Metamorphosis

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.

"Metamorphosis" is like David Cronenberg's "The Fly" if "The Fly" had been filmed in someone's rec room.

A young, hotshot scientist experiments with a serum (don't they always?) that, when injected into himself, makes his DNA begin to evolve backwards to man's most primitive state (or something like that). Now you might think that would mean he would end up as an amoeba or a speck of nothing, but boy would you be wrong. Apparently, we are descended from lizards, and I know this because the scientist in question first begins to simply decay, then makes a brief appearance as a dinosaur (I kid you not) and ends up as a little lizard in a jar.

This movie isn't even in the remotest realm of good, but it's actually not horribly terrible either, at least not until its last 20 minutes or so. Those turn into a seemingly endless chase scene involving a little boy and his mother trying to get away from the monstrous scientist. But you have to stay with it to see the climactic howler of a scene in which a man in a felt dinosaur costume tries to horrify us with what the scientist has become. It seriously looks like something that would be worn at a child's birthday party -- if it were purple, it would look like Barney.

Where did movies like this ever even play?

Grade: D+

"Metamorphosis" hold a tiny bit of cult-value, simply because it was written and directed by George Eastman. This Italian bloke is more or less the personification of male sleaze and starred in pretty much every rancid Joe D'Amato production during the late 70's/early 80's. Wouldn't it be interesting for avid Euro-cult purchasers to own the only movie directed by the guy who walked around bare-butted in "Erotic Nights of the Living Dead" all the time? I thought so! Now, unlike the movies he starred in, Eastman's own "Metamorphosis" is kind of disappointing in the gore & sleaze departments. There are a handful of nasty murders, cheesy monster effects and naked female bodies (a guest appearance by sleaze-queen Laura Gemser!) on display, but it's mainly a talkative movie. The handsome & eloquent Dr. Houseman is on the verge of a scientific breakthrough with his research on human DNA codes when suddenly the university he works for threatens to cancel his funds. He developed a theory to decode genes and block the human ageing process, but if he doesn't come up with detailed reports any time soon, his research will be stopped. So Dr. Houseman does what any intelligent scientist would do and injects the untested serum into his own veins. Needless to say (and like the title implies), he slowly turns into murderous monster that actually ages much quicker! In other words, his research sucked! Like the other reviewers already mentioned, this movie "borrows" a lot of ideas from David Cronenberg's "The Fly" – the dramatic romance sub plot included - but doesn't add any originality from its own. The big difference is that you constantly feel connected with Jeff Goldblum's character in "The Fly", whereas Dr. Houseman becomes just another monster that needs to be destroyed as fast as possible. The rapid-ageing-syndrome aspect also reminded me of Ruggero Deodato's sadly underrated giallo "Phantom of Death", only the protagonist in that film inherited the disease and didn't inflict it on himself. The physical deterioration of the carriers is very similar in both films, though. Few scares or excitement to discover here, instead the movie features loads of bad acting, poor lighting, lousy editing and a completely retarded climax to boot. Feel free to skip this one.

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.

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.

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