Metamorphosis (1993)

Tautly directed and cheaply made, little sci-fi / horror monster throwback flick which is nothing but schlock, though all the same quite fun. It's a sideshow of horrid make-up effects, stop-motion and a touch of gore thrown here and there. The story is basic starting off rather grey, if a touch slow and talky in parts, as situations is explained through fragmented flashbacks. What are going on are the usual secretive experiments on genetic engineering that sees a doctor accidentally being contaminated by alien cells and virtually transforming in to something otherworldly that goes on the rampage in a forlorn scientific facility. While a headstrong girl along with her boyfriend and younger sister enter the building looking for their missing father, who worked as the facility's security guard. While the doctor in charge hires two killers to rid any evidence. Although it's no walk in the park, as they'll find out they are really unprepared. The first half is mainly told in flashbacks explaining the occurrences before and after the contamination. Here it tries to be thoughtful and selective with its choices (where the most suspenseful moments occur), but the second half keeps it straight-forward and dumb it down with the usual monster on the loose formula around empty rooms and corridors. Throwing in some outrageous special effects (tentacle action anyone?), grisly jolts and mutant creations where it finishes on a crazy note. In some aspects in reminded of another sequel "Syngenor" and it was interesting to see that it was initially set-up to be the sequel to the 1983 film "The Deadly Spawn". The acting is on the lousy side, but there are few exceptions with Marcus Powell chewing up his scenes with glassy intensity and Tony Gignate as one of the hired killers with a dry sense of humour."Please dear, not in front of the mutants."

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.

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.

Oh my lord, I can't believe the rating system here only goes as low as 1 star. I was hoping to give this ridiculous pile of trash a heavy minus but I guess thats life. Where to start? Well, this was originally supposed to be a sequel to the 1983 low budget classic 'The deadly spawn' which for the meagre budget was an exceptional advertisement on how to make a horror movie with a few pennies. Deadly spawn had decent acing (for a bunch of nobodies) good direction a decent if slightly simple plot and a brilliantly put together monster, not to mention bucket loads of gore. This supposed 'sequel' is amazing, it has none of that. The acting is excruciatingly poor, (I've done better acting trying to bunk a day off of work and failed) the script is unbelievably bad to the point of ridiculam and the rubber 'hand puppet' monster and childlike stop motion effects provide more cringes at how poor they are than scares. There's some blob monster that honestly looks as if it is being pushed around on a stick, I mean, c'mon. I can't say I have ever seen a horror movie quite this bad and I consider myself a fairly tolerant person. Some films are so poor that they become laughably enjoyable or mildly entertaining and then there's this, which is just downright painful. The thing that makes it worse is that the film had a budget of near $3m almost ten times that of its predecessor. and yet despite being made 7 years on (when effects have supposed to have improved) 'The deadly spawn' makes this film look like a college exam entry. If you want to live a happy and fulfilling life, then avoid this at all costs, however, if you decide to watch it someday, please purchase a pack of razor blades to accompany the viewing. Trust me, you'll thank me for them.