The Deadly Spawn

Plot synopsis:
Two campers are nearby when a meteor falls to Earth and lands in the woods near their campsite. When they go to investigate, they are attacked and eaten by a bizarre lifeform that emerges from the crashed rock, mostly unseen but apparently consisting of multiple heads with hundreds of teeth.Nearby the crash site is a large house located on a rural plot of land. The house is the home of Sam (James L. Brewster) and Barb (Elissa Neil), and their two school-age children, high school age Pete (Tom DeFranco) and his younger brother Charles (Charles George Hildebrandt). Visiting are Aunt Millie (Ethel Michelson) and Uncle Herb (John Schmerling).Sam and Barb rise before anybody else is awake; they have an unspecified trip planned, which Barb hopes can be put off because of the incessant rainstorm. Sam insists, and he goes downstairs to check the basement for flooding. A flapping basement window suggests that the creature from the meteor has taken refuge in the cellar, and sure enough, when Sam goes into the basement, he is eaten by the bizarre monstrosity. Barb suffers the same fate when she goes down to see what happened to Sam; the creature corners her and viciously bites off her face.Aunt Millie is awakened by screaming, but she attributes it to the horror movie that Charles is watching on TV in his room. Charles is obsessed with magic, monsters, and scaring people. When Aunt Millie returns to call Charles to breakfast, he surprises her by wearing a scary mask and costume and setting off flash powder when she opens the door. Pete disapproves of Charles' hobby, being more interested in schoolwork and science. Pete fancies himself a scientist, and he sets up a study date with three classmates, Ellen (Jean Tafler), Frankie (Richard Lee Porter), and Kathy (Karen Tighe).Aunt Millie has plans to have lunch with her mother, Bunny (Judith Mayes), who is planning an extravagant vegetarian lunch for a small group of friends. Uncle Herb, who is a psychologist, is interested in talking with Charles about his interest in the macabre, and Pete suggests that Herb has been asked by their parents to analyze his brother. Herb asks Charles how real the monsters are to him, and if he ever thinks he'll see one in real life. Charles seems to be well grounded, however, understanding that monsters are not real.Uncle Herb falls asleep in the living room, and Aunt Millie heads over to her mother's house to help set up the luncheon. An electrician arrives to investigate a problem with the circuit breaker box in the basement of the house, and Charles sees an opportunity to scare somebody. Slipping on his mask, he creeps down into the basement, which is flooded with several inches of water. But he discovers something strange; the basement is swarming with small tadpole-like creatures, the size of small fish. Charles follows them silently until he finds the electrician's body in a corner, with hundreds of the smaller creatures feasting on it. The creatures are all of varying sizes, from the small fish-sized tadpoles, to arm-sized worms, and there is a huge one, presumably the original, that has developed three different heads. The smaller ones seem to be spawn given off by the adult monster, each with the potential to grow into a full sized threat. The creatures have no eyes, and Charles discovers they are sensitive to sound in which their open mouths, filled with hundreds of sharp teeth, seem to be their receiver of sounds since they apparently do not have ears either. The large three-headed creature almost eats him when he snaps his fingers, and he is only able to distract it by tossing his flashlight into a far corner and allowing it to go after the noise. Adding to the horror, he sees Barb's disembodied head lying on the cement floor, partially consumed by spawn, and realizes that the creatures have killed his parents. Charles stands motionless against a basement wall, unable to move in fear of being discovered by the alien creatures.Meanwhile, Ellen and Frankie arrive for the study session in a flurry of excitement; they have discovered one of the creatures dead on the way over to the house, and they've brought along its body to dissect in an attempt to understand what it is. Frankie hypothesizes that the creature could be from outer space, but Pete is hostile to that idea and dismisses it as ignorance. Ellen reminds Pete that to make suppositions, scientists must have some imagination.At Bunny's house, Millie arrives and helps her set up for her guests; Bunny is unaware that the spawn have reached the house and are lurking in her kitchen. One of them gets into her food processor, tainting the vegetable sauce she is making. When her guests arrive, all of them older ladies, they are horrified when they taste the sauce with the dead spawn in it, and the arm-sized creatures suddenly come at them from all angles, biting at fingers and toes, latching onto their legs and arms like small leeches. The women fight back and smash and kill a number of the creatures, all of them bearly escaping with their lives in Millie's car.Back at the house, Pete, Ellen and Frankie seek out Uncle Herb to get his opinion on the strange creature they've found. They find Herb's body in the living room, with hundreds of spawn eating him from the inside out. The three-headed adult creature confronts them in the hallway, and they run upstairs to Charles's bedroom. Charles, who understands that the creature will chase after them because of the noise they are making, distracts it with a radio, which it eats. Before the creature can find Charles and kill him, the doorbell rings--Kathy has finally arrived at the house. Pete and the others try to warn her from an upstairs window, but she doesn't hear them and goes into the house anyway. The monster nearly grabs her in the hallway outside Charles' bedroom, but she escapes its huge mouth.Desperate to summon help, the teens devise a plan: they will make a dash for Pete's bedroom, where there is a telephone, and they'll call for help. But the monster ambushes them in the hallway. Pete runs to another room, Frankie and Kathy run upstairs to the attic, while Ellen stays in Charles' bedroom and slams the door. The creature, attracted by her shouting, knocks the door down and rushes at her. Before Ellen can escape out the window, the monster bites her head off and her headless body falls out into the front yard of the house.Pete climbs out onto the roof and sees Ellen's body on the ground below. He also notices his parents car, still in the garage, meaning they never left. Kathy and Frankie see Ellen from the attic window, too, and Pete eventually climbs in through the small opening. He is in shock and is delirious, telling them "Ellen's really scared." When he tries to open the barricaded door, Frankie tries to stop him but Pete becomes unhinged, fighting with Frankie and screaming for Ellen. Frankie knocks him unconscious, but it's too late, his shouting attracts the creature. Fortunately, Charles has concocted a plan. Rushing to his bedroom, he assembles a hollow head full of flash powder, embedding a frayed electrical cord in the explosive material.As the creature advances on Frankie and Kathy, Kathy is hysterical and screaming. Charles rushes up the stairs and tells them to be quiet, then he baits the creature with the fake head. At first it refuses to eat it, until Charles gets the idea to scream. The monster immediately devours the head; with the dangling power cord hanging just outside its mouth. Using extension cords, Charles lures the creature closer and closer until he is close enough to an electrical outlet to plug it in. However, one of the arm-sized spawn creatures lands on his right shoulder from the above rafter and begins bitting into him. Charles is forced to use a screwdriver to stab at the spawn attached to his shoulder until the three-headed mother spawn approaches and inadverantly eats the wounded spawn creature from Charles' shoulder, thus freeing him. Charles manages to get at the extension cord and plugs it into an outlet, and the three-headed spawn creature instantly explodes in a gory shower of alien blood and body parts alll over the attic interior.The threat no longer a secret, a massive hunt for the spawn has been mobilized at the house and the surrounding areas as dozens of townspeople converge on the area. Aunt Millie arrives back at the house and cares for the wounded and shaken Pete and Charles as best she can, while policemen and volunteers scour the surrounding woods and bushes for spawn, which they stun with cattle prods or stab with shovels, picks and axes. The creatures are dumped onto various bonfires that the locals set, and are disposed of, including the remains of the three-headed eight-foot mother spawn. Frankie and Kathy are also shaken but alive, and are taken away in an ambulance.In the final scene, several hours later, night falls. The house, now deserted except for a posted patrolman, seems to have been cleared of all the aliens--that is, until the patrolman hears a rumbling in the ground. It seems as if an earthquake is hitting, until the entire hillside next to the house erupts with the head of a gigantic spawn, even larger than the house itself. Looks like somebody missed one!

Tags: cult, violence

Review:
This is definitely one of the greatest indie/sci-fi/horror/splatter films ever, and I do wonder why it hasn't got the kind of recognition that movies like "Evil Dead" have (no big-budget sequels maybe?).
Extremely low budget, but lively sci-fi horror movie about a group of people trapped in a house full of toothy extraterrestrial monsters, hatched from a fallen meteorite, which look like a cross between a giant salamander and H.R. Giger's creation from the ALIEN movies.
First off, I don't this utterly fantastic piece of low-budget film-making should be referred to as a rip-off of `Alien.'  Just because both films share `something' that comes from another world with sharp teeth and kills people doesn't mean they're in the same ball-park!
If anything, this film owes a lot more to old Corman pieces and stuff like `Trilogy of Terror,' `Don't Look In The Basement,' the early Raimi pieces, and the reprehensible `Rabid,' starring Marilyn Chambers.
If there's any connection, real or feigned, it comes from the distributors, who, hoping to cash in on the rumor of a sequel to `Alien' gave `Deadly Spawn' another theatrical as `The Return Of The Aliens: The Deadly Spawn' (hence the odd title), or `Return of the Alien's Deadly Spawn' (if you like Continental's mis-print).I enjoy this film because it's gritty and real, shot in 16mm over weekends only, filled with the normalcy of everyday life - people prepare breakfast and lunch, they feed the cat, they worry about tests, they talk about plaster giraffes.
in the end, science and imagination triumph together in sheer MacGyver genius!This is an independent film, much like `Evil Dead I/II,' with the same tongue-in-cheek approach, plenty of point-of-view shots, the same good editing (though certainly not as tight), and loads of staggeringly elaborate alien and gore effects (that would make Tom Savini proud).
The adult alien is much like Audrey, the blood thirsty plant from `The Little Shop of Horrors,' but has thousands of teeth and an almost-leering grin, while the offspring are part piranha, part mealworm, part eel, part phallus - they like look like something you'd see in a Gwar stageshow or film.
He pokes fun at vegetarians amidst man-eating aliens and ends the film in a 'black humor' finale.A charming film, `Deadly Spawn' overcame some serious distribution problems (imagine that) and eventually grossed something like $320,000 in one weekend (?).
For some it's probably criminally easy to dismiss a movie like this just because of it's low budget, but "The Deadly Spawn" was somewhat of a cult-hit in it's day and it's easy to see why.
The make-up-effects are quite good for a movie this cheap (reportedly it cost just $ 20,000 and ended up making millions), and writer/director Douglas McKeown actually takes time building characters before he lets them die gory deaths (moahahaha).The monsters are quite effective, at least those small eel-like buggers reminiscent of the chest-burster that ruined everyone's breakfast in "Alien" (1979).
It also deserves kudos for - in the end - painting a realistic picture of the traumatizing effects something like this would have on those who survive.If you like alien-invasion-movies in general, or just love the charm of horror on a shoestring-budget, this might be your cup of tea..
the people who made this film obviously loved what they where doing and managed to pull off some great special effects and gore whilst doing so.
It's cheesy, full of gore, has comedy (some intentional, and some unintentional), and cool low budget monster effects.In other words, it's fun.
It is a unique film, and a great standout scene includes the monster's "babys" (they look like mean tadpoles with teeth) attack an old folk's home.
"The Deadly Spawn" is a classic example of a horror flick made on a shoestring budget which is nevertheless worth watching due to the ingenuity of its creators.The plot is basically non-existent.
If you're looking for the epitome of low budget B-movie horror scifi with tons of gore that will make you say, "how the hell did they do that?" then this is your film.
I know you're asking yourself "what makes this film so great, there are about a million other alien b-movies I could be watching" but that's my point the film doesn't try to take itself seriously and accepts what it is, a budget horror film, it doesn't try to be anything more or less.
But if you are after; a giant three-headed slug monster in a cellar, hammy performances, brilliant gore and a shock ending, then this is the hammy pile of lovable 80s schlock is for you.2/5 'The deadly spawn' 1983.
Yes, this has got crap acting, barely any plot, and an out loud shoddy budget, but the crazy alien effects and high gore level make this one a total buzz to sit through.
This is yet another film I remember being advertised when I was a kid, and it didn't disappoint.The plot, as it were, involves a meteorite falling to Earth and disgorging an alien that kind of resembles Audrey 2 from Little Shop of Horrors, only much more toothsome, bigger, and deadlier.
I tell you what it was, hundreds of alien like little monsters (think Critters, but bloodier) who are here on earth, with big appetites as they feed on human flesh.
Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn seems to have blew its wad on the monster effects and ignored crucial things like pacing, storytelling, dialogue and continuity.
The big monster effect looks great, but that's no reason to watch this film, since you have to wade through a story that tells like molasses.
I was wrong...most people actually praise this movie...why?The plot is so random and small (alien mother and her offspring invade a farm house) that it constantly has characters talking about nothing just to fill time.
Four young teenagers, plus one boy, try to find a way to stop the angry space monsters before they reproduce and literally eat humanityI saw Night of creeps/Slither before this movie, I can not believe this one came out before them However I really like night of the Creep and I love Silther think they are both awesome.The space monsters in this movie look like fat slugs that is taller then door and somehow it make (We never get to see how he makes them) small kind worms just like the one in Slither but these are bit bigger has have very sharp teeth to skin in human fleshNice mount of blood his movie decent acting for low budget movie, The ending I was like oh my god, Who have got to be joking, it just so bloody funny, I love the ending so much that I going to give a 10/10 I Know this came in 1983 but it's the best horror I have see this year!.
In some unidentified rural part of United States a meteorite strikes the ground one night.Two unlucky campers are killed by alien critters.The creatures then hide in the basement of the house,where they start to attack and gorily eat various family members and visitors."Return of the Aliens:The Deadly Spawn" is an enjoyable and gory sci-fi horror romp in the tradition of early Sam Raimi kinetic works.The characters are likable,but paper-thin and the gore flows freely.I was impressed by the monsters and the gore makeup in "The Deadly Spawn".Especially the baby alien spawn in the basement looked realistic.The film was actually made for under $20,000.21st Century released it in theaters as "The Deadly Spawn" and then re-released it with the "Return of the Aliens" title because "Alien" was a big commercial hit.Check out this gory piece of alien mayhem.8 out of 10..
You know this grade of film is called a B-Movie and now a days I take it means a horror/slasher movie that is low budget and unknown but if good, it reaches cult status and places like your famous bookstore online services can charge an arm and a leg for out of region DVD's.In short, I give this movie a 10 star rating because for a horror movie it holds all of the elements of it's genre (blood, gore, tragedy and culture shock or moral shock) and it actually left me scared and cringing to my notebook so by far, out of my library, this gem is the most valued movie because it delivers and what's crazy about it is despite it's dated effects, it isn't dated..
What we got was a frenetic, frantic frolic through a mishmosh of movie madness complete with good frights, campy effects and such an implausibly inaccurate story line on how the deadly spawn of aliens are ACTUALLY trying to take over the Earth, that this film will always have a hallowed place in my library..
A young boy obsessed with monster movies discovers that these critters hunt using sound, and sets out to destroy the hungry aliens.A low-budget gory treat for lovers of monster B-movies, The Deadly Spawn has developed a small but loyal following thanks to its no-nonsense story, an enthusiastic cast and a whole load of impressive, and wonderfully gruesome effects.
Despite being made with limited funds, over the course of a couple of years, this nifty nasty not only manages some truly grisly moments (faces are devoured, heads chewed off and eyes eaten out of the sockets) but also delivers a nicely realised main monster (complete with huge gaping jaws, row upon row of teeth and bizarre claw-like appendages) and a whole load of smaller eel-like wriggly aliens.With a running time of only 78 minutes, there really isn't time to get bored of proceedings, although a couple of the talkier moments (in which characters chat about such exciting topics as vegetables and science exams) could've been replaced with more action, and would've seen me rate this enjoyable film 8/10.
A meteorite crash lands in a mountain near a town, a deadly three headed eel-like creature that almost looks like a certain male genitalia with sharp teeth hides out in someone's basement so it can unleash it's deadly spawn to feast on humans, however a kid with four teens must fight off these hideous alien creatures so they can escape.Gory and violent independent Science Fiction horror thriller made on a shoestring budget and took 2 1/2 years to film then it was released in 1983 in theaters, became a sleeper hit and an instant cult classic for years.
There's some good acting for a b-movie, nice pre-CGI special effects for it's day, great music score, twist ending, gore, and cool creature design as well!
Immediately after its landing on earth the "mother"-monster settles in a cozy basement and spawns hundreds of mean but strangely cute-looking little slugs with sharp teeth and an insatiable hunger for human flesh.
The Deadly Spawn (1983) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Good mix of old-fashioned sci-fi and 80s gore about a group of kids who must fight off an alien creature that has taken up in their basement.
If you can take very, I mean very gory horror films and haven't see The Return of the Alien's Deadly Spawn then this is a dream come true for you!
You can admire what they got out of a $25,000 budget, but that cannot hide the fact that "The Deadly Spawn" is a tedious movie to watch.
If you're watching movie called "Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn" you're probably horror fan that's use to campy acting in campy movies.5 stars.
I guess I expected too much from this low-rent independent cult Sci-Fi horror favourite, as it delivered on the cheesy gore and monster effects (an infestation of outer-space slug parasites with imposing pearly whites) that was like something of a old-school 1950s monster throwback, but when that wasn't the case the characters that the story concentrated on were awkwardly dull (outside the young lad) and the dialogues just as mundane.
Have a look at the posters in the hero kid's room and you'll see what the creators had in mind.At times the movie gets quite impressive FX-wise, for example when it comes to the creature scenes in the cellar, which feature great puppetry and theatrical lighting.
But still not as bad as "AVATAR".The characters are a bunch of nerdy kids plus some notably ugly grown-ups, and they altogether have some of the weirdest dialogs you'll ever find in a movie.I give this 7 of 10 for being fun from the beginning to end, for fast pacing, great gore-scenes and total weirdness."WHAT HAPPENED TO THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD?".
The creatures do lots of killing, even in their smaller tadpole like state and they cause a lot of havoc, thank goodness that kid shared the same hobby as Tommy from the Friday the 13th movies, though this came out first so one has to wonder if they stole that particular plot point from this film.
I wonder if this movie is on DVD as I would love to see it again, granted I am sure the effects will not look as good and it will be dated, but from what I remember it will still be enjoyable to watch..
I was quite simply blown away by the final few minutes of "The Deadly Spawn." It is right up there with "Braindead" and "Story of Ricky" in terms of the gore at the end.The plot of this one is great: aliens come to Earth to feed on humans.
You cannot help but laugh at the schlocky creature effects in this flick, add a couple of grade-a, comically bad actors and some above average gore effects and you got a film that is best watched under the influence.
Originally titled "Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn" in an attempt to cash in on the popularity of the original "Alien" movie that came out around the same time this film definitely deserves it's place in the cult movie hall of fame...not terrifying or scary but still a lot of fun!.
Like 'Parasite' which was released a year before this film, 'Deadly Spawn' is one of a plethora of movies which attempted to cash in on the huge success of Ridley Scott's brilliant 1979 science fiction-horror flick 'Alien'.
This is a fun movie about some monster kind of thing coming to earth in a meteor and setting up home in someones basement.
I agree that this movie is definitely low-budget, but only a true open-minded die hard horror and gore fan (such as myself) can appreciate it.
To compare movies like _Return of the Alien's Deadly Spawn_ to say, _Citizen Kane_ is pointless.
I'm actually inclined to say that this one scene is one of the best I've ever seen in a monster movie; in this one moment everything falls into place and it actually becomes better than ALIEN, the film which it was ripping off.
For a LOW budget(..it was indeed a good idea to set most of the film in the central location of one house), the gore effects are quite impressive.
I would recommend The Deadly Spawn to all horror fans who can tolerate cheesy "monster" horror films, it has plenty of blood to satisfy and is highly entertaining.
Cut to the next morning & in a large house nearby Sam (Brewster) & his wife Barbara (Elissa Neil) check the their basement after a vicious thunderstorm the night before & become the latest victims of the huge hungry alien creature that has hidden there, the alien monster spawns lots of slimy tadpole type offspring who also spread out in search of food & they definitely aren't vegetarians...Written & directed by Douglas McKeown this is a terrifically entertaining splatter film from the early 80's, an era when independent filmmakers could turn in a decent horror flick for very little money.
There's a great sense of fun here, there's plenty of gore & alien action & considering the entire film takes place in one location it doesn't get repetitive.
For a start I'd rather watch a film shot with 16mm film than digital video like most low budget horror filmmakers do these days, there just isn't an effective substitute for the look of film in my opinion.
There are a few imaginative scenes like when Barbara is in the basement looking for Sam & he appears to tap her on the shoulder from behind but it turns out that it's just his severed arm in the aliens mouth as it eats it.Unbelievably The Deadly Spawn had a minuscule budget of about $25,000 which to my eyes is incredible, how on Earth could they make a complete film with so many good special effects, edit it, score it & distribute it for so little?
While The Deadly Spawn isn't as polished as a big budget Hollywood effort it's surprisingly well made, it has an The Evil Dead (1982) & Bad Taste (1987) guerrilla film-making feel in the sense all three films were made on low budgets over a period of time largely by people who had little more to offer than enthusiasm.
The acting isn't that great but everyone gives a functional performance if nothing else.The Deadly Spawn (I hate the 'Return of the Aliens' prefix) is a brilliant, gory monster flick from the 80's made for practically nothing.
One of the things that's great about low-budget horror is that sometimes the filmmakers are having so much fun making the picture that it translates to the finished film, and no matter how inept it may be technically, you have to love it anyway.
It's true, people don't win Academy Awards for movies like "The Deadly Spawn", but the character actors on hand here are memorable and very enjoyable.
The young people are very good in this film, too, and Karen Tighe has one of the best horror movie screams I've ever heard.While stories like this are obviously not entirely original, the filmmakers of "Deadly Spawn" have a childlike reverence for the source material, which in this case is the monster movies of the 50s and 60s, as well as EC Comics, and of course the film owes more than a small debt to "ALIEN".