Welcome back, my little cannibals, to another installment of Horror Web's "Cinema Meat Grinder". I hope your appetite for shredded flesh and celluloid has you hungry, because I’ve got the meats. And no, this ain’t Arby’s. I’ve been scouring the globe for the most tender and bloody cuts of cult cinema, and I’m happy to say my friends, the meat locker of Count Scottula is fully stocked for the coming blood feast. I’ve selected a real treat for you to sample today. This one is near and dear to my bloody heart as it was THE first horror film I ever procured from the local cinema butcher shop, AKA … a video store. I offer you, ‘Deadly ‘Spawn’!
When a meteor crash brings a carnivorous, multi headed, slimy toothed alien slug to earth, it sets up residence in the basement of young horror fanatic, Charles. Charles and his older brother, Pete the Science Guy, are stuck at home during a thunderstorm along with their aunt and uncle who are dutifully watching over them while mom and dad are out for the weekend. This is despite the fact that the kids are old enough to be on their own. But hey, we need a body count. Unbeknownst to them, mom and dad are alien food, devoured in the basement as everyone sleeps. As the alien slug grows, it spawns little toothy tadpoles, eats an electrician and is soon discovered by young Charles, who finds the creature’s babies still noshing on mom’s face. Older bro Pete and his two science friends have dissected a dead spawn they happened across, realizing it’s not of this earth. They run to inform Uncle Herb, who is too busy having his eyes eaten out by more of the hungry little fuckers to really give a damn. Meanwhile, Aunt - I forget her name - attends an old lady luncheon and accidentally purees a spawn and serves it to her friends before the gang of geriatrics is hilariously attacked by a cohort of toothy slugs. Old ladies screaming while being eaten by infant alien slug life is always a good time, but don’t eat the “green salad”. It’s a bit off.
What follows is a fight for survival as Charles and others struggle to avoid and destroy the creature before it devours New Jersey! There will be blood, there will be nipples, faces will be eaten, there will be excessive use of the color red, there will be romance … cut short by a hungry alien, of course. Deadly Spawn (AKA The Aliens: Return of the Deadly Spawn, AKA Return of the Aliens Deadly Spawn) is a quickly paced, 80 minutes of carnage released in 1983. Shot in and around Gladstone and New Brunswick, NJ, the movie took three years to make and had a budget of a mere $25,000. What we get is a pure labor of love made by some dedicated artists. It features some incredible creature effects by FX master John Dods and one hell of a soundtrack!
Check this gem out, kids. If you want to have a deadly good time with your friends and loved ones, I highly recommend making a drinking game out of this movie. Take a drink every time a scene features the color red! You’ll be buzzed after 10 minutes in, shit faced by the middle of second act, and someone will be dead by the end of the film.
‘Deadly Spawn’ 1983
Director: Douglas McKeown
Written by: Ted A. Bohus and Douglas McKeown
Starring: Ted A. Bohus, Tom DeFranco, Charles Hildebrandt.
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