Metamorphosis

As a huge fan of Italian horror both good and bad I got excited when I started this movie and saw that it was put out by Filmirage. Ditto for the fact that it's written and directed by George Eastman of Anthropophagus fame. This movie may be filmed in Virginia, USA, with actual English-speaking actors, but it's Italian crap from the first frame. You can tell because the soundtrack of the beginning scene is dominated by Foley footsteps. They're not the clickety-clack ones in most Italian films, although there are plenty of those later. Nope, these are the unmistakeable squeak of athletic shoes on a gym floor during a game of basketball.

Schooling everyone in that game of basketball is hot shot young supergenius professor Dr. Peter Houseman (Gene LeBrock of La Casa 5), no relation to Baby Houseman of Dirty Dancing but an amazing young person all the same. Watch him teach his class on "spermatoza" to a group of college students who have no idea who Watson and Crick were! See him get pissed off because the university wants to see the results of the immortality experiment they spent 250 grand on over the last two years. Specifically, he directs his anger towards Sally Donnelly (Catherine Baranov), the woman sent by the New York branch of Virginia University (?) to investigate where the money has done went.

After an inauspicious first meeting, Sally and Peter for no reason start falling in luuuuv which leads to one of my all-time movie pet peeves, sexy eating. At a luncheon they sensuously chew their food while gazing at one another. Gross! Then they go to bed, but not until she has made sure he is all but cut off from the grant money (although he doesn't blame her, because she has red hair and went to Columbia).



Now is the time when we find out what this movie is really about. Is it a modern take on Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Heckle? The Incredible Hulk maybe? Well, sort of on both counts, but mostly it's about watching smart people act stupid.



Peter knows he is gonna lose his funding, so he thinks he can prove his theory in a last-chance rally by injecting himself with his immortality serum. Never mind that he just killed a poor defenseless monkey with the same crap plus he dreamed he killed a man whose heart was outside his body in a jar. Sally just met him, but she invites him to the zoo with her and her small son Tommy (Jason Arnold), and takes a photo of the three of them which she frames and moons over later in the picture after Peter turns into a monster. We're talking about a two day fling here.

Tommy is smart enough not to like Peter, and so are the monkeys at the zoo. Then, Peter remembers that he beat the shit out of some random woman after he took the stuff (but before banging Sally) so he goes back to the bar where she works and gets attacked by her co-workers. Of course, nobody calls the cops. Even the department head Prof. Lloyd (Stephen Brown) at the college is an idiot. While Peter is lying in the hospital, suddenly having turned 80-something years old, Lloyd taunts him and tells him to hurry up and die so he, Lloyd can dissect his body and continue his research. So Peter kills him and eats his liver.



Finally, Peter turns into a dinosaur and when the dinosaur is shot to pieces by the cops somebody finally remembered to bring, he turns into a tiny anole lizard and is kept as a pet by Tommy. The end.



Towards the end Peter had kidnapped Tommy, and after he is shot up but before we find out he's a lizard the camera focuses on Tommy a lot; I was hoping Tommy would turn into a monster next, or even that Sally would be pregnant and give birth to one. Alas. The best thing in the screenplay is between the covers of the Michael Crichton book a hospital guard is reading. I'm guessing the book was the inspiration for this crapfest? I don't know, but I will say that the music was okay, as most Italian soundtracks are, and the special effects were fine except the monster makeup. This is a B-movie, but still fun to watch. If you like B-movies, you'll sit through this one like I did.



P.S. I forgot to mention you take the serum by having it injected into your eyeball by a robot arm. A needle in the eyeball, y'all! Even without the whole "turning into a lizard" side effect, I'd still rather get old!