The Deadly Spawn

The Deadly Spawn (1983)
Dir: Douglas Mckeon

      As a horror fan since childhood there has always been a few flicks that have just seemed to escape me, Films that I continue to hear about but just cannot seem to track down and for years one of those films was The Deadly Spawn. Well finally thanks to the wonders of the internet I have tracked down a copy,Now the question is does it live up to all the hype? well let's find out.
     The film opens with a couple of campers out by the fire when I meteor comes crashing down to Earth  Near their campsite, The two outdoors men do some investigation and unfortunate for them the meteor contained a deadly alien life form which kills both the campers and as we see the silhouette of the creature killing one of the campers the title screen pops up in old fashion Sci Fi style. After the opening credits a husband and wife awake and are getting ready for the day and all seems normal until the husband heads down to the attic where the alien has made it's home. After the husband is eaten alive again in the silhouette style his wife follows suit shortly after looking for her mate and after being tapped on the back by what appears to be his arm she turns around to see the Alien life form which then feasts on her face in gruesome fashion.

After the opening kills The deceased couples children awake and apparently their Uncle and Aunt are also in the house in order to babysit while the parents go out for the day. We meet Aunt Millie who is preparing to go to Grannies house for a vegetarian lunch party, Uncle Herb who is a psychologist, and the two kids Pete who is a science freak and Charles who is obsessed with horror films and costumes he enjoys using to pull little scares on folks. Millie and Herb prepare breakfast and everything appears normal since they see a letter from the kids parents notifying them of there leave. After breakfast an electrician arrives and goes directly into the attic and Charles puts on a mask and follows to attempt to prank the worker, When he gets to the attic he see's the place covered in blood and stumbles upon the Alien who has eaten the electrician. He narrowly escapes being eaten and quickly notices that the Alien appears to be blind and only follows sound because once he stands still the Alien backs off. Meanwhile upstairs Pete's study friends arrive and have brought a small unknown creature they found on their way. After much debate over what this thing could be Ellen decides to dissect it.

The Alien appears to grow as it eats and is spawning incredibly fast. While at Grandma's dinner party some of the smaller Aliens infest the house and one is blended into a salad which does not go over well with grannies house guests, and while Millie goes to make a phone call to check up on the kids , the Grannie and her guests are attacked by a swarm of Blood thirsty alien cubs.

While Millie and her Veggie eating pals flee from Grandma's house, Back at the kids place , Pete and his friends discover Uncle Herb devoured by the creatures and from here on out the shit really hits the fan. As the study group runs through the house trying to hide from the flesh eating beasts, Ellie is decapitated and Pete finds that his parents are dead too when he see's that their car had never left the garage. While they aimlessly scurry through the house, Young Charles puts together a bomb with some of his make up effects after finding that flames hurt the creature. He lures the monster in using a fake head and after nearly being eaten himself the creature takes the bait and explodes. Outside as Millie arrives we see the Police and townsfolk hunting these alien beings and burning them and all seems to be clearing up until later that night when an officer is on clean up duty looking for stragglers and hears a loud rumbling, then off in the distance we see a large hill begin to move and reveal itself as a giant Alien Creature as the credits roll.

So the question was , does Deadly Spawn live up to the hype I have heard over the years and the answer is Kind of. I see the appeal with this film and it does deserve it's cult following. I mean for it's time the Monster effects are amazing and the gore is all well done, But the characters in the film are all kind of pointless which would lead you to believe they would be fodder for the beast , though in the end a majority of the cast survives the invasion which honestly is a let down. I think I would have enjoyed this film a bit more if the body count was a bit higher, I mean why couldn't we see any of the old ladies get eaten or the study buddies? I mean they really did not serve any purpose other than to pad the body count and they don't. I just found that odd, I had heard that this film was a gore fest and to an extent it does deliver the goods in that department but not nearly to the point that I expected coming in. I for one have never been a fan of Sci-Fi films and this one is kind of a hybrid between horror and Sci-Fi so I could live with that. I guess I was just expecting more after hearing this film being mentioned in the same breath as films like Dead Alive in the gore department and this one is no where near the levels of gross out gore as that film. As I stated though the effects are far ahead of their time and that is awesome to see but other than the Monster and a few decent kills this one is just a basic invasion type movie. The monster in this one is very similar to the creature in Abomination but obviously much better made,although I think I preferred the cheap o' splatter Abomination a bit more than this one after all is said and done. The Deadly Spawn is a fun film but once again I let my expectations get the best of me which always seems to lead me to disappointment.
Gore:7 (Not many kills but the ones that are shown are done effectively)
Nudity:1 (only one pair of boobs shown through a see through gown, Nothing to see here)
Story: 5 ( The basic standard Alien invasion scenario with a bloodier twist)
Characters:5 ( with the exception of Charles and the actual creature , everyone else is pretty pointless and i don't understand why they were not killed off)
Overall: 6 out of 10