Embryo (1976)

... aka: Created to Kill

... aka: Create to Die

... aka: Die Brut des Bösen (The Evil Brood)

... aka: Ectogen

... aka: El embrión mortífero (The Deadly Embryo)

... aka: La criatura infernal (The Infernal Creature)

Directed by:

Ralph Nelson

After high school and a stint in the military, Roy Scherer Jr. moved to Los Angeles with the explicit goal of becoming a movie star. Despite little acting experience (supposedly he was rejected from at least one college acting program due to bad grades), Roy nonetheless immediately landed himself representation based on the power of his good looks alone. All it took was sending the agent a head shot. The only problem was his name. It was promptly changed to Rock Hudson. From there, he started out in small (and sometimes uncredited) roles before being taken under contract by Universal. Sensing huge potential in him, he was heavily promoted by the studio, who made sure his image was regularly seen by the public in newspapers and film magazines, and promoted him to leading roles in medium-budget western and adventure yarns. However, his popularity wouldn't skyrocket until he started appearing as the male lead in more romantic films, especially when paired with Doris Day. Starting in the late 50s well into the 1960s, Hudson would be regularly voted by both exhibitors and the public as the #1 movie star of the year and left a string of successful films in his wake. Women thought the strapping 6'4" star was charming and sexy, while male viewers took to his deep-voiced, broad-shouldered masculinity. He'd even occasionally get a bit of critical recognition, namely for his performance in Giant (1956), which garnered him his first and only Oscar nomination.

As is usually the case with movie stars whose careers are largely based on sex appeal, Hudson's popularity started to wane the more he aged. By the mid-60s, his films weren't bringing in the dough they had when he was in his physical prime. Even giving a career-best performance in Seconds (1966), a project Hudson had so much faith in he even partially financed, didn't seem to matter as the film was (undeservedly) a box office flop. Hudson eventually ended up turning to TV. Though he hated doing television, he had some success there on the long-running McMillan & Wife (1971-1977) and other projects. He also continued to pick up some film work, including the tasteless black comedy Pretty Maids All in a Row (1971), which has become a cult classic here in recent years, and this sci-fi horror flick, which has not.

As has been noted numerous times over the years, the big shocker about Hudson, his public persona, his political alignment with socially conservative moralists and the majority of his work in the entertainment industry was that it was later revealed that this icon of rugged heterosexual masculinity was privately homosexual. This all flew right in the face of stereotypical views of gay men as weak and effeminate and one the public at large couldn't quite process back in the mid 80s moral majority era, especially when Hudson then became the most famous casualty of AIDS in 1985. Adding another layer of uncomfortable irony was then-president Ronald Reagan, who was one of Hudson's personal friends yet lead an administration whose reaction to the AIDS crisis was unarguably appalling (you can get a good glimpse into that in the very telling 7-minute-long mini doc When AIDS Was Funny). While Hudson's reputation was tarnished for decades, enough time has now passed that the next generation of fans and critics have been able to reassess his work on its own merits, perhaps for the first time since the actor's passing.

It's a dark and stormy night when retired scientist Dr. Paul Holliston (Hudson) accidentally runs over a Doberman. He rushes home with the animal and immediately retreats to his sheet-covered lab, which he hasn't even been back in since the premature passing of his wife. Paul manages to extract two puppy fetuses from the critically-wounded animal, puts them in tanks and then goes about trying to save them. Though one of the fetuses and the mother dog die, Paul is able to save the first fetus with an intravenous injection of "placental lactrogen," an experimental rapid-growth hormone that he and his late wife were working on prior to her passing. The dog fetus almost immediately matures into a viable puppy and so quickly ages to adulthood that he has to tell everyone that it's actually the mother dog and not one of her babies.

Given the name "Number One," the dog proves to be super-intelligent and fast-learning to the point where it needs almost no training to follow commands. It can fetch its own food from the refrigerator, clean up after itself, open and close doors, carry groceries and even goes to bed whenever its told. However, it also has a mean streak that it's smart enough to keep hidden, and kills a smaller dog when no one's looking and then hides its body in the bushes. Thinking the dog has been a success, Paul goes to his hospital administrator buddy Jim Winston (Jack Colvin) for help. Though he finds it "morally questionable to experiment with a living being," Jim agrees to provide him with a 12 to 14 week old fetus that otherwise has no chance of surviving outside the womb. One unfortunate suicide later and Paul has his specimen.

After administering the hormone until the fetus has aged to 9 months, Paul stops giving it the drug. Unfortunately, the hormone continues to work despite his best effort to slow or stop the process using various techniques like DNA blocking agents and other drugs. The baby soon becomes a toddler and then a little girl and then an adult woman, (played by half-Nicaraguan former model Barbara Carrera), before he finally comes up with a drug cocktail that seems to work. All the while she was in her life support chamber, Paul was subjecting her to "subconscious teaching" by playing audio tapes about math, science, etc. Once she's finally out and about, he names her Victoria and continues teaching her the basics, like how to speak, brush her hair, dress, etc.

Emotionally, Victoria is rather childlike due to never being exposed to social and environmental restrictions before. However, she has an excellent memory and is like a sponge when it comes to absorbing new information. She speed reads through books and research papers and, after finishing the bible, concludes, "An interesting story, but not very logical." Paul takes Victoria on vacation so that she can see some of the outside world and learn how to act around other people. And, to help shield her identity, they concoct an entire backstory for her. She's Victoria Spencer, a recent graduate from the University of Colorado who will be living and working alongside Paul as his new research assistant. Now she's ready to meet the rest of the family, including Paul's sister-in-law Martha (Diane Ladd), his son Gordon (John Elerick) and Gordon's pregnant wife Helen (Anne Schedeen).

While Victoria manages to delight nearly all that she meets with her beauty, intelligence and charming personality, she does manage to ruffle a few feathers, namely those belonging to Ladd, whose catty character is secretly in love with Paul and thus jealous of the competition, and Roddy McDowall, in a one scene cameo as a cocky chess master who gets shown up at a party by Victoria. But our test tube temptress soon has even bigger problems to contend with. Paranoia starts setting in and she becomes convinced Paul is going to hand her over to a scientific lab to use as a guinea pig if her drugs stop working. As a result, she starts injecting herself with the drug behind Paul's back. She then suffers from terrible cramps and eventually resorts to murder in order to save herself, which requires fluid from the pituitary gland of an unborn fetus!

While this certainly owes a debt of gratitude to countless earlier mad doctor films, it's also firmly in another sub-category I've seen a number of times before which I don't believe even has a name. This category plays up heavily on the common "master" fantasy where the middle-aged male lead has a young, beautiful, innocent, impressionable and unsullied adult female virgin to sculpt into whatever form he desires, only to have it all backfire in some horrific way. Sometimes, like here, the male lead creates the woman using science. Sometimes, the male lead runs across a beautiful alien or demon or some other supernatural being unfamiliar with the modern world who is in need of the older male's mentorship and guidance until things turn sour. In nearly all of these, there's a sexual element present, which is also the case here as doctor and creation eventually become lovers. As Paul states in one of his recordings, "It's not such an unpleasant task to teach such a willing pupil!" I don't know. Daddy Complex Chillers kind of has a nice ring to it.

Reception for this one has mostly been lukewarm or on the negative side, but I was seldom bored. Sure, if one wants to pick apart the scientific aspects they certainly can, this trots out the stale old "Don't play God" moral at the end and most of what occurs in the first hour probably could have been reduced down to about fifteen minutes without much being lost in the process. That said, this is professionally made and well-acted, with Hudson (somewhat surprisingly) fitting the whole sci-fi / horror milieu just fine and Carrera making a strong impression in an early role. The well-trained canine co-star also provides some genuine amusement during many scenes. Ladd, on the other hand, is wasted on a bizarrely underwritten part. The cast also includes Vincent Baggetta as a womanizing computer expert and Dr. Joyce Brothers, who appears as herself during the party scene.

This was one of the final films for Nelson, who at one time was making Emmy and Oscar winning films like Lillies of the Field (1963) and Charly (1969). Immediately after this, producer Sandy Howard decided to back an big budget adaptation of H.G. Wells' The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977), which again starred Carrera and featured make-up effects from John Chambers, Ed Butterworth and Dan Striepeke. One may suspect the poster featuring a nude Carrera in a fetal position was a classic bait-and-switch technique to get asses into theater seats, but she does actually appear nude several times in this PG-rated film. Hard to imagine that a film with T&A and plenty of shots of bloody aborted fetuses would receive the same rating nowadays!

Embryo fell into the public domain about a decade ago, so it's been extremely easy to find on many budget labels over the years. The initial VHS release from Ace Video used the new title Created to Kill, while later DVDs reverted back to the original title.

★★1/2

Class of 1984 (1982)

... aka: Class 1984

... aka: Curso 1984 (Course 1984)

... aka: Escola da Violência (School of Violence)

... aka: Guerrilla High

... aka: Os Donos do Amanhã (The Owners of Tomorrow)

Directed by:

Mark L. Lester

So I initially wrote three paragraphs on the history of U.S. school shootings and escalation of violence in American schools to preface this review. I was interested in seeing how this would be addressed in a film made nearly 40 years ago. What would this have to say about what fuels juvenile delinquency? What would the film propose as a potential remedy? And how would this stack up to where we currently stand as a country? After all, this was made nearly 20 years before the rampage at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado in 1999 that cost thirteen their lives. Since then, the frequency of school shootings has gone through the roof and been so prevalent in U.S. politics, news cycles and society in general that it would be interesting to see something about the same subject made before everything became so depressingly commonplace. Perhaps this would even be, dare I say, a bit prophetic? After viewing the movie, I then decided that the film isn't fit to be compared to real-life horrors. This is much more of a standard revenge / vigilante flick along the lines of Death Wish than something serious-minded, insightful and socially conscious that can actually be taken seriously. Set your sights accordingly and just keep repeating, "It's only an 80s vigilante movie. It's only an 80s vigilante movie. It's only an 80s vigilante movie..."

Andrew Norris (Perry King), coming from a small town in Nebraska, gets a new job as music teacher at the inner city Abraham Lincoln High School. Before even entering through the doors on his very first day, he catches biology teacher Terry Corrigan (Roddy McDowall) slipping a handgun into his briefcase. When asked why, Terry replies, "Where have you been teaching lately?" Inside the school, we see the now familiar sight of students shuffling through metal detectors, except it feels like the staff and security have long since given up caring so much. When Andrew tries to tell the guards that a student just slipped a switchblade through, Terry informs him that "If you want to survive around here, you've got to look the other way." Out of sight, out of mind. The school is overrun by drug pushers and violent, obnoxious punks. It's filthy, kids piss in the hallways and all of the walls are spray painted with profane graffiti. Drug deals take place openly in the hallways and restrooms. Punks curse out teachers and spend their whole day trying to disrupt class with little to no consequences. Apparently this particular school doesn't believe in permanent suspension as seemingly half the student body would qualify. It doesn't help matters that the guy running the place is an unbelievable moron, and he's just one of many almost cartoon-like failures of adult authority.

Andrew manages to get on the bad side of a punk gang led by sociopath Peter Stegman (Vincent Van Patten), the self-proclaimed "ruler" of the school, who shows up in class Andrew's first day making a scene. Peter's primary gang includes junkie Drugstore (Stefan Arngrim), bisexual pink-haired Patsy (Lisa Langlois), fat Barnyard (Keith Knight) and leather clad thug Fallon (Neil Clifford). After school, Andrew heads out to his car and finds it's been spray painted; with improper grammar even! The punks manage to get his home address, track him down and, wearing masks to disguise their identity, shoot him with water guns full of stage blood. After he catches them making a drug deal in the restroom, he informs the useless principal (David Gardner), who takes the punk's side! Soon after, a student who bought drugs from them climbs up the flagpole, recites the Pledge of Allegiance and then falls to his death.

Undeterred, Andrew stops the gang from pummeling model students Arthur (baby-faced Michael J. Fox in his film debut) and Deneen (Erin Flannery) in a back alley and incurs even more of their wrath. They punch him, cut Terry's hand with a razor and then show up at Andrew's home late at night to blow up his car with a Molotov cocktail! They then sneak into the school, slaughter every animal in Terry's lab and smear blood all over the walls. A consultation with a detective (Al Waxman) turns up long rap sheets on the punks, who've been hauled in there at various times for assault, gang activity, drug pushing, running a prostitution racket and rape. Still, nothing's been done and the cop assures Andrew that if charges were pressed they'd simply be back out on the streets in no time. Why? Well, because they're under 18. It's at this stage I just kind of stopped taking the film seriously. It's so outside of reality, preposterous and exaggerated, even with its slight futuristic setting, that credibility is already strained past the point of no return by the midway point.

When Andrew tries to confront Peter in the bathroom, the smarmy little shit goes so far as to smash his own face against a mirror, dryer and sink to frame Andrew for beating him. And, yet again, the principal takes the punk's word over his! You know, cause when someone with a long criminal record who runs a gang and has been kicked out of every other school he's attended for violent behavior goes up against someone with a pristine record, you naturally believe the proven violent criminal, right? Next thing he knows, Andrew is facing assault charges. He tries to talk sense into Peter's mother (Linda Sorenson) but, she too, is a short-sighted, borderline-delusional fucking idiot. Seems to be a recurring theme here. Peter and his gang even get away with stabbing poor Arthur in the middle of the crowded cafeteria and no one does a thing about it. Also rather peculiar that earlier in the film the school is shown to be monitored by cameras all over the place and yet we're to believe that not once have they caught Peter and this gang doing anything worthy of expulsion? Really?

Terry ends up having a complete nervous breakdown and holds his students at gunpoint forcing them to correctly answer questions or else face getting shot. Andrew manages to diffuse the situation and saves Peter's life in the process. Our teacher hero is then repaid for that kind gesture when the punks break into his home, take Polaroids as they gang rape his pregnant wife Diane (Merrie Lynn Ross, also an executive producer) and then take her captive. We pretty much know where this is headed as Andrew is forced to snuff out the punks one by one to save his spouse, which naturally has to take place primarily in the school's shop room and auto garage so handy tools are available for the slaughter.

The events aren't plausible for a second, which prevents us from taking any of this seriously. On the other hand, if you approach this as just a piece of exploitative trash, this is rather mild and there are far trashier, sleazier, gorier and more violent / action-packed movies of this type out there that make no bones about what they are. King and McDowall both give fairly good performances under the circumstances, but there's also something strangely reactionary and antiquated bubbling underneath the surface that rubbed me the wrong way. In some regards, this almost comes off like one of those hysterical 1930s "scare films." You know, the ones with laughably over-the-top, hyperbolic depictions of how having sex and smoking a little weed will ruin your life forever. The target here though are teenagers who have the audacity to go against what society wants them to be. Cause if you give these kids enough rope, they'll most certainly hang YOU. After they're done making a filthy, dirty cesspool of the entire world.

Because the punks are completely one-dimensional (the most vicious is given the lone character insight of being - gasp! - raised by a single mother) we are forced to take them as a collective whole meant to represent something. What that something is and whether that something is conscious or subconscious on the part of the makers I'm not so sure. But why are all of the polite, well-behaved model kids conservatively dressed in preppy attire while all of the vicious, violent, ill-mannered teens are all decked out in leather / punk attire? Their free expression, individuality, hair, clothes, loud music and basically the whole punk milieu with its anarchic implications is something the filmmakers clearly found threatening. They're so threatening, in fact, they're able to infect and drive McDowall's mild-mannered character completely bonkers to the point where he's an alcoholic eventually hitting the streets trying to run them over!

The true catharsis of this take-matters-into-your-own-hands fantasy comes from seeing the upstanding teacher slaughter all of the punks in various gory ways; making the world OK again. That's precisely why someone like Roger Ebert, who spent decades moralizing against the "unnecessary" violence in horror films, was able to give this 3 ½ out of 4 stars. He apparently preferred seeing unruly teens get their arms sliced off with saws and being torched alive by a rule-following authority figure as opposed to a masked maniac.

Despite taking place in the U.S. and having American flags flying all over the place, this was filmed in Canada. The theme song is "I Am the Future" by Alice Cooper and the Canadian punk band Teenage Head appear to perform part of a song at a club. Tom Holland wrote the original story and co-scripted the film. Since this was a hit in theaters and on home video, Lester returned with the much more sci-fi / horror-tinged CLASS OF 1999 (1990), which was then followed by Class of 1999 II: The Substitute (1994) by a different team. There have been a zillion VHS, DVD and Blu-ray releases for this one from companies like Shout! Factory, Anchor Bay and Lionsgate in the U.S., 101 Films in the UK and CMV Laservision in Germany to name but a few.

★★