{"id":1661,"date":"2020-10-09T23:33:20","date_gmt":"2020-10-10T04:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/?p=1661"},"modified":"2020-10-09T23:33:20","modified_gmt":"2020-10-10T04:33:20","slug":"the-deadly-spawn-1983","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/?p=1661","title":{"rendered":"The Deadly Spawn (1983)"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Deadly Spawn
\n(1983) 81 Min.
\nRated: R (Gore, nudity)
\nCountry: USA
\nDirector: Douglas McKeown
\nStarring: Charles George Hildebrandt, Tom DeFranco
\nLinks: IMDB<\/a> | Wikipedia<\/a>
\nRating: \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Deadly Spawn<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Aliens threaten a household and it is up to some kids to stop the alien menace from spreading further.<\/p>\n


\n

\"\"<\/a>
The Deadly Spawn<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/p>\n

Synopsis:
\nA meteor lands in a forest somewhere and the creature inside of it kills two hapless campers who stumble upon it.
\nThe alien manages to make a home for itself inside the basement of a large house. First the household\u2019s father, Sam, goes downstairs and gets eaten by the alien. Soon Barb (Sam\u2019s wife), looking for Sam, is also eaten.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Sam gets dragged off.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Millie, an aunt, reads a note left by Barb that explains she and Sam will be in town all day. Uncle Herb wakes up as well. Soon Sam ans Barb\u2019s two sons wake up, too. Charles (Hildebrandt) is the young pre-teen while Pete (DeFranco) is his older teen brother.<\/p>\n

Charles seems to enjoy monster movies and scaring people. Uncle Herb is a psychiatrist and asks Charles a few questions about his interest in monsters.<\/p>\n

Millie goes out for lunch with grandma Bunny and leaves a note for the electrician to go into the basement around the back of the house. Sure enough, the electrician goes into the basement.<\/p>\n

Charles plans to go downstairs and scare the electrician while wearing a monster mask. He wanders downstairs in the flooded basement and starts to see little eel-like creatures swimming in the water. Finally he sees the giant alien monster as well as the dead electrician. Tiny eel creatures are feasting on the corpse. Charles is shocked and horrified.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Charles in the basement.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, Pete\u2019s friends Frankie and Ellen come over to the house. They show Pete that they\u2019ve found a strange creature outside. It\u2019s an alien spawn.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Teens looking at a slug creature.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Charles, still trapped in the basement, realizes that the monster can\u2019t see. It can only hear. He also notices that the baby spawn are escaping the basement through an open window.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Charles and the main mother alien.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Ellen and the guys decide to dissect the alien in order to investigate its biology. The three quarrel over whether or not the thing is an alien. Pete sends Frankie to go get a college biology book. While Frankie is gone, Pete asks Ellen to go to a movie with him and kisses her.<\/p>\n

Millie is at mother Bunny\u2019s for a vegetarian lunch. One of the spawn ends up in Bunny\u2019s food processor and gets chopped up into the food. The guests each try the food and look disgusted. Then suddenly everyone is attacked by the eel spawn. The ladies manage to beat back the eels and get into a large station wagon and drive off.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Bunny with an eel thing on her.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Meanwhile, back at the house, the teens find Uncle Herb is dead and suddenly the large mother alien appears. The teens hide in Charles\u2019 bedroom.<\/p>\n

Charles lures the large monster away with a loud radio. Another teen, Kathy, enters the house and nearly gets eaten. She manages to escape and hide with Pete and his group. The group decide to try and run out in an attempt to escape. Ellen gets left behind. The alien corners her and chomps off her head, tossing her body out a window.<\/p>\n

Frankie and Kathy are in the attic and Pete manages to climb the roof and meet them. Pete sees his parents car and realizes they never left. In a state of delirium he tries to leave the attic, but the alien gets into the room. Luckily, Charles has packed flash powder into a foam head and he tries to lure the alien to eat it.<\/p>\n

He has some difficulty attempting to plug the little bomb into an outlet. A smaller alien attacks his arm, but the large alien ends up eating the smaller one in a blind attempt at biting Charles. Charles, at this point, manages to plug in the bomb so the electricity sets off the flash powder and the alien explodes.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Charles watches the alien explode.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The rain outside has stopped and the teens and Charles are in various states of shock. Aunt Millie shows up and goes to meet with Charles. They will all end up needing some medical care. Various locals can be seen skewering the eel aliens and tossing their bodies into fires. The entire town seems to be cleaning up the alien menace.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Charles is probably scarred for life.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Night falls on the house and a police officer patrols the area. He remarks that the aliens just seem to keep growing in size. He hears a loud rumbling growl, looks up and is shocked. His walkie talkie falls to the floor and he is presumably eaten. In a wide shot, a hill on the horizon falls back and reveals a mammoth alien growling with large teeth in the distance. The film fades to black.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
The looming threat.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Review:
\nA low-budget gem that struggles a little in storytelling, but makes up for it in character and buckets of gore.<\/p>\n

Charles is a self-insert for every horror fan who feels a little misunderstood. A quiet boy who sometimes delights in blasting horror movies while others in the home are sleeping. He\u2019s teased by his older brother, but ultimately saves the world by staying calm in the face of terror.<\/p>\n

The alien\u2019s look in pretty great. It\u2019s size looms large over any wandering human. The Alien\u2019s spawn are lamprey-esque creatures that slither through the dirty bloodstained water of the basement as they feast on the latest kill.<\/p>\n

There are some spots where the film slows too much and the acting isn\u2019t the best, either.<\/p>\n

This film is by no means perfect, but it\u2019s remarkable what was done with a small budget in New Jersey. It deserves to be ranked with films like The Evil Dead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Deadly Spawn (1983) 81 Min. Rated: R (Gore, nudity) Country: USA Director: Douglas McKeown Starring: Charles George Hildebrandt, Tom DeFranco Links: IMDB | Wikipedia Rating: \u2605\u2605\u2605\u2606\u2606 Aliens threaten a household and it is up to some kids to stop the alien menace from spreading further.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,11],"tags":[18,42],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1661"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1675,"href":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1661\/revisions\/1675"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1661"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1661"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/midnightcult.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1661"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}