing… well that's if you're in the right frame of mood. This is no more than a "Alien" rip-off, but set on earth. There are certain shots that resembled some of those from "Alien" and as well the creature looks very similar too.

The story is extra ordinary. The usual scientific creation that's on the loose killing victims and an ex-cop who's the only one that can stop it. So don't expect anything special or original. Sometimes the pacing is a bit tedious; like a slasher film.

The acting is not that bad from a bunch of nobodies... with a pretty charming and gawky heroine. Although there is one or two annoying characters which you have to deal with. Added to the film's script is some sharp humour and witty one-liners, especially from the geeky lead. A very gritty and grim atmosphere is found throughout the picture, with a lot of the film taking place in dark and dim lighting. While the special effects are hilariously shoddy and cheap, which gives it a sort of charm... well I think so.

I found this more enjoyable than the glossy, but bland "Ghost Ship (2002)" I watched before it.

This film is unoriginal, campy and cheap... but I found this schlock watchable and rather fun.

3/5

Rather than use his scientific genius to benefit mankind, a genetics expert creates a vicious synthesised life-form that uses its forked tongue to drain the spinal fluid of its victims. Why? I dunno… must've seemed like a good idea at the time, I suppose. Cop turned novelist Ted Lonergan (John Stinson) helps his police pal Lou (David Moses) to investigate.

This one starts out in classic B-movie monster mode with a naked blonde babe slipping into sexy, silky red underwear before becoming another victim of the Syngenor (Synthesised Genetic Organism). Its a fun, trashy way to kick things off, but the rest of the film offers very little to get excited about: lots of dull chit chat, a few gore-free deaths, and some roller-skating, all leading to the inevitable showdown between Ted and the incredibly slow moving H.R.Giger-style creature in a factory (an ending that might possibly have influenced The Terminator!).

Missable stuff, unless you absolutely have to see every movie inspired in some way by Ridley Scott's Alien.

(Warning: I'm not fully bilingual, so please forgive me for my poor English vocabulary) This one was awful from start to finish! There was no notable action: the main characters were in a big investigation, full of dull dialogues, and the creature was just wandering around in the sewers doing some cheap kills once in a while, nothing too original, entertaining or gory.

Not absolutely painful, just plain boring.

If you want to see something a little better with the same creature, try Syngenor instead. I'm a big fan of the genre, especially the "so bad it's good" sub-genre, but this one is definitely not in that league. Avoid.

I remember seeing the VHS box for this movie on the shelf in a video store when I was 5 years and thinking that it was terrifying. Who would want to be scared to death? Why would grown-ups willingly watch such a movie? This was back in the days when I thought that all of the monsters would come out of the boxes and haunt the video store after it was closed. Being locked in a video store was one of my worst nightmares. It was only when I got to my 20s and worked in a Blockbuster that I realized this wasn't accurate.

The "plot" for this movie has a monster stalking people in cheap locations in Los Angeles and...doing something to them that gives them brain cancer. An ex-cop (who looks like a dorky Michael Bay who'd lose a fight with a wet paper bag) eventually investigates after his new girlfriend is molested by said ghoul. The V-A-S-T majority of this movie is made up of people wandering around, looking...just looking, wandering more, and more, "anyone there", looking, "hello?", and wandering in depressing, sparsely-lit sets.

I don't know why William Malone edited the movie this way as it is 96 minutes long and could have been a far punchier 85-minute borefest. Malone went on to direct the slightly better Titan Find and then the far superior House on Haunted Hill, so he has talent, but not as a writer. Brain cancer-giving monsters? Really? I can handle silly science in my movies, but he clearly knows nothing about what he is attempting to tackle here. It sure ain't written by Michael Crichton. There's nothing here. Even the monster is a xenomorph rip-off with significantly less articulation that is apparently made out of cereal boxes and old tyres. It's played by a guy called Kermit! So...

The print on Amazon has a high amount of damage, dirt, missing frames, and warps, along with faded, ruined colors, though this might be inherit to the naff photography. I'm sure a label like Vinegar Syndrome or Arrow could do a restoration, though they usually choose movies of some substance, of which this garbage has none.

A sequel was made with higher production values, but why even bother?

I thought this movie (for being so bad) was very entertaining. The main characters are the biggest geeks! Especially the male lead. I'm talking about Dorkenstein with a capital D. It was fun making fun of them while hoping the monster eats them. This film seemed to merge cheesey 50's Sci Fi elements with 80's slasher gimmick to create a movie that worked on some level. Mystery Science Theatre would have a field day on this one. I must give it props though. The creatures actually looked good and were indeed creepy.

Cheesy & low-budgeted 80's monster movies form a truly peculiar cinema breed. A small selection of them is so bad they become good again (or at least very amusing), but most of them are so bad they're just plain awful, period. "Scared to Death" represents a category on its own, namely the absolute worst of the worst. Besides being badly written, poorly acted, weakly directed and cheesy, this film is also unimaginably boring! Horror fans, myself included - are generally quite tolerant when it comes to 80's junk, but one thing nobody can stand is a mixture of cheese and boredom. The building up towards the killings takes far too long (up to seven minutes even) and when the creature finally strikes, we see absolutely nothing and the action promptly swifts to another scene. What's that all about? The story is also pretty non-existent and incoherent as hell. It's some kind of earthbound "Alien" rip-off, with a murderous monster dwelling around the sewers and occasionally perpetrating a lonely woman's house or car in order to kill her. One incompetent cop and one pathetic ex-cop slowly (better make that VERY slowly) discover the creature is a genetic experiment that went a little awry and got dumped in the sewers by its creators. They call it a Syngenor, which stand for Synthetic Genetic Organism, and apparently it has a large appetite and a preference for young chicks on roller blades. The sub plot about the ex-cop's beautiful romance with a lady whose car he accidentally hit is totally irrelevant and dreadful. There isn't the slightest bit of suspense or any attempt to create an atmosphere; all the potentially interesting sequences are dimly lit and when we finally catch a decent glimpse of the monster it looks like a poor imitation of "Alien". The cast members are a bunch of untalented nobodies and William Malone's direction is weak and uninspired. William Malone? Wasn't he also responsible for the more recent but equally stinking pile of garbage "Feardotcom"? Twenty years later and still a lousy director, practice doesn't always makes perfect. However, his other cheesy & low-budgeted 80's monster movie "Creature" (starring Klaus Kinski!) does qualify as so bad it's good!

Something has emerged from the sewers of Los Angeles and started killing people. Private Investigator, Ted Lonergan (John Stinson) is brought in when the police are stumped, and unable to stop the slaughter. Not even roller skating enthusiasts are safe from hideous doom! It is soon discovered that the murders might have something to do with a genetics experiment gone horribly awry.

SCARED TO DEATH is an extremely low-budget monster movie. The monster itself looks a lot like some of H.R. Giger's early, rejected test drawings for ALIEN. The creature is best left in the shadows, since it isn't overly impressive. Others have commented on its glacier-like speed. Watching it creep through the sewer system is like watching an earthworm climb stairs!

While not at all frightening, this movie is enjoyable enough for one viewing. Just don't expect anything spectacular...

This film does not make sense on so many points, starting with it being titled Scared to Death despite the fact that no one in it is scared to death, or even mentions the possibility of such. Here are just a few of the baffling questions Scared to Death raises and never answers:

1. At the beginning of the film, an investigator says he can't precisely determine the victim's time of death because it was unnaturally cold in the room when she was murdered. We're never told how the investigator could tell this, and the issue of coldness never comes up again.

2. Why do the police answer Shelly's phone call and then almost immediately hang up? Not even a "Is anyone there?".

3. Why does Sherry go to Jennifer with her information on the killings? The two don't know each other, so we're left to speculate that Jennifer is some sort of specialist, but her profession is never revealed.

4. If the creature's method of killing makes it look like an epileptic fit or a brain tumor, how were so many victims identified as murder cases?

5. Even the scientist who created the Syngenor said it is so dangerous that he would have to kill it before it reached maturity. So... why create it? The filmmakers seems to have been banking on audiences thinking that genetic engineering produces completely random results.

The main problem with Scared to Death, though, is that it is overly reliant on jump scares. Over and over, we watch as a character slowly wanders alone through a dimly lit, dank location until the soundtrack spikes, and the monster pops up in your face before killing the character in gratuitously gory fashion. The director seemingly never tires of this formula, and only towards the end does he aspire to make the viewer actually afraid rather than just jumpy.

On top of the many pointless gory death scenes, we get no less than three scenes where the detective in charge of the investigation (Lou) pleads with his ex-partner (Ted) to help him out, and he refuses (we never learn why). The film spends so much time on scenes that go nowhere that there's hardly any time to establish a plot, which is just as well, since what plot there is is pretty thin.

There is a passable romance sub-plot, with decent performances by both actors, but it never serves a purpose in the overall story other than to give Ted a motivation to kick genetically engineered monster butt (because apparently his best friend pleading for his help wasn't enough).

Still, I can't say that the sole enjoyment I got out of this film was being able to laugh at it. The musical score is strong and effective at creating mood, the monster design is fairly cool, and the cast are all consistently likable, even in those moments where the acting is unconvincing. The budget is noticeably low, but the cinematography is good, and there's an obvious love for variety of sets. There's also an overall sense of fun, even if it misses that mark as often as it hits it.

Scared for Death screams for faster pacing and more depth, even by the standards of the monster movie genre, and can't be recommended when there are so many superior films in the same vein. But if you have some particular reason for wanting to watch it, and set your standards low, my expectation is that you will enjoy it.

First of all, I know it's petty - but the title. We all know you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, so you shouldn't base your opinion on a film's title. But 'Scared to Death' sounds more like some psychological horror or slasher film. It's not. It's a 'monster munching' movie, more akin to a (low budget!) 'Alien' rip-off.

Anyway, there's a monster rampaging round an American city, murdering hapless extras and the police are baffled until a local private detective teams up with the obligatory love interest to save the day.

There's not an awful lot to say about the film. As I mentioned, it's set on Earth, therefore there are no outstanding science fiction sets to speak of. The acting and dialogue is passable at best and there's really nothing you haven't seen before if you're a fan of the genre.

I will mention I actually quite liked the creature itself. It reminded me of something out of the mind of HR Giger (who actually designed the xenomorph from 'Alien'), but it's ruined by budget constrains preventing it from being particularly well animated in its facial movements, making it end up like just a man in a rubber suit from a 70s 'Dr Who.'

If you really want to watch yet another 'monster movie' then there are definitely worse. It's not offensively bad, but it's not great either, relying on long scenes of victims quietly walking around deserted places before ultimately meeting their doom. Even fast forwarding them until the kill itself made the film drag. Just watch 'Alien' or 'Species.'

Oh, and there's a bit which made me laugh and think they ripped off 'The Terminator.' Then I realised this film was made four years before that classic. So, er, fair play to 'Scared to Death' for beating James Cameron to the punch on that one!

This film had a lot going for it, unfortunately, it has much more that doesn't.

The basis and synopsis of the story are solid. It the old story of science trying to better mankind and force our evolution by genetic manipulation. As this is a horror flick you can guess the results are far from optimistic. What science gives the audience is an a-sexual beast with a penchant for killing and kidnapping humans. The lucky ones are dead. The cop assigned to the case wants to bring his old partner in on the situation. The partner, now a writer, wants no part of the investigation... until his girlfriend becomes a victim.

Sounds good, doesn't it(?) Well, it is too good to be true. Writer and director William Malone and writer Robert Short meander all over the place. This wouldn't have been too bad if they had built up the characters is this time, but they don't. In all honesty, all of the characters are flat and unappealing. For most of the film, I wanted to slap the main character, Ted Lonergan. He is pretty obnoxious, at best.

Malone then brings his meandering ways to the direction of the film. Add to this the slow pace and you get a yawn-fest. There are a couple of decent shots but not enough to renew my attention, which was drifting all over the place.

The acting was below average. That isn't surprising though, as I stated above the characterisations are rubbish. The actors can only work with what they're given and how they are instructed.

One good thing is the monster. The super-human is nicely designed and constructed. It definitely could strike fear into somebody. I even liked the tongue, which would slither out into the throats of its victims to impregnate them. Shame I couldn't get the idea out of my head that it had been stolen from Alien. It would have been better had the tongue moved faster and snaked more. Speaking of "borrowed" ideas the ending is right out of Terminator.

I cannot recommend this to any horror fan out there. I don't want to be blamed for wasting your time, so do yourself a favour and stay away from this flick.

Feel free to come on over and see where this film charts in my Absolute Horror list. You should, at least, be able to find something more interesting and entertaining to watch.

This is your typical regional horror sci-fi filmaking from the late 70's early 80's period, the ones without any "names", with slow pacing, foggy cameras, poor lighting, and music that can actually put you to sleep! In fact it reminds me of another small town sci-fi film called ALIEN FACTOR! This creature, SYNGENOR, is actually cool looking, so cool someone made another film with the syngenor titled, what else, SYNGENOR, but with a better budget, and a professional cast (not sure why William Malone didn't get involved in this one.). This film the violence is very tame, not really scarely, the random act of attacks by the creature to nameless victim is few and far between, in between you get a boring cop and his partner trying to solve the crime, losts of talk, overall a slow film that probably bored the audeince to tears! This film actually got a decent release back in 82, but didnt play here in Seattle, but was playing in Oregon as a double bill with SCREAMER! The creature is really cool looking for its time, so I don't know why they didn;t show it more often.`