The Hollywood studio machine eats
people up and spits them out. We all know
this. It’s understood as a given for
anyone entering the world of cinematic celebrity. Aside from those who get involved in drugs
and murder and sleazy sex/religious cults or whatever, there is the omnipresent
threat that at any moment, the phone may stop ringing because you have been
deemed too old. The difference between
the former examples and the latter is that people have no choice in the aging
process. We begin dying the moment we’re
born, and careers in Hollywood tend to die very prematurely indeed. I think (I have no hard evidence for any of
this, mind you) that an actor or actress knows that their career is on the
downswing the moment they receive a screenplay wherein they will be playing the
parent of one of the main characters or worse the grandparent (or – Horror! –
scripts for television movies). And
women get it worse than men, clearly.
Men are said to get distinguished with age. Men mature.
Women age, and the shelf life for a top actress who can headline a film
and put asses in seats (who are scarce enough to begin with) is shorter than
that of a mayfly. It’s not uncommon to
be considered over the hill by the time an actress is in her thirties. It’s no wonder that they cling in desperation
to their careers by getting all manner of plastic surgery done. The sad irony is that said work typically
makes them look more cartoonish than if they had simply allowed themselves to
grow old with grace. They make of
themselves a freak show, and one thing that people love to watch is a freak
show (celebrity or otherwise). I believe
we’re all culpable to some degree or another in this cultural perpetuation, but
to go into it and all of its permutations at any length isn’t why we’re here,
so I’ll be brief. We moan that older
actors and actresses get shit parts in shit films, but how many of us would pay
for a theater ticket to see a big budget film with Diane Lane playing the lead role?
Don’t lie. The vast majority of
people would either wait until it hits video or cable or pirate it off a
torrent site, if it even hits their radar at all. How many studio executives would take a
chance on a project like that? Very few,
if they value their tenuous jobs. Though
the occasional bright light does shine through this darkness, these glimmers
are few and far between. All of this
ties into the Kenneth J Hall (Ted Newsom and Fred Olen Ray are also listed on IMdB as directors, but if memory
serves, only Hall is credited
onscreen) schlockfest Evil Spawn (aka
Alien Within aka Deadly Sting aka Alive by
Night aka Metamorphosis). It just does very little to save the film.
A space probe brings alien
microbes (which are actually quite large for microbes as I would define them
and so not actually microbes at all) are brought to Earth to be studied. Evelyn (who pronounces her name like He-Man
villainess Evil-Lyn and is played by Dawn
Wildsmith) murders a fellow scientist (apparently in his
garage-turned-laboratory) and takes the microbes back to her mentor Dr. Zeitman
(John Carradine who really struggles
just to get through his scene; I felt bad for the man, frankly), who also promptly
croaks. Evelyn approaches aging actress Lynn
Roman (Bobbie Bresee, thirty-seven
years old at the time this was released) with an anti-aging serum derived from
the microbes, and once Lynn reaches her snapping point and decides to take the
drug, the beast that has been raging inside her is finally unleashed.
Okay. From the above synopsis, the film’s plot
probably doesn’t make a ton of sense.
That’s because the film doesn’t make a ton of sense. Characters come and go just because. Plot threads are brought up, scarcely tied
into the main plot, and then completely forgotten. The characters all act extremely dumb and/or
whiny. The world these people exist in
is entirely unbelievable, even if you look at it through the lens of trash
cinema (though doing that would likely make the film a bit more palatable). Not one of these people are motivated by
anything other than plot conveniences. The
picture’s story is almost a total lift of 1959’s The Wasp Woman (and if you want to read about a seriously messed up
end to a starlet’s career and life, look up some information on Susan Cabot sometime) an, to a lesser
extent, both versions of The Fly, but
at least in those films, the characters pretended to do something every now and
then. The lion’s share of Evil Spawn is Lynn crying about her
career, bellyaching about the movie she wants to be in, and being hopelessly
untethered from reality a la Norman Desmond but not nearly as interestingly
(and Sunset Boulevard is another
influence on this film, though Billy
Wilder likely spins in his grave every time this film is screened). Even at seventy minutes long, this film outstays
its welcome. It’s like waiting for a
boring guest to leave, then he says something that briefly piques your interest
and snaps you out of your stupor, but then you swiftly realize that they’re
still depressingly tedious, and go back to counting the seconds until it’s all
over. The only thing this film has a
plenitude of is naked women, and they are certainly attractive enough, each and
every one. Just not enough to make
sitting through this whole thing worth the effort. There’s also some gore and a relatively
decent monster costume (especially impressive if the estimated thirty thousand
dollar budget is to be believed), but again, it’s just too little, too late.
Outside of the fear of irrelevance
embodied by Lynn in her bid to stay in the spotlight is the motif that hell
hath no fury like a woman scorned. Her
biographer (Ross Anderson) is
essentially a meathead. Her boyfriend
Brent (John Terrence) gives the
impression he doesn’t want to be seen in public with Lynn, and is cheating on
her with some floozy (who he brings to Lynn’s house just so they can both
become victims…I mean, just to get a little action). Her agent (Fox Harris) is a two-faced slimewad, who dicks Lynn over for a younger
client. Her producer pal (Mark Anthony) lets her have it with
both barrels when she all but begs him for a role in his next big movie (“No
amount of diffusion can take that away,” re: Lynn’s wrinkles). Naturally, there’s only so much a woman can endure,
and since almost all of these characters are so deplorable and/or bland, we
can’t wait for Lynn to “Hulk out” and start laying waste to them. We’re in her corner, because she’s the
victim. Normally, audiences love films
like this, but our main character in this one simply isn’t sympathetic enough for
us to give a shit about her travails.
Sadly, it makes the creature/murder scenes little more than bathetic
rather than cathartic.
MVT: The only reason to
watch this is for its exploitable elements (read: nudity and blood), and even then
I would likely just recommend trying to find a condensation of those scenes
without all the other shit.
Make or Break: The death of
Elaine (Pamela Gilbert) is the
highlight of the film for a few reasons.
One, I think she’s the best looking woman in this film. Two, she’s stark raving nude when it
happens. Three, the blood streaming down
her back and into the crack of her ass does actually make a great image, all
things being equal. You got me on that
one, Mr. Ray.
Score: 3/10
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