Embryo (1976)

EMBRYO is a low-key science fiction film of 1976, notable for starring a middle-aged Rock Hudson in the protagonist role of a misguided scientist who invents an incredible growth hormone that can transform an embryo into an adult being in the space of a week. Hudson begins the film by experimenting on his own dog before he manages to create a young woman in his own laboratory, but his experiment has typically unforeseen circumstances.There are obvious parallels to the FRANKENSTEIN story in this film, but otherwise it's very much a low budget production of the 1970s. Most of it takes place in the dark and there are few if any effects or the usual sci-fi trappings. This means that the actors have to work a lot harder in order to convince us of their situation, and thankfully they're up to it. Hudson is a solid presence who pivots the whole picture, but the real treat is Barbara Carrera who is a convincingly otherworldly Victoria. Roddy McDowall has an amusing cameo too. Like COMA, EMBRYO is a thinking person's science fiction thriller in which ethics are a primary concern, and thus it builds to a suitably horrific - and fitting - climax.

Okay, I'll admit it--you need to suspend disbelief on this one--A LOT of disbelief! But, you have to do this all the time in movies so stretching this just a bit further might enable you to enjoy this film. I know that I went in with very low expectations after reading the IMDb reviews, but it turned out to be a decent little movie about yet another doctor who wanted to play God.The film begins with a doctor (Rock Hudson) hitting a dog. He takes the pooch home and tries to save it, but he's unsuccessful. But here's the weird part--using some special serum he'd been working on, he injects the dog's surviving puppies to try to save it. That's because the puppy is WAY too young to survive. Speeding up its growth at an astronomical rate enabled the puppy to grow many weeks in a matter of hours and it survives.A short time later, the doctor decides to play God with a human. Taking a recently dead pregnant woman, he's able to remove the small fetus and grow it in his lab at an even faster rate. The problem is that for some time he cannot stop its fast growth and the fetus ends up becoming a full-grown woman by the time he's arrested the fast growth. At first, things seem great as the woman is a sort of super-woman--with amazing learning skills and intelligence and the ability to be well-coiffed despite being raised in a lab. Plus, and here's the best part, it turns out to be an amazingly HOT young lady (Barbara Carrera). What's next? Well, I'd say more but don't want to spoil the plot. Suffice to say that the lady's moral reasoning abilities are at times VERY suspect...yet hot! Despite the prologue that makes it sound as if this technology is possible, it certainly is not! But, it did make for an interesting film with a few nice surprises (such as at the very end). A word of note--you WILL see a lot of Miss Carrera in this one, so perhaps it's best not shown to your small children or mother!

With a lot of the current controversy about cloning and embryonic stem cell research, this movie is an interesting flashback to when this concept was first mined for Science Fiction stories.Rock Hudson plays a doctor who hits a dog, and then hits on the concept that the fetuses of the dog could be saved by growing them in a tank using some special drugs. The result is a dog that is highly intelligent but (unbeknownst to him) psychotic. (There is a great scene where the dog, a DOberman called "Number One", kills a yappy dog and then hides the body.Hudson decides to skip the usual years of animal research and peer review, and apply the process to a human embryo. The result is a child that grows out of control into the very hot Barbara Carerra. Even though she has the ability to learn simply from reading a book, she lacks any kind of moral underpinnings. Like Frankenstein's monster,Carerra's Victoria proceeds to reek havoc into the life of her creator, killing anyone who stands in her way.Hudson, who was past his prime as an actor, turns in a good performance here. Roddy McDowell has a cameo as an arrogant chess master who is bested by the novice Victoria.Some of the things in the movie scream "Seventies", like computers as big as a room with tape drives, polyester leisure suits and a character with a huge afro haircut. The film is frequently out of focus, and the lighting is bad (perhaps so we can't see Hudson's age?) The pacing is slow in many parts (A DVD's fast forward feature is good for getting past these.) This movie is okay, despite its flaws. Not great, but okay.

I suppose I'm supposed to take something like this with a grain of salt. These laboratory movies (and, yes, they spend a lot of time in the laboratory), always fail in one dimension: there is an understanding that single people fooling around have uncovered secrets beyond the comprehension of anyone to this time. Of course, they pay a price because their experimenting has the same shortcomings that Dr. Frankenstein's did. There is always something they didn't anticipate. There are so many things from pure science to fashion for young ladies to outrageous cover ups that don't work here. The young woman is certainly fetching and the doctor can't help himself, but he could have been a little bit discreet or even made an effort to shelter what he was doing. Things go wrong and because of this intellect, she gains tremendous power, including an understanding of how she came to be. Rock Hudson looks pretty fit here. He never quite makes it in this role, however. It wanders all over with lots of clichés and silliness which diminishes the basic issue. Once she has her revenge a more suitable thing would be for her to wander off and allow him to seek her out and destroy her in some grand way.