Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor
I had to take down all the images because everyone on the internet was hotlinking them and eating my bandwidth. And that's a shame, because they were really cool, and now you'll have to buy the movie to see them. Thanks a lot, internet.
Director: Glenn Takakjian
Year: 1993
Runtime: 98 minutes
Rating: R
Warning: Plot details follow.
The Department of Defense gives alien tissue samples to the Talos Corporation for the purpose of genetic engineering, which results in, among other things, an alien plant, an alien crab, "Checkers", and this thing. Dr. Foster, head of the "mutant" department, jabs it with a needle. It bites him and tears up his hand pretty bad.
Maybe he should have worn something stronger than rubber gloves when stabbing an irritable alien with jagged teeth. But hey, hindsight is 20/20. And apparently, sulfuric acid is the cure for alien bites. Or maybe not! At this time, I'd just like to point out that the grumpy, jagged-toothed alien is still on the floor, and remains there for the duration of the movie. Dr. Foster loses consciousness, and when the other scientists attempt to take him to a hospital, the company's director stops them. I don't think any hospital would want to treat this anyway. Dr. Foster's metamorphosis continues, and when the scientists attempt to take a tissue sample, this thing flies out at them. Apparently, it's a toxic flying mouth! The other fat scientist engineers a particle beam to de-evolve infected cells. Meanwhile, Dr. Foster mutates some more, and his wife gets grabbed by a hand coming out of his chest. He then vomits all over the place and grabs her with his tongue. Oh wait, it was actually a dream sequence! But this sure isn't:
The alien comes out of his chest, kills the fat scientist, and escapes the lab. The director, rather than calling a SWAT team or the military, sends these two guys to kill the thing. Excellent choice! Meanwhile, the daughter of a security guard killed earlier, and her boyfriend, go to the office to try to find out what happened to her dad. Back in the scary hallways, one of the assassins encounters Checkers and kills it.
The dead security guard's other daughter sneaks in, while the older daughter attempts to break into the computer system, which has text-to-speech technology despite having only green, capitalized letters. For whatever reason, the assassins come back to the office at just the right time and kick the crap out of her boyfriend. She runs off to get help. Meanwhile, that thing is still not back in the cage, and her sister finds the monster in the hallway. The hallway of product placement! Assassin #1 attempts to kill it with a pistol. Result:
Maybe that wasn't such a good idea. The monster proceeds to kill assassin #2 and the boyfriend, and corners the sisters and the remaining scientist into a lab. They throw acid at it, despite the fact that its blood was described as "highly caustic" earlier in the movie. It grabs the scientist and kills her, then it kills the director and decapitates him. That part looked surprisingly real. It then breaks out of the lab and traps the sisters and assassin #1 (apparently no longer dead). The older sister breaks open the control panel and pokes at it with a piece of metal, which somehow causes the door to open. Now they just have to lure the monster below the "cyclotron". Not surprisingly, it doesn't work, necessitating a couple more minutes of suspense. In the meantime, assassin #1 fights the monster with a metal pipe. But they finally get it to work:
Assassin #1 insists on killing him anyway, but apparently the alien isn't really dead.
Apparently the solution is to pin its head under the cyclotron and zap it yet again:
That's right. It disappears. It doesn't explode, it just disappears. Isn't science incredible? They leave the cyclotron room, and find the boyfriend, who apparently didn't actually die. And, of course, they get to see the thing that never got put back in the cage...
THE END
For a low-budget, direct-to-video release, this wasn't really that bad. The special effects were actually pretty good, despite some of the plot holes. For instance, why do the people bitten by the monster not mutate? Aside from that, a pretty good movie overall.
Rating: 3/5
Special thanks to Suncoast, Jaketeck, and InterVideo WinDVD Platinum 6 for making this possible.