Cast:
Charles George Hildebrant (Charles), Tom DeFranco (Pete), Richard Lee Porter (Frankie), Jean Talfer (Ellen), Karen Tighe (Kathy), James L. Brewster (Sam), Elissa Neil (Barb), Ethel Michelson (Aunt Millie), John Schmerling (Uncle Herb), and Judith Mayes (Bunny) Directed by Douglas McKeown.
Review:
Sure, a low-budget movie made in New Jersey seems the perfect idea to spotlight. Ted A. Bohus came up with the idea for the film in 1979 due to an article in National Geographic about seed pods from the Arctic. John Dods and McKeown helped write the story for the film, while Tim Sullivan provided additional dialogue. This was the only film directed by McKeown, who actually was born in New York City and raised in Metuchen, New Jersey. He graduated from Emerson College after studying cinematography, theater, and English literature (a short film he made in 1966 is available here). He worked as a teacher along with a director for the stage in local theater before working at the Jean Cocteau Repertory in New York, where he did designs and staged productions. His one other film credit was doing work on the film recreations for The Watermelon Woman (1996). McKeown (who had a Facebook profile filled with some warm memories of the filmmaking) died at the age of 75 in 2022. It apparently was shot on 16mm film on a budget of around $25,000 in Gladstone and New Brunswick, New Jersey. John Dods was special effects director and associate producer, with its effects involving wire-controlled rubber puppets. Dods has worked on a variety of productions of films (such as Nightbeast) to television (most notably Monsters) to make up for the stage (such as Young Frankenstein and productions of Beauty and the Beast). Eventually the film found a distributor in 21st Century Film Corproation. Alternate titles for the film were "Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn" and "The Reurn of the Alien's Deadly Spawn" as an attempt to capitalize off the success of Alien [1977)] (an account of Bohus when it came to his experiences with 21st Century can be found here). One of the titles for Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990) refers to it as a sequel to The Deadly Spawn, mainly because Bohus served as a producer on the film, complete with shooting in New Jersey, albeit one that only had a video release.
Really this is a movie for a certain kind of movie-lover in terms of a preference for seeing where interesting effects can come from (budget or otherwise) from people who clearly grew up with movies to study from. You've got your stuff from The Blob (1958) when it comes to its opening and in general with a monster that loves to grow the longer it sticks around. Most of its 78-minute runtime is around this one house (which actually was the property of one Tim Hildebrandt, an illustrator and producer on this film), for better or worse. This is the kind of movie you can have fun with in the same way that one had neat time with say, Invasion of the Saucer Men (1957). The best way to describe the acting is "giving it the old college try", which is to say that they play it pretty casual that does at least make sure to not distract or detract from what you came to see in terms of gooey curiosity, mainly because they aren't playing to the whole gamut of cliches. Hell, they even try dissecting one of the things at one point, that sure goes far better in making one curious to where they will go in housebound tension far more than study dates. I especially like that one person just casually gets thrown out the window because the actress apparently needed to get out of the film suddenly. Well, at least the young Hildebrandt has some spirited reactions to see the carnage around him (after having a silly discussion with someone about his favorite horror films to see his interest in the macabre), complete with quietly figuring out the whole deal with the monsters (they don't have eyes and have weird reactions to sound). The monster steals the show as you might expect, looking quite gooey and well-executed for the budget allotted to go along the spots used to really show just how much chaos can come from selective shots (remember that Dods wanted to do something different from just having a man in a suit and then look at those pincers). The ending is just as refreshing to see in offbeat closings, leading you on with one last shot of a monster that leaves the viewer satisfied. As a whole, it is a testament to having the right people at the right time to scrap together something worth watching in terms of interesting effects and a little bit of ingenuity for a worthwhile movie worth highlighting all these years later. With one shot to get it right, they sure got enough of the target for the people that love their creature features.
Overall, I give it 7 out of 10 stars.
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