Metamorphosis

Plot synopsis:
=== Part I ===
One day, Gregor Samsa, a traveling salesman, wakes up to find himself transformed into a giant insect (the most common translation of the German description ungeheuer Ungeziefer, literally "monstrous vermin"). He reflects on how dreary life as a traveling salesman is. As he looks at the wall clock, he notices that he has overslept and missed his train for work. He ponders the consequences of this delay. Gregor becomes annoyed at how his boss never accepts excuses or explanations from any of his employees no matter how hard-working they are, displaying an apparent lack of trusting abilities. Gregor's mother knocks on the door, and he answers her. She is concerned for Gregor because he is late for work, which is unorthodox for him. Gregor answers his mother and realizes that his voice has changed, but his answer is short, so his mother does not notice. His sister, Grete, to whom he is very close, then whispers through the door and begs him to open it. He tries to get out of bed but is incapable of moving his body. While trying to move, he finds that his office manager, the chief clerk, has shown up to check on him. He finally rocks his body to the floor and calls out that he will open the door shortly.
Offended by Gregor's delayed response in opening the door, the clerk warns him of the consequences of missing work. He adds that Gregor's recent performance has been unsatisfactory. Gregor disagrees and tells him that he will open the door shortly. Nobody on the other side of the door has understood a single word he had uttered as Gregor's voice has also transformed, and they conclude that he is seriously ill. Finally, Gregor manages to unlock and open the door with his mouth. He apologizes to the office manager for the delay. Horrified by Gregor's appearance, his mother faints, and the manager bolts out of the apartment. Gregor tries to catch up with him, but his father drives him back into the bedroom with a shoe and a rolled magazine. Gregor injures himself squeezing back through the doorway, and his father slams the door shut. Gregor, exhausted, falls asleep.
=== Part II ===
Gregor awakens and sees that someone has put milk and bread in his room. Initially excited, he quickly discovers that he has no taste for milk, once one of his favorites. He settles himself under a couch. The next morning, his sister comes in, sees that he has not touched the milk, and replaces it with rotting food scraps, which Gregor happily eats. This begins a routine in which his sister feeds him and cleans up while he hides under the couch, afraid that his appearance will frighten her. Gregor spends his time listening through the wall to his family members talking. They often discuss the difficult financial situation they find themselves in now and that Gregor can't provide them any help. Gregor had plans of sending Grete to the conservatory to pursue violin lessons, something everyone else – including Grete – considered a dream. His incapability of providing for his family, coupled with his speechlessness, reduces his thought process greatly. Gregor also learns that his mother wants to visit him, but his sister and father will not let her.
Gregor grows more comfortable with his changed body. He begins climbing the walls and ceiling for amusement. Discovering Gregor's new pastime, Grete decides to remove some of the furniture to give Gregor more space. She and her mother begin taking furniture away, but Gregor finds their actions deeply distressing. He tries to save a picture on the wall of a woman wearing a fur hat, fur scarf, and fur muff. Gregor's mother sees him hanging on the wall and passes out. Grete angrily calls out to Gregor – the first time anyone has spoken directly to him since his transformation. Gregor runs out of the room and into the kitchen. He encounters his father, who has just returned home from work. The father throws apples at Gregor, and one of them sinks into a sensitive spot in his back and remains lodged there, paralyzing his movements for a month and damaging him permanently. Gregor manages to get back into his bedroom but is severely injured.
=== Part III ===
One evening, the cleaning lady leaves Gregor's door open while three boarders, whom the family has taken on for additional income, lounge about the living room. Grete has been asked to play the violin for them, and Gregor – who usually takes care to avoid crossing paths with anyone in the flat – creeps out of his bedroom to listen in the midst of his depression and resultant detachment. The boarders, who initially seemed interested in Grete, grow bored with her performance, but Gregor is transfixed by it. One of the boarders spots Gregor, and the rest become alarmed. Gregor's father tries to shove the boarders back into their rooms, but the three men protest and announce that they will move out immediately without paying rent because of the disgusting conditions in the apartment.
Grete, who has by now become tired of taking care of Gregor and is realizing the burden his existence puts on each one in the family, tells her parents they must get rid of Gregor, or they will all be ruined. Her father agrees, wishing Gregor could understand them and would leave of his own accord. Gregor does, in fact, understand and slowly moves back to the bedroom. There, determined to rid his family of his presence, Gregor dies.
Upon discovering Gregor is dead, the family feels a great sense of relief. The father kicks out the boarders and decides to fire the cleaning lady, who has disposed of Gregor's body. The family takes a trolley ride out to the countryside, during which they consider their finances. They decide to move to a smaller apartment to further save money, an act they were unable to carry out in Gregor's presence. During this short trip, Mr. and Mrs. Samsa realize that, in spite of going through hardships which have brought an amount of paleness to her face, Grete appears to have grown up into a pretty and well-figured lady, which leads her parents to think about finding her a husband.

Tags: violence, psychological

Review:
He is an angry little boy.Metamorphosis isn't a terrible movie, just not a well produced one.
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.
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.
lousy sci-fi/horror movie with an unbelievably bad metamorphosis - laughable, in fact.
He starts a relationship with the single mother of an extremely annoying little boy; she's the one who had been demanding results from the research.Initially, he seems to have no effects from the injection, except some new strength.
Additionally, he starts to appear very unhealthy.Since the movie is named metamorphosis, he does eventually change into something else.
Incredibly, there's a further change in store - the end of the movie is really, really absurd.About the only thing this movie has going for it is that Laura Gemser is in it, but she has a very small part.I'd once seen a the video box for this with a sculpted plastic form glued to the boxcover.
Possibly it might even have had some electronics in it at one time, perhaps eyes that light up (the main character's eyes occasionally turn green in the movie).
Wouldn't it be interesting for avid Euro-cult purchasers to own the only movie directed by the guy who walked around bare-butted in "Erotic Nights of the Living Dead" all the time?
Now, unlike the movies he starred in, Eastman's own "Metamorphosis" is kind of disappointing in the gore & sleaze departments.
There are a handful of nasty murders, cheesy monster effects and naked female bodies (a guest appearance by sleaze-queen Laura Gemser!) on display, but it's mainly a talkative movie.
Like the other reviewers already mentioned, this movie "borrows" a lot of ideas from David Cronenberg's "The Fly"  the dramatic romance sub plot included - but doesn't add any originality from its own.
The big difference is that you constantly feel connected with Jeff Goldblum's character in "The Fly", whereas Dr. Houseman becomes just another monster that needs to be destroyed as fast as possible.
Few scares or excitement to discover here, instead the movie features loads of bad acting, poor lighting, lousy editing and a completely retarded climax to boot.
"Metamorphosis" is like David Cronenberg's "The Fly" if "The Fly" had been filmed in someone's rec room.A young, hotshot scientist experiments with a serum (don't they always?) that, when injected into himself, makes his DNA begin to evolve backwards to man's most primitive state (or something like that).
Apparently, we are descended from lizards, and I know this because the scientist in question first begins to simply decay, then makes a brief appearance as a dinosaur (I kid you not) and ends up as a little lizard in a jar.This movie isn't even in the remotest realm of good, but it's actually not horribly terrible either, at least not until its last 20 minutes or so.
Those turn into a seemingly endless chase scene involving a little boy and his mother trying to get away from the monstrous scientist.
It's the same old, "If I can't get the funding for my project, I'll inject myself" monster movie.
It's a lot like the Jeff Goldblum "Fly" movie.
Metamorphosis is an entertaining film about a daring young scientist who creates a drug that makes people live forever.
Most people who review this film seem to suggest that this was a shoddy slapped-together low-budget effort, but there seems to actually have been a lot of heart and thought put into some aspects of this movie.
Too bad it kind of peters out in the (unintentionally hilarious) last five minutes.You could do a lot worse than watching this film..
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.
"Not good, but not bad, for early-to-mid eighties." Of course, I then realized that it was made in 1990, which almost propelled it down to a '4', but decided to keep it at the mediocre '5' that it is.'Metamorphis' does on a few occasions, seem like a good movie desperately trying to get out.
Special effects aren't stellar, but the director seems to be mostly competent enough to work around that weakness.The lead, a mildly charismatic male that seems to be attempting a blended channeling of Tom Cruise and Christopher Reeves, reminded me mostly of Matt Dillon's character in 'Wild Things'.
It is bizarre and inexplicable, until the final scene which is supposed to be dramatic but simply hilarious, saturated with every bad camera trick and overacting that can be compressed in about thirty seconds.A decent one-time watch on the 'Mill Creek 50 Chilling Movie Pack'.
Another horror film from that age where the sun was setting on the Italian exploitation film industry, only this one is directed by George Eastman, which I'm sure no one's mentioned on here yet.
This one involves a guy called Houseman who's a basketball playing, hip genetics professor who kind of looks a bit like Clark Kent.
Some lady looking into funding of research forces all projects to show what they are doing which leads to Houseman having to hurry things up and inject himself with some serum that may stop people ageing.
The prof hasn't watched Cronenberg's The Fly remake, however (although I'm sure Eastman has), so it comes as a surprise to him when he's feeling great but having blackouts which involved beating the crap out of Laura Gesmer, and then eventually getting worse and worse until it seems like Luigi...I mean George...has replaced half of this film with the last half of Phantom of Death.
And you know that chick has the serum that could cure him...I'll be frank here: It's fifty eight minutes into the film before we get our first kill.
Luckily the acting is pretty bad and it's all neon and eighties like.Thinks finally pick up a bit when Houseman gets even more mutated and starts wasting the cast (about time too), there's a smattering of gore here, but not enough.
This is a must see movie for all horror lovers.Awsome.About a scientist who becomes is own lab rat.Awsome movie,bad effects at the end.You will never see the ending.This movie has awsome acting from ALL cast members but it also has alot of suspense and some pretty narly scenes..
Grade B-Movie for THE FLY (1986) Fails with it's poor effects and it's star Gene LeBrock who is trying to stop human aging but he becomes his own genie pig.
Tom Cruise clone Gene LeBrock stars in Metamorphosis about a genetics research scientist who is being pressed by both the bean counters at his university and by a jealous colleague about his project.
Little did they know that they were messing with a 20th Century Dr. Jekyll.LeBrock's experiments are about halting and reversing the aging process in man, but what he gets is something different and primordial when he experiments on himself.Like his more famous lookalike player, LeBrock should have contented himself with a much safer need for speed.
Set in modern times, METAMORPHSIS is not my kind of horror movie.A university researcher is working to crack the human genome in order to create a serum that would prevent aging.
I'm not going to ruin the film for those that might want to see it but to me the ending is ridiculous!
Most of the film had a 1970s or early 1980s look and feel to it which I really liked!
The ending really ruined what was potentially a pretty good horror film - like a modern creature feature for a little while.I don't recommended the film but if you catch it on one night and decide to watch it or find it in a film pack as I did then don't expect too much from the movie, well the ending anyway.
(Her son, by the way, seemed to have very little to do with the plot, except perhaps for some background on her.) This movie could be remade, with the needed improvements and be a decent horror film--perhaps becoming a classic.
Filmirage brought the world such amazing stinkers as "Troll 2", "Ator the Invincible", and "Quest for the Mighty Sword", so I was compelled to watch.As the movie started out it had potential to be pretty decent, even though it was unoriginal.
Like the movie's pace, these scene transitions got progressively worse.I could try to say the character development of Dr. Houseman was pretty good, but towards the end of the film, that is, once you've seen what the Doctor has metamorphosed into, hopefully you'll laugh-- which really, is the only reason to see this movie at least once; this movie unintentionally runs like a long-winded joke.The costume of the um, thing that Doctor Houseman becomes can also be seen in Joe D' Amato's "Quest for the Mighty Sword", which was made in the same year.
This film is just a collection of lame attempts to make a story which is already uninteresting and badly told into something that it would never become: a decent horror movie.
Because I feel it is important to say that even a movie with poor special effects can still be good if it is well made.
And oh yes - it's directed by B&S About Movies favorite George Eastman!Gene LeBrock (Father Peter from La Casa 5/Beyond Darkness) plays Dr. Peter Houseman, a young scientist who just doesn't get along with the older scientists at his university.
Say no more, you know?As this was made at the end of the Italian horror movie era, the effects are as minimal as the budget.
Metamorphosis isn't a particularly original or exciting movie, it's just kind of there, and none of the ideas on the screen here seem to suggest any loftier ambitions than those this release ultimately realized as a prototypical late-'80s/early-'90s direct-to-video offering.
Nonetheless, there's just enough meat here to keep forgiving genre fans engaged--and a burst of roaring unintentional comedy awaiting those who stick things out until the final act.The plot owes a large debt to David Cronenberg's masterful take on The Fly, the only novel alteration being that this film's protagonist-slash-antagonist is fixated on a scientific innovation intended to stop humans from aging rather than molecular teleportation (though please don't read that comparison as an equivalency; neither the action nor the effects in this flick are anywhere near as breathtaking as the material Croneberg summoned a few years earlier).
When Dr. Peter Housman is faced with the threat of having the funding for his genetic research cancelled, his desperate need for results drives him to act as his own guinea pig and inject himself with his experimental serum.
Once you factor in the unpleasant matter of his subsequently turning into a deformed monstrosity that feasts on human flesh , it becomes pretty clear that Dr. Houseman isn't nearly as brilliant a scientist as everyone else in the movie keeps saying he is.Since this tale could easily be told in thirty minutes of screen-time, the film is padded with unnecessary passages that accomplish nothing more than stifling whatever momentum the scenario builds.
Other space-filling mechanisms include needless interludes informing us that the young son of Houseman's inamorata doesn't like him very much (which makes sense, since he isn't especially likeable) and numerous tedious vignettes of the Doctor doing science-y stuff on his computer (to remind us he is in fact a scientist, I suppose).
And the chuckles are bound to keep on coming when you get a load of the goofy tacked-on "twist" ending, too.Ultimately, despite the absurdist heights the film reaches in its last reel, the sum total of Metamorphosis as a whole is merely decent.
i don't know why, but for some reason, little kids in horror movies tend to come across as little butt munches.
not only do you get Metamorphosis on DVD for $15, but you also get 49 OTHER MOVIES!
but because this is a horror movie, he sucks it up and starts and incredibly long transformation sequence that takes nearly 3/4 of the movie.To pad out the movie he gets into a relationship with some woman who has a son.
Because this movie isn't going to be making you jump out of your skin anytime soon.Metamorphosis gets 4 plastic lizard heads, out of 10..
Metamorphosis is set in Norfolk in Virginia where brilliant young genetic scientist Dr. Peter Houseman (Gene LeBrock) works in a university teaching students & carrying out research in DNA, Houseman is trying to perfect a serum that will alter human DNA & reverse the ageing process.
Houseman injects himself with the experimental serum & at first the results are amazing as his health, fitness & awareness improve dramatically, however soon terrible side-effects begin to manifest as Houseman's body undergoes a hideous genetic transformation into some form of pre-human reptilian life-form that must feed on human flesh to survive...This Italian & American co-production was written & directed by George Eastman who is probably best know for playing the killer in Anthropophagus (1980) & Absurd (1981), while Metamorphosis has a bad reputation I didn't think it was a total failure.
As has already been mentioned by just about everyone else who has ever seen Metamorphosis the similarities between it & David Cronenberg's brilliant remake of The Fly (1986) are clear to see, the scientist conducting risky experiments on himself, a neutral love interest, the scientist slowly turning into something nasty & experiencing improved strength & senses with a climax where all traces of his previous humanity have gone.
I liked the ideas here, some of the scientific exposition is dry & dull but I liked the story, it's based around proper people with proper motives rather than dumb teens even if they act dumb quite a lot, there's enough going on to have kept me interested & the story takes the odd turn here & there.
At over 90 minutes Metamorphosis is slow going at times which hurts it & the extremely silly twist ending doesn't work at all although it might have looked clever on a written page as a script it doesn't work when filmed.The gore levels are restrained compared to some Italian horror, there's a ripped-out throat, there's a few dead bodies, a few girls are knocked around & there's a heart in a jar.
The special effects are alright, the make-up is OK until the very end & the final reptilian creature is shown, director Eastman wisely keeps it's screen time down to a minimum, films from waist up & uses quick cuts to try & disguise how bad it looks, he fails as the thing looks so stiff & rubbery.
Metamorphosis looks OK, it's a pretty dark film with the climax set in dark university corridors to try & raise some scares but Eastman doesn't quite manage it.
The acting is a little dry at times but not too bad.Metamorphosis is something a little different, it tries to be a complex science fiction horror rip-off of The Fly & the basic idea is here but the execution lets it down.
A little too slow, not quite enough gore, a poor looking final monster & a very silly twist ending makes me wonder why I liked it.
The point when the central character turns into a dinosaur is the moment where this movie differentiates itself from all others.
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.
One interesting fact about the film was that it was written and directed by George Eastman.
"Metamorphosis" has about 20 minutes of decent work in it, but those minutes are scattered and buried in a 90 minute movie.
And it's obvious that those 20 minutes are the sequences the director had in mind when he started this project - the scene where the robot arm injects the serum into the professor's eyeball, the scene where the elevator door opens and a cane falls out, followed by a mutilated cast member, the scene where the little boy hides in the lab from the mutated scientist and tries to reach a key that is just out of his reach, the rough sex/assault flashbacks, etc.
And intermittently, these scenes work as well as the film stock and the lighting and the tiny budget will allow.Also, the protagonist is hypnotically good looking (which makes the initial signs of change on his face more interesting), the actress who plays his girlfriend has some chops, the rival professor gets in some neat Scrooge-ish moments, and the protagonist's two main friends are played effectively.
Even the little boy manages to be reasonably unforced and natural - he's not Dakota Fanning or Haley Joe Osment, but he isn't nearly as bad as he could have been.Still, there are some really bad and really dull sequences here that pretty much smother any interest or excitement the movie is trying to generate (the director has no idea how to frame a car chase or a driving sequence or a sex scene or a lot of other standard cinematic things required to keep a movie out of Sargasso sea boredom).