Review: Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990)
Directed by: Glenn Takakjian
Starring: Matt Kulis, Patrick Barnes, Tara Leigh
Written by: Glenn Takakjian
Music by: John Gray
Country: United States
Available on: DVD (Lionsgate)
IMDb
Glenn Takakjian’s nigh-masterpiece of low-fi extraterrestrial splatter not only has a bewildering title (there’s another horrendous 1990 sci-fi horror flick called Metamorphosis, and the great Don Dohler made The Alien Factor in 1978, a film that spawned uncountable memes about burnt microwave foodstuffs), it has a confusing birth story. This Metamorphosis was originally concocted by co-producer Ted A. Bohus (who actually worked with Dohler on 1980’s Fiend and 1982’s Nightbeast) as a sequel to Douglas McKeown’s nigh-masterpiece of low-fi extraterrestrial splatter, The Deadly Spawn (1983), and was even originally marketed as The Deadly Spawn II: Metamorphosis. Somewhere along its serpentine production route, the filmmakers decided it should be its own weirdo thing, and here we are.
It's not hard to sniff out the slimy, big-mouthed, plentifully toothed, unearthly influences taken from McKeown’s flick, but Takakjian’s movie still concocts its own supply of pizazz by way of nearly endless special effects that range from practically constructed latex sculpts, stop-motion beasties, and hand-drawn animations that are all incredibly impressive on a budget equivalent to the cost of middle-school hot lunch; a script that’s surprisingly funny in ways that are both on purpose and often less so; and actors (or rather, one particular actor (John Marcus Powell, who’s shoveling so much ham on screen that he could open a deli)) just going for it with all their “this is probably going to be my only film credit ever” gusto; and a Roger Corman-esque instinct for when to insert some eye-molesting crazy-shit.
There’s not a ton here story-wise: A scientist gets bitten by an alien and turns into an alien, and this new alien is very much into graphic violence via fanged tentacles and little roly-poly offspring that latch onto victims for some sanguinous sucky-sucky. It’s up to the bitten scientist’s lab partners, his daughter (maybe? It was hard to tell), and the lab’s nefariously British corporate overlord (played by Powell) to stop all this nonsense. The entire movie takes place in a lab, a corporate office, and a couple hallways. There are like eight actors. But the filmmakers get a hell of a lot of awesome out of so little. Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor leans so heavily and wonderfully into its body horror yuckiness, reminding one of ‘80s Japanese splatter like Demon Within (1985), Guzoo: The Thing Forsaken by God — Part I (1986), Biotherapy (1986), Conton (1987), and Cyclops (1987), which also boasted bountiful gross-outs tempered by some earnest goofiness.
There’s some pretty ill-fitting misogyny here, including a woman getting slapped many times for no reason other than existing near an open palm swinging through the air at high velocity and a would-be male savior who calls the same woman a “bitch” repeatedly and just as arbitrarily. Also, the story unfolds through a series of flashbacks intercut willy-nilly, with absolutely no intent or purpose, so that’s not the best. However, a movie that’s 85% gruesome monsters and destroyed bodies, and then 15% wise-cracking by characters very oblivious to their fates — a movie which ends whilst a musical cue lifted straight from Vaudeville happily unfurls — cannot be anything less than a milestone in human creative endeavor.
Overall rating: 8 out of 10
