"Evil Spawn" is good for some laughs. This 'cautionary tale' about the price that must be paid by taking short-cuts to acquire beauty, power, fame, and money qualifies it as a morality tale. Obviously, this literary theme must have secondary in the collective minds of the three directors--Kenneth J. Hall of "Ghost Writer," Ted Newsom of "The Naked Monster," and the schlockmeister par excellence Fred Olen Ray of "Tomb of the Werewolf." They were struggling to make a goofy, gory, ghoulish monster epic. Naturally, the low-budget special effects hampered their credibility, but this rank amateur quality endows it with a modicum of charm. Unless otherwise notified, it is anybody's guess who helmed the bulk of this nonsense. The directing trio have also slipped in some soft-core porn scenes with frontal nudity. Happily, the naked ladies are beautiful, even the elder of the bunch Bobbie Bresee as a starlet who refuses to let her age impair her in her pursuit of marquee's role. Actually, not only does "Evil Spawn" incorporate soft-core nudity, hilarious lobster-looking behemoths, but it also boasts science fiction content, too!
The film opens with a title card that spells out this exposition: a "Odyssey" probe to Venus has returned to Earth with alien microbes for analysis by independent laboratories. "The use . . . and misuse of these microbes is the subject of this film." Afterward, we see a spaceship made out of cardboard tubes heading toward Earth. A striking looking woman with a weird hairstyle enters a lab and releases a sickeningly bad alien critter and bars the exit from the lab so that the scientist cannot escape and is attacked by the critter. Blood is splashed everywhere. Miraculously, he gets to this feet later and walks away. Later,a young couple in a Renegade jeep show up searching for her cat. They encounter the bitten scientist, and it tears off the guy's arm The gal leaps into their jeep and rams monster. Not surprisingly,continuity suffers in this assemblage of story lines. Meantime, as an aging actress with few starring roles in sight, Linda Roman (Bobbie Bresee of Mausoleum") sells her soul sort of to the devil. Actually, the devil in this equation, Dr. Emil Zeitman (the venerable John Carradine of "House of Frankenstein") isn't alive long because his treacherous assistant kills him. Turns out that this scene wasn't originally in the screenplay! Olen Ray inserted it no doubt to draw on Carradine's name as a fixture in horror movies dating back to the 1940s. This insane scientist has created something evil from alien DNA that enables the vilest part of your personality to assert control over an individual and shape-shift them into something hideous. Linda Roman listens to Zeitman's homicidal assistant Evelyn Avery (Dawn Wildsmith of "Surf Nazis Must Die") who is trying to convince Linda to participate in a study. Our protagonist runs Avery off, but she finds two needles in a case nearby on her table. Reluctantly but desperately, she injects herself and so begins a quasi-"Jekyll and Hyde" yarn. Linda's closest friends are amazed at her reborn youth, and she yearns to star in a movie entitled "Savage Basically, she turns into a monster like "The Wasp Woman" only this time more like super nasty looking marine specimen that resides in the waters off Maine. The acting runs the gamut of tolerable to terrible, but Bresee does an adequate job with her serious, straightforward thesping. Poor Carradine didn't even know that he was in this fiasco.
Most of the gory stuff occurs toward the end, but there is that trademark bursting from the chest scene that occurs "Carrie" like at the end. Earlier, the monster feasting on its victim resembled a giant rat covered in pizza with glowing eyes. Clearly, the filmmakers were too frugal to treat the story on a national basis with these unsavory monsters attacking the Earth in a takeover of the planet. The body count looks to be no more than five, including Elaine (Pamela Gilbert), her untrustworthy Hollywood agent Harry (Fox Harris), and philandering boyfriend, Mark (Mark Anthony). The production was presumably compromised from the start. Scenes appear out of nowhere with the least justification. For example, one scene has a beauty dancing erotically for Linda's boyfriend and then she appears in full insect armor with giant claws and lays waste! Nevertheless, the outlandish storyline, the cheapo values, and the derivative content lend it enough charm if you're willing to let it dominate at least 75 minutes of your day. "Evil Spawn" might properly be seen after dark with lots of alcoholic beverages and pizza to go around for everybody. One last thing: Olen Ray wasn't prepared to let "Evil Spawn" waste away in B-movie Hell, he recycled it with new footage as "Alien Intruders."
The film opens with a title card that spells out this exposition: a "Odyssey" probe to Venus has returned to Earth with alien microbes for analysis by independent laboratories. "The use . . . and misuse of these microbes is the subject of this film." Afterward, we see a spaceship made out of cardboard tubes heading toward Earth. A striking looking woman with a weird hairstyle enters a lab and releases a sickeningly bad alien critter and bars the exit from the lab so that the scientist cannot escape and is attacked by the critter. Blood is splashed everywhere. Miraculously, he gets to this feet later and walks away. Later,a young couple in a Renegade jeep show up searching for her cat. They encounter the bitten scientist, and it tears off the guy's arm The gal leaps into their jeep and rams monster. Not surprisingly,continuity suffers in this assemblage of story lines. Meantime, as an aging actress with few starring roles in sight, Linda Roman (Bobbie Bresee of Mausoleum") sells her soul sort of to the devil. Actually, the devil in this equation, Dr. Emil Zeitman (the venerable John Carradine of "House of Frankenstein") isn't alive long because his treacherous assistant kills him. Turns out that this scene wasn't originally in the screenplay! Olen Ray inserted it no doubt to draw on Carradine's name as a fixture in horror movies dating back to the 1940s. This insane scientist has created something evil from alien DNA that enables the vilest part of your personality to assert control over an individual and shape-shift them into something hideous. Linda Roman listens to Zeitman's homicidal assistant Evelyn Avery (Dawn Wildsmith of "Surf Nazis Must Die") who is trying to convince Linda to participate in a study. Our protagonist runs Avery off, but she finds two needles in a case nearby on her table. Reluctantly but desperately, she injects herself and so begins a quasi-"Jekyll and Hyde" yarn. Linda's closest friends are amazed at her reborn youth, and she yearns to star in a movie entitled "Savage Basically, she turns into a monster like "The Wasp Woman" only this time more like super nasty looking marine specimen that resides in the waters off Maine. The acting runs the gamut of tolerable to terrible, but Bresee does an adequate job with her serious, straightforward thesping. Poor Carradine didn't even know that he was in this fiasco.
Most of the gory stuff occurs toward the end, but there is that trademark bursting from the chest scene that occurs "Carrie" like at the end. Earlier, the monster feasting on its victim resembled a giant rat covered in pizza with glowing eyes. Clearly, the filmmakers were too frugal to treat the story on a national basis with these unsavory monsters attacking the Earth in a takeover of the planet. The body count looks to be no more than five, including Elaine (Pamela Gilbert), her untrustworthy Hollywood agent Harry (Fox Harris), and philandering boyfriend, Mark (Mark Anthony). The production was presumably compromised from the start. Scenes appear out of nowhere with the least justification. For example, one scene has a beauty dancing erotically for Linda's boyfriend and then she appears in full insect armor with giant claws and lays waste! Nevertheless, the outlandish storyline, the cheapo values, and the derivative content lend it enough charm if you're willing to let it dominate at least 75 minutes of your day. "Evil Spawn" might properly be seen after dark with lots of alcoholic beverages and pizza to go around for everybody. One last thing: Olen Ray wasn't prepared to let "Evil Spawn" waste away in B-movie Hell, he recycled it with new footage as "Alien Intruders."