Zeegrade Meet Peter Houseman, rock star genetic professor at Virgina University. When he's not ballin' on the court he's blowing minds and dropping panties in his classroom lectures. Dr. Houseman is working on a serum that would allow the body to constantly regenerate cells allowing humans to become immortal. I'd want to be immortal too if I looked like Christian Bale and got the sweet female lovin that only VU can offer. An assortment of old and ugly university professors don't care for the popular Houseman and cut off funding for his project due to lack of results. This causes Peter to use himself as the guinea pig for his serum. Much to my amazement there are side effects and he, get this, metamorphoses! into something that is embedded into our genetic DNA that has been repressed for "millions of years". He also beds Dr. Mike's crush Sally after a whole day of knowing her. She has a son. His name is Tommy. He is an angry little boy.Metamorphosis isn't a terrible movie, just not a well produced one. The whole time I watched this I couldn't get past the fact that this was filmed in 1989. The look and feel of the movie is late seventies quality at the latest. It does not help that it's packaged along with 1970's movies as Metamorphosis is part of mill creek entertainment's 50 chilling classics. There is basically no film quality difference whatsoever. The final five minutes are pure bad movie cheese that actually, for me at least, save the movie from a lower rating. Pay attention to the computer terminology such as "cromosonic anomaly". No wonder Peter's experiment failed. Your computer can't spell! This is worthy of a view followed by a trip to your local tavern.

Backlash007 ~Spoiler~ Metamorphosis has one of those box covers that I remember seeing time and again as a child and never renting. So it had an air of nostalgia to it when I picked it up for dirt cheap at the local video store. However, that wears thin pretty quickly once the movie gets going. Metamorphosis plays like a low rent version of David Cronenberg's The Fly, which it is. A brilliant young scientist uses himself as a test subject, undergoes a radical change in cellular structure, and attacks his girlfriend. Sound familiar? Well, let me save you some time by telling you to just watch The Fly again. One interesting fact about the film was that it was written and directed by George Eastman. If you don't recognize that name you obviously don't follow Italian cinema. He's starred (that's right, he's an actor) in such classics as After the Fall of New York, Bronx Warriors, and Warriors of the Wasteland. But this is the only film he's officially directed. And I can't say that it's directed badly or even scripted badly. It just doesn't try to become its own movie. And on top of that, there is the acting and the effects. The acting is a bit shoddy from everyone, especially the kid. I know child acting must have its difficulties, but HOLY CRAP!! People hate that kid. And the effects aren't terrible...up to a point (and you will know that point). The big reveal during the finale is such a let down. The scientist turns into a big, rubber dinosaur. I asked myself "What was that?" "It was a nightmare...from the past." I was informed.

Jonny_Numb 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!"

gridoon Mixing in about equal parts "The Fly" and "Dr.Jekyll and Mr.Hyde", this flick is reasonably well-done on an obviously low budget, but the minute it stops regarding its hero as a human and starts treating him like a standard movie monster, it completely loses its point. Perhaps that's why the drawn-out climax is so unexciting. But it deserves some kind of award for having in its cast one of the most dislikable kids that ever appeared in a movie. (**)