'Metamoprhis' is the story of a dashing young scientist, revered at the local college, is brought under investigation by financial providers for the college. This forces him to take shortcuts in typical bad-Hollywood melodramatic fashion.

My first thought after this movies conclusion was this. "Not good, but not bad, for early-to-mid eighties." Of course, I then realized that it was made in 1990, which almost propelled it down to a '4', but decided to keep it at the mediocre '5' that it is.

'Metamorphis' does on a few occasions, seem like a good movie desperately trying to get out. The acting, while not stellar, is mostly competent. You can even see the occasional glisten of a modest quality. Pacing is a large problem with the movie. After thinking I had been watching for ninety minutes, I realized I'd only been watching an hour. Special effects aren't stellar, but the director seems to be mostly competent enough to work around that weakness.

The lead, a mildly charismatic male that seems to be attempting a blended channeling of Tom Cruise and Christopher Reeves, reminded me mostly of Matt Dillon's character in 'Wild Things'. The female heroine does an OK job, but does not distinguish herself in anyway. There's a 'naughty girl' role in here, and the actress does what she can with it, but it doesn't seem like much. There is a child actor that the director can't decide if he's morose, cheerful or just weird.

Pacing, as I said, is the worst problem with this movie, until a final battle with the bad guy that would make a Power Ranger blush. It is bizarre and inexplicable, until the final scene which is supposed to be dramatic but simply hilarious, saturated with every bad camera trick and overacting that can be compressed in about thirty seconds.

A decent one-time watch on the 'Mill Creek 50 Chilling Movie Pack'. Nothing that is going to bring you back, and nothing to buy on its own.

Another horror film from that age where the sun was setting on the Italian exploitation film industry, only this one is directed by George Eastman, which I'm sure no one's mentioned on here yet.

This one involves a guy called Houseman who's a basketball playing, hip genetics professor who kind of looks a bit like Clark Kent. Some lady looking into funding of research forces all projects to show what they are doing which leads to Houseman having to hurry things up and inject himself with some serum that may stop people ageing. He's not angry at that chick by the way, and they end up in the sack fairly early on in the film. Also, this chick has a kid and he looks terrified of all the actors, just like that kid who acted alongside The Hoff in Witchcraft.

The prof hasn't watched Cronenberg's The Fly remake, however (although I'm sure Eastman has), so it comes as a surprise to him when he's feeling great but having blackouts which involved beating the crap out of Laura Gesmer, and then eventually getting worse and worse until it seems like Luigi...I mean George...has replaced half of this film with the last half of Phantom of Death. So he either goes all green eyed or ends up like an ancient old man. And you know that chick has the serum that could cure him...

I'll be frank here: It's fifty eight minutes into the film before we get our first kill. Nearly an hour! Before then, you've a lot of genetic talk, romance, an old enemy trying to one up our Prof, loads of ancient computers and such like. Luckily the acting is pretty bad and it's all neon and eighties like.

Thinks finally pick up a bit when Houseman gets even more mutated and starts wasting the cast (about time too), there's a smattering of gore here, but not enough. I'm giving a six because the cheese factor is very high, and the two 'twists' at the ending are hilarious and kind of worth all the wait, but this is kind of a poor film from an era of poor films.

All the elements for a bad night at the movies are in place: dialog riddled with biological techno-babble, chintzy sets, balsa-wood acting, a horrific late-'80s Casio score, and an overall look that suggests anything on the Sci-Fi Channel's programming schedule, circa 1993. Though "Metamorphosis" starts off with a lot of promise, the film unravels into bland idiocy and MST3K-style cheese as Clark Kent wannabe 'Doctor' Peter Houseman (Gene LeBrock) is pressured into releasing information on his secretive projects. But when he tests his vague experiment on himself, he transforms into a vaguely-defined creature (that bears more than a passing resemblance to 'Dr. Freudstein' from "House by the Cemetery"). The FX work is fairly good for such an obviously low-budget production (though I suspect most of it is kept in shadow for a reason), but overall, "Metamorphosis" leaves a bad retro aftertaste in your guts, in spite of its hopes to sway us otherwise. I can't help but agree with one character's closing remark: "(It was) A nightmare...from the past!"