Metamorphosis

Attempting to find their missing father, sisters tracking him down to the genetics lab he works out find that the company's experiments with alien DNA have inadvertently released a mutant monster in the facility forcing them to fight it off to get out alive.

This one turned out to be quite the intriguing creature feature. Among the film's positives here is the film's rather well-handled action scenes that occur throughout here which are incredibly fun and manage to generate some great moments here. The opening starts this off nicely with the discovery of the bloodied staff and the resulting attack on the security guard, and the first half does contain some rather nice moments in the hospital where his working with the mutations as well as the growing development of the transformation that's taking place in the infection room where they attempt to study him. That manages to keep this one going along nicely into the final half where it mainly deals with the creatures hunting them down within the corporations hallways and corridors which is all sorts of cheesy creature-feature goodness as the creature begins attacking them throughout here. The first encounters, where they come across the creature out in the hallways by sheer accident. are rather fun while the brawl in the exploratory lab makes for a solid action scene and sets up the fantastic finale in the basement where the creature gets a big fight in the lab where it features some rather impressive ideas and tactics used to combat the creature which ends this on a high-note. As well, the fact that the creature effects look decent and give this some nice moments in the kills throughout here. Still, one of the film's main problems here is in the completely clichéd and useless notion of the sleazy executives trying to keep the whole idea of their plans under wraps despite the ethical and logical rationale of their motives. The manner of him trying to keep the identity of the participant and the true nature of the experiments from getting out makes for quite an overdone set-up that comes off as rather illogical in the face of what's happening around them and really makes this one seem all the more familiar. The manner of going about hiding the involvement is quite lame and being yet another reappearance of that motif makes for quite a useless plot-thread. Likewise, the fact that the main part of the first half is played out like a flashback to the events rather than simply playing it straight which really makes for quite the bland beginning retelling events long before they actually occurred and then getting to the part that actually happened. This is wasted time that could've been used from the very beginning to get into the film proper by staying in the current time-line rather than recapping it rather lamely. While some might not be able to take the low-budget special effects work, but otherwise there's not a whole lot else wrong here.

Rated R: Graphic Language, Graphic Violence and violence-against- animals.

This movie was lots of fun to watch. If you enjoyed the anything-goes direction or creative-even-though-they-look-fake special effects of older monster movies, than you'll love this update, which almost seems to be a homage to schlock films. The plot is extremely simple, a top-secret organization finds alien DNA and begins to test it out on various animals. A scientist injects himself with the DNA and through a series of really gross, slimy, nasty transformations turns into a giant monster and runs amok in the lab where he works. First of all, the movie isn't for the faint of heart. It's really gory for the year it came out. REALLY. There was one part where the lead character gets his hand pretty much ripped to shreds by this frog-looking mutant, and he gets his assistant to pour sulphuric acid over it while the camera zooms in to show his mutilated hand being burned off. Or when his lab assistant gets her eyes gouged out. There's many, many other juicy bits, including a guy getting his head bitten off and another guy getting half his face ripped off, both shown close-up in all their glory. There's also many closeups of the scientist's festering, oozing skin as he transforms. There are many other outrageous looking mutants, like a dog that looks like it was spliced with a shark, and a giant monster crab. The movie is so full of special effects, makeup, gore, and weird looking, stop-motion animated creatures that you'd swear it was from the eighties. The monster that is killing people in the lab looks like a cross between a rhino and one of those Sandworms from Beetlejuice. This movie is great for a Sunday afternoon when you don't feel like thinking. It's more of a showcase for the great special effects than anything else.

I had never heard of director Glenn Takakjian and it's normal, this is his only flick he directed. He's still in the business as actor or in the animation department. I had never heard of Metamorphosis The Alien Factor but coming across a article in an old Dark Side Magazine I was surprised by the pictures. It looked like they used great effects. And by watching it, they did. It starts great with the breaking out of some alien virus attacking people working in the lab. One of them transforms into a weird creature but the transformation or metamorphosis was really well done. It even reminded me of The Thing when some tentacles appeared out of the victims body. It wasn't gory but the red stuff do flows a lot. But as I said it was campy too. The words sometimes said were really laughable sometimes. And when you saw a flesh eating plant moving or one of the creatures it was a bit of a laugh, but the dog was again really well done and face it, no CGI was used, just the good old latex and even some stop motion.

Everybody was talking about Tara Leigh being in this flick but for me the face of Dianna Flaherty rang a bell. She was in some Troma productions (Class Of Nuke'em High and Toxic Avenger). The acting was okay and by some mediocre.

The look of the flick itself looked like a eighties production and being made in the nineties it couldn't deliver the effects used then due being a low budget. But I enjoyed it a lot, man, the changing into the creature and the face changing towards the end, I loved it. The alien factor really did it for me, what a metamorphosis.

Rented this one from the video library out of sheer curiosity. Like a cross between Cronenberg's "The Fly" and Ridley Scott's "Alien", the slimy special effects are better than average. The script and acting, on the other hand, are not, giving this a bit of a tele-movie feel.

If you're a sci-fi/horror buff with an hour and a half or so to kill, give this film a go. Otherwise, catch the above-mentioned originals, who did it much better with a lot more intensity.

An alien from outer space bites a bio-researcher and turns him into hideous monster with an urge to kill.Its first victim is the guardian at the hospital he's working in.The guardians' daughters are getting worried that their father haven't called them and they go to the hospital,where they meet their worst nightmare."Metamorphosis:The Alien Factor" is a wonderfully cheesy trash loaded with gore and gross monster effects.It certainly better than "Dark Universe","Alien Predator" or "The Star Crystal".The plot is silly and full of holes,but the monster creations and stop-motion visuals are of a quality well beyond what one usually finds in movies on this level and remain convincing and scary throughout.Check it out.