IMDb user comments for
Evil Spawn (1987) More at IMDb Pro »

Filter:

Best Chronological Prolific Authors Loved It Hated It Hide Spoilers:

Page 1 of 2:

[1] [2]

Index

11 comments in total

---

6 out of 7 people found the following comment useful :-
Well, it's bad, but I like it!, 15 septembre 1999
Author: Scott-212 de Kansas City, MO

I rented this with a friend about 10 years ago. True, it is awful and cheesy, but in a strange way I kinda like it! Bobbie Bresee plays has-been actress Lynn Roman, who finds herself too old to be cast in the starlet roles of her past. In order to regain her youth, she begins taking injections given to her by Evelyn Avery, the mad assistant to the equally mad doctor played by John Carradine (Sad to see how bad he looks in this one.) Well, the injections restore Lynn's youthful appearance, but as an unfortunate side effect they also transform her into a giant rubbery insect which proceeds to suck the blood out of anyone unfortunate enough to cross its path! Before each transformation scene Lynn also spits out an enormous quantity of white fluid which kinda looks like... uh, anyway, you get the idea! The second half of the movie is basically devoted to Lynn, as the insect, taking revenge on every one who ever crossed her. About the worse thing any of these people did to Lynn was cast someone else in the roles she wanted, but that doesn't stop her from the low budget, and often quite funny, killing spree that follows. At one point she kills her shapely, youthful assistant for having long dark hair and the physique that Lynn is lacking. In the token gratuitous nudity scene, the assistant takes a nude swim that goes on for about five minutes before being killed. Funny how this giant rubbery thing, about twice as big as Lynn is, can come up behind someone and not be seen or heard until it is too late, despite the weird sounds it makes. In another scene, Lynn transforms and kills her agent. Moments later she is human again, and clothed, despite the fact that she ripped out of her clothes only seconds before. These are just a few of the many flaws that gives this film a warm place in my heart. Most of the gore is of the dimestore variety, indeed most of the budget appears to have gone into the monster effects. there is one very nasty scene in the beginning where a typical 80's yuppie has his arm torn out of the socket! Ugh! Still, if you like "so bad they're good" movies, you could do worse. This has become almost impossible to find, by the way. I had to do a great deal of searching before finally finding a website that had this for sale. Apparently there's another version of this called "The Alien Within", and I wouldn't mind seeing it either! Worth a look if you can ever find it. I'd love to see this on Joe Bob Briggs Monstervision show.

---

4 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
THE ALIEN WITHIN, the rare version of EVIL SPAWN., 13 avril 2003
Author: capkronos (capkronos@hotmail.com) de Ohio, USA

How do you make a bad movie even worse? Apparently you hire Ted Newsom, give him a camcorder and put him under the not-so-watchful eye of producer Fred Olen Ray. Here we have the very fun Grade-Z classic EVIL SPAWN (1986) by director Kenneth J. Hall reedited and with new and pointless inserts shot on tape. The new scenes feature Jay Richardson and Suzanne Ager as cops sitting in a car talking, eating doughnuts and fighting an awful hand-puppet monster, Gordon Mitchell sitting at a desk on the phone and Richard Harrison turning into an pathetic rubbery monster and ripping Melissa Moore's top off. Scenes from the original film easily provide the most entertaining moments in this version, so you might as well seek it out. Forrest J. Ackerman is seen briefly in the old and the new footage.

EVIL SPAWN (original version): 3 out of 10

New footage contained on THE ALIEN WITHIN: 1 out of 10

---

2 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Funny and Sick!, 16 février 2002
Author: cameraman_mike_2000 de Bad Actors Route

EVIL SPAWN (1987) *1/2 (Out of 4*'s) Director: Kenneth J. Hall. Bobbie Bresee, Drew Godderis, John Terrence, Donna Shock, John Carradine.

An underground woman scientist offers a has-been actress a drug that promises to restore her youth. After second guessing the idea and finally taking it, she gets sick and turns into a beast at night and begins killing whoever is nearby!

Shamelessly makes you feel sorry for the lead character. The acting is shy and somewhat overdone. The neat special effects look much better on the back of the video box than they do during the movie.

Not oscar material, but all movies like these are great for parties!

---

1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
rather typical 80's low budget horror schlock, 1 décembre 2006

Author: TheatreX de Louisville, KY

This is a pretty typical low budget horror schlock film made in 1986, and while his name isn't on it to speak of, you can see the Fred Olen Ray influence. Like a supposedly legitimate movie producer that has posters on his walls of Fred Olen Ray movies? Anyway, Bobby Bressee plays a fading starlet, who isn't getting roles because she's "too old", and when she is presented with a solution to that problem by way of some evil female scientist (Dawn Wildsmith looking rather uh, butch?) she reluctantly tries it only to find it makes her look rather radiant but with one nasty side effect: she turns into some hideous rubber monster. That, of course, kills folks. The things women do to preserve their good looks. Anyway, of course things escalate because there's an author working on her biography and he has grown rather close to her, so he of course, tries to put an end to all this mayhem. Cheesy as all get out, but I thought it had an element of cheesy fun to it too. By no means is this great cinema, but fans of cheese and sleaze might find something to enjoy here. 6 out of 10.

---

1 out of 2 people found the following comment useful :-
Defining moment..., 20 juillet 1999
Author: Mr Parker (spookyscribe@yahoo.com) de New York City

... is in the first fifteen minutes of the movie. Some woman who's about to get chowed down on by some unseen evil opts to take the suicide route. She jams a gun into her mouth and get this... they cut to a shot of the wall behind her, brains and muck splatter the wall and a second later, you hear the gunshot. Give the sound editors a friggin' award! I rented this over ten years ago because my friend liked the nude woman on the cover so much that he had to see it. I haven't let him live it down since. Avoid at all costs and I do mean all.

---

1 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Revenge of the 80's: The remakes. A Cheaply made knock-off of Wasp Woman., 29 juin 2004

Author: Joseph P. Ulibas (sirjosephu@aol.com) de Sacramento, CA

Evil Spawn (1987) was a cheaply produced film that reeks of poverty. You have a good premise but it's faulty execution has no real pay off. A couple of good scenes does not a movie make. Too bad, because the actresses were good looking (especially the brunette) and the idea was solid. Maybe they should have a better story writer and a little more imagination. I saw this movie a few years ago at a Mr. Video store (rest in peace). Back then the cheesy video cover screamed cheap-cheap. I should have listened to my head instead of my eyes. Oh well. Perhaps a film-maker with more on the ball would make a better production.

An aging actress will do anything to look young again (my advice is to stay out of the sun lady). So she comes across a crazy old scientist and his shady associate. He's working on an experimental formula that'll reduce the signs of aging (the good doctor should have used a little dab himself me thinks). But before he can work out all of the "bugs", tragedy occurs but that doesn't stop the old B-Queen from using it.

The story might sound interesting but please stay away unless YOU REALLY like bad movies. Because there is really no need for someone (or anyone) to watch this "movie". Maybe next time they should concentrate more on the adult aspect of the storyline.

Best to avoid.

If it wasn't for the hot brunette this one would get a zero or a negative rating.

---

1 out of 3 people found the following comment useful :-
Shockingly appalling, 2 décembre 2001
Author: Fluke35 de Fife, Scotland

Where to begin?

First, you have little or no coherent plot (it was only due to this site I found out about the spore thing), a mad scientist who isn't so much mad as decrepit, special effects that aren't and seemingly random characters who stumble into the dire mess with little or no regard for coherency.

As a final warning to people, consider this cautionary tale: On the British video release, it says on the back cover "The scenes depicted on this sleeve may be an artist's impression & may not necessarily represent actual scenes from the film". Hurm. Presumably this is so they can't get sued by the thousands of raging customers demanding a real film.

---

2 out of 5 people found the following comment useful :-
Evil Rubber, 31 août 2001

Author: (kennywest1@email.msn.com)

Like all Nite Owl Theater DVDs, this Fred Olan Ray film is a mess of tired special effects, poor acting, and nudity. There's a weak plot about a beautiful aging actress who turns into a six and a half foot tall rubber monster that rips people up here and there. There's a detective or something and a scientist or something..that doesn't really matter if you're just waiting to see a bare body in a following scene because that's all there is here. A cheap soap opera with pathetic monsters. There's alot of entertaining alien films out there..this isn't one of them.

---

1 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
A true work of cinematic art ... NOT!!!, 28 juin 2006

Author: Woodyanders (Woodyanders@aol.com) de The Last New Jersey Drive-In on the Left

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

Boy, does this astonishingly awful direct-to-video late 80's low budget horror abomination commit all the so-utterly-wretched-that-they're-weirdly-wonderful trash movie vices. For starters, the central premise is basically an ungodly blend of "Sunset Boulevard" and your typically tacky Grade Z 50's type deadly monster picture done with 80's style gore, nudity and profanity to make it seem more "modern": Faded over-the-hill former big film star Lynn Roman (atrociously played by buxom blonde babe Bobbie Bresee of "Mausoleam" fame) takes a special experimental anti-aging serum to make herself look young again. Naturally, there's a nasty side effect: the serum causes Lynn to mutate into a lethal giant humanoid insect beast which predictably bumps off a few folks. Kenneth J. Hall's pathetic (mis)direction, Hall's equally dismal script (Hall is the same genius dreck feature scribe who penned the brilliant screenplay for "Nightmare Sisters"), Christopher Condon's endearingly crude'n'clunky cinematography, the dreadful dialogue ("Aren't they the ones who do those schlocky low budget films in Italy?"), the cheesy gore, nil suspense, sluggish pacing, terrible acting, a laughably hokey some-poor-guy-in-an-obvious-rubber-suit monster, Paul Natzke's annoyingly droning synthesizer score, and even a heavy-handed morale about the perils of vanity ensure that this hilariously horrendous honey is an absolute campy hoot from start to finish. Better still, Bresee takes a steamy shower and the exquisitely ample brunette knockout Pamela Gilbert goes skinny-dipping prior to being killed by the creature. An extremely feeble John Carradine has a very sad cameo as a doddering old fuddy dud of a mad scientist and Forrest J. Ackerman makes a fleeting appearance as a pool cleaner. As Lynn so aptly puts it early on in the movie: "This sounds like something out of a bad science fiction film." And indeed that's exactly what this sublimely shoddy stinker is.

---

1 out of 4 people found the following comment useful :-
Awful, ameraturish garbage., 4 avril 2003
Author: sketchy (j6524@hotmail.com) de pembroke,massachusetts.

*** This comment may contain spoilers ***

~SPOILERS~

Horrible movie about a actress that is loosing her popularity, so she injects a her self with alien DNA, hoping to look young again. Instead, she turns into a monster that hunts human flesh at night. Although the monster on the cover looks terrific, the rest of this movie is pure garbage. Of course, since it was directed by that perverted director Fred Olen Ray, you know should just how bad this really is. Skip this dud, it is not worth your time.

---

---

Page 1 of 2:

[1] [2]

Add another comment

---

Related Links

Plot summary	Ratings	External reviews
Plot keywords	Principaux Détails	Your user comments
Your vote history