318. Metamorphosis

318. Metamorphosis (1990)
Director: George Eastman
Writer: George Eastman
From: Chilling (only 3 remain!)

A professor researching a means of altering genetics through mutation to make people immortal injects himself with his serum producing unexpected results.

Peter is a cocky genius studying genetics at a private university in Virginia and becomes outraged when an auditor arrives demanding documentation of his research expenditures and results. He’s been keeping the details of his work a secret from everyone including the other members of his department. When he does tell them about his work, they think he’s crazy and crossing all sorts of ethical lines. His work, by the way, is focused on finding a genetic way to halt aging. Both Peter and his work capture the interest of Sally, the auditor. Unfortunately, Peter has burned so many bridges in his department that they crack down on him, seeking to close his lab.

You know what kind of movie this is: of course he then performs the experiment on himself. Initially it seems successful, but then he’s haunted by visions of assaulting a woman in a hotel room. Turns out he did and the serum is having a Jekyll & Hyde effect. He’s also starting to age rapidly and needs to perform the experiment again to set things right. As his assistant preps the lab, though, the other self comes forth and Peter leaves.

He comes to outside the apartment of a student who had been flirting with him in class (ew). He realizes he broke in and assaulted her, specifically when he goes back in through the broken door and his bruised and bleeding student attacks him with a knife. He calms her down by saying he’s not a threat anymore, then turns and kills her. Don’t know how you want to unpack that, but I don’t know that there’s a way to do it without reading it as her rapist invading her home again, convincing her he’s not a threat this time, then murdering her. Her death isn’t brought up again and, even after it, we’re told to see Peter as a victim of circumstance, not as an egomaniacal creeper teacher who condemns himself and the people he’s drawn into his net.

He is caught by the police, though not seemingly in relation to the assault, and taken to the hospital because of how bad he looks. His colleagues realize he’s not aging rapidly but instead devolving into a pre-mammalian form of life. He breaks out of the hospital, killing his rival and his own assistant in the process, and heads to Sally’s house because she has the last vial of serum.

By the way, he and Sally hooked up, which is why she has the vial. Also, she has a shitty kid who shouldn’t be in the film. It shouldn’t be important, because he shouldn’t be in the film, but he has to be mentioned because he’s the core of everything else that happens.

When the budget's abandoned you

Anyway, Peter goes to her house, gets the serum, inadvertently kidnaps the kid (he’s asleep in the back of the car Peter steals), and heads back to the lab. Sally follows, kid wanders the lab, and eventually alerts Peter to his presence. Shitty kid breaks the final vial of serum, finds mom, and the pair try to avoid Peter. They escape him at the last minute as the cops arrive and open fire on Peter in his final form: a half-price rip-off Reptar costume.

Peter is reduced to a pool of jelly, shitty kid (who’s allowed into and then to run around a crime scene) runs off and grabs something in the lab, and everyone leaves. Sally is moving back to New York where shitty kid reveals the lizard he stole from the lab and Sally realizes it’s Peter. THE END

I was kind of digging this movie unironically until the scene with the student, and, to my shame, even that didn’t take me out of it. I’m not going to say that sequence isn’t weird or uncomfortable, but it initially felt like a moment where we were supposed to start seeing Peter more as a monster than hero and I also thought him murdering a young woman would come back up. That the movie seems unconcerned by it (in fact sees the mutual flirting between teacher and student as something cheeky) is to the movie’s detriment. Then you throw in the shitty kid and it’s a misstep too many.

However, shitty kid pushes the film fully into the realm of being hilariously bad. You can get a nice chorus of “fuck you, kid!” going with some friends through the last 20-30 minutes of this movie and it’ll be a joyful noise, let me tell you. Until the kid shows up, it’s a fine, low-budget flick that does its best to make you uncomfortable without too many special effects. It does the needle-in-the-eye scare twice in the first half-hour. It’s cheaply done, but still uncomfortable, and that’s good. It’s also sort of silly-bad throughout. It moves at an okay pace and the appearance of Peter in his final form is laugh-out-lout funny. So it’s a recommend. It’s definitely a good-bad movie.

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