Metamorphosis: The Alien Factor (1990) A review & Interview with Producer Ted A. Bohus

 

METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR 1990

 

Matt Kulis (John Griffen), Tara Leigh (Sherry Griffen), Patrick Barnes (Brian), Dianna Flaherty (Kim Griffen), Katherine Romaine (Dr. Nancy Kane), Marcus Powell (Dr. Viallini), Tony Gigante (Mitchell), Greg Sullivan (Jarrett), George Gerard (Dr. Michael Foster), Allen Lewis Rickman (Dr. Elliot Stein)

Directed by Glenn Takakjian

 

The Short Version: Producer Ted Bohus and Director Takakjian carry on THE DEADLY SPAWN tradition with this loose sequel that's as heavy on the monster action and splatter as its 1983 alien antecedent. The budget is bigger, the sets flashier and the space creatures more plentiful. Chaos behind the scenes threatened to derail the ambitious follow-up; although producer Ted A. Bohus managed to keep both his sanity and his film together to the end--delivering one helluva showstopper finale with stop-motion monsters swallowing humans whole along with some brief, Godzilla-level destruction. If you’re a fan of the original and 1950s style creature features in general, then this unjustly under-the-radar and undeniably underrated, gore-riddled gem is for you.

Scientists working for the Talos Corporation are given mysterious cell samples by the US government for testing. With little information about the origin of the tissue other than it’s from outer space, the scientists grow various organisms in their lab to study and learn about this alien DNA. Michael, one of the scientists experimenting on the alien cells, gets careless and is bitten by one of the creatures and immediately undergoes a cellular rearrangement. Within days, he mutates into a nightmarish alien creature, growing larger by the hour. Once the facility is locked down to prevent contamination reaching the outside, those trapped inside uncover a devastating secret weapon called The Atomic Shotgun that may save their lives before they’re killed and consumed by the alien monsters.

 

Similarly to ALIEN (1979) before it, after ALIENS (1986) became a monstrous hit at the box office, it spawned a slew of outer space and underwater menaces both foreign and domestic. These include CRITTERS (1986), ALIEN PREDATORS (1986), SHOCKING DARK (1987), PREDATOR (1987), DEEP SPACE (1988), LEVIATHAN (1989) and DEEPSTAR SIX (1989). Among this interplanetary brood is 1990s METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR. Originally devised as a sequel to 1983s THE DEADLY SPAWN as METAMORPHOSIS: DEADLY SPAWN 2, the moniker was eventually changed. The only literal connections with the 1983 cult favorite is filmmaker Ted A. Bohus and similarities in the main space monster.

 

The film was in-production in 1988, but ran into problems that nearly doomed its completion. It took several years before we got to see it in the United States. A theatrical release was planned but it ended up going straight to video instead. There's an astonishing amount of special effects involved; everything from stop-motion, to go-motion, to prosthetics, miniatures, matte paintings and full-scale monstrosities. The end product showed itself to be one of the most ambitious low budget SciFi-Horror films of its day.

The film's plot has an inexplicit connection to THE DEADLY SPAWN (you can read our old review from 2011 HERE). You can surmise that the alien DNA handed over to the Talos Corporation was taken from one or more of the toothy alien creatures seen in the first movie. And like THE DEADLY SPAWN, the script hearkens back to the Science Fiction films of the fabulous 50s--recalling titles like INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN (1957) and THE BLOB (1958) with its teen/young adult protagonists going up against Things From Other Worlds.  

 

The various creatures seen in METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR came from ambitious creature designs brought to the screen by a talented group of  technicians eager to create impressive FX sequences for the film. A small number of them are mentioned below...

The monsters were designed by Ron Cole (billed onscreen as R.S. Cole) and Ted Bohus. Ron Cole's original design looked more like the original SPAWN. In early designs, the new SPAWN beast had multiple legs, but this was changed over time as well. Emmy-nominated special makeup effects artist Vincent Gaustini worked with Bohus from the beginning of his career, eventually working on major Hollywood projects like THE LAST OF THE MOHICANS (1992) and THINNER (1996).  

 

Others like Patrick Shearn would work on mechanical effects in films like BATMAN RETURNS (1992) and JURASSIC PARK (1993). Ken Brilliant, who is credited with sculpting Spot, the monster that caused the METAMORPHOSIS, went on to do FACE/OFF (1994), CONGO (1995) and THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997). His animatronic version of Spot was used for the live-action filming.

 

DEADLY SPAWN 2 was a bigger, more enterprising production; this was evident in the variety of monsters and the tenacity of the special effects crew that brought this mutant menagerie to life. You get a little bit of everything in this movie and among the most impressive special effects in the film are the stop-motion animated sequences done by Kent Burton and Dan Taylor, and others in the miniature effects unit. In furthering the passion of the special effects crew, Ray Harryhausen received a credit of gratitude in the end-credits for his many contributions to the art of stop-motion animation.

 

 

The full-size Spawn Beast moved around by way of hydraulics developed by Ken Walker. Unlike the three-headed monster of THE DEADLY SPAWN, its intergalactic sibling seen here only has one head. But unlike the previous film, the alien of METAMORPHOSIS is a mutated form of what was once Dr. Foster. This new Spawn has tentacles that emerge from inside its twisted body to bring its victims within devouring proximity. It also emits these tooth-filled organisms that act as parasitic projectiles akin to the alien frisbees of WITHOUT WARNING (1980) that suck all the bodily fluids from their intended targets.

 

One of the most successful members of the METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR's FX personnel was Oscar-nominated Dan Taylor (Danny Gordon Taylor). He founded Taylor Made Images (TMI) in 1983, and went on to work at ILM and had credits on his resume like THE MASK (1994), THE LOST WORLD: JURASSIC PARK (1997), JURASSIC PARK III (2001), TERMINATOR 3 (2003), TRANSFORMERS (2007) and the recent PLANET OF THE APES film series. Reportedly, Ted Bohus was invited to ILM to show the film and participate in a discussion on the movie and its stop-motion effects.

The first time I became aware of THE DEADLY SPAWN was seeing an image of the monster in Fangoria magazine in 1983. The image stayed with me till I finally saw the movie a few years later sometime around 1985. Then in 1988, I was at the bookstore and ran across a new horror movie periodical titled Slaughterhouse Magazine. I flipped through the pages and came across a two-part article titled “Metamorphosis: Deadly Spawn 2”. Just on that piece alone I had to buy it; and it was the first thing I read in the magazine that, sadly, only lasted for five issues. 

For whatever reason, Fangoria magazine never did a cover story on the production. By 1988, they were becoming more focused on big studio horror in a genre that, after 1985, was becoming homogenized. Fangoria had a sister magazine titled Gorezone that debuted in 1988 that was to cover smaller genre fare and its more extreme examples. But yet again, Gorezone never featured any coverage of METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR.

Cinefantastique, a major publication of horror, science fiction and fantasy cinema, gave the film some publicity. HorrorFan, another new horror movie magazine that debuted in 1989, did likewise; going so far as to say in its brief description, “it sounds like it will make THE THING look like THE FLYING NUN”.

A few years went by and I heard nothing more about the movie. Occasionally I thought about the film and wondered what happened to it, eventually assuming it was never finished or had been shelved for some reason. Then in 1993, I’m in a video store and while perusing the shelves, I ran across a VHS tape for METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR. I picked up the box, turned it over and immediately recognized one of the images from the 1988 Slaughterhouse magazine article. I rented the tape and upon watching it, I wasn’t disappointed at all. Everything I’d read about it, the way producer Ted Bohus had described it in what little publicity this spunky, special effects-filled flick had gotten was accurate. 

In fact, there were a lot of reasons this movie took so long to be seen….

 

The following is an interview with producer Ted A. Bohus discussing the making, and eventual selling, of METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR. This is a fraction of the difficulties Bohus and his crew encountered during production; but is a textbook example of the struggles to get a film made and the lies and betrayals often encountered along the way to getting it released.

 

VENOMS5: What was the genesis of the project? Did you plan on doing a sequel after THE DEADLY SPAWN or was it an idea that came to you much later?

TED BOHUS: I'd always intended that had THE DEADLY SPAWN done well that there would be a sequel or something related to it. THE DEADLY SPAWN turned out to be a fiasco due mainly to the company that bought the picture. But luckily it was made so cheaply that it didn't make a difference since their payout of $50,000 made everybody whole because the movie only cost us $20,000 to make.

So I came up with the story for METAMORPHOSIS and I was designing some creatures to possibly do a sequel. My brother had some friends, and this one guy said to me "I'd like to take a crack at writing the script, and if I do, I'd like to direct it". So I agreed and told him to do it; this being Glenn Takajian. So Glen ended up bringing in his best friend, Scott Moretti, and stupidly I said we'd all be equal partners and vote on the decision-making. This turned out to bite me in the ass later on as I learned they had their own agenda to get rid of me. 

 

But in the beginning, everything was going pretty well. A doctor friend of mine had some contacts and he introduced me to some people who would put some money up. So I put a presentation together and told them we needed a few hundred thousand dollars. And they all said, 'okay', and it was just that easy. We got together and had $400,000 to start. I got my friend Vincent Gaustini, a special effects makeup artist who's worked with me on some other films to come aboard. Everything started to click and the money was coming in. It was then that things began to go south. Little did I know, these other guys had their own agenda and proceeded to do some crazy things with the special effects crew and try and take over the movie. 

 

Finally, I went to the investors and tried to explain to them what was going on. They didn't believe me, at least not right away. I said, 'Let's set up a fake meeting where you guys all get together. They're gonna wanna raise the budget and I don't want to do it and that'll be the excuse. Let's see what they say'. Sure enough, after the meeting the investors met with me and said, 'Oh my God, you were right. They totally threw you under the bus, that if we wanted to do another project that we didn’t need you and that you were a problem'. They wanted to take over the production for themselves. The investors told me to fire them and do the film myself. I told them you never know what people are going to do in retaliation. They might find a way to disrupt the film because they still had access to a lot of our resources. I said let's just go through with it and get the film done and see what happens. I'm really putting everything in a capsule; very small, as there's tons of things that went on behind the scenes that made working on the project a nightmare. 

My friend Dan Taylor, who became a big shot at ILM before he died, did a bunch of miniatures for us; we had Ken Brilliant, we had people doing animation for us who worked on PEE-WEE'S PLAYHOUSE so we had a great FX crew and a ton of effects in the movie. We actually won the Houston International Film Festival Award for Best Special Effects. That's pretty much what happened making it. 

 

After the film was done, it was time to sell the picture and this was another nightmare because we had to go out to California to the American Film Market to try to sell the movie. So I'm trying to make deals and of course I'm wanting to research the companies before I work with them. Some of them were good like Overseas Films Corporation and some we felt like we should go with. One company came forward and wanted our movie and said they'd pay us a big advance of $2 million dollars within a year. It was such crazy terms that was so much better than everybody else. I said, 'I'm not really familiar with this company, let's go with the lesser deal'. Of course, my partners call the investors and tell them I'm turning down this deal. The company rep says they have two lawyers who will make the deal with an iron-clad contract. I try to explain to the investors there's no such thing. It turned into another fiasco and I got out-voted again. They went with this company, IRC (Intercontinental Releasing Corporation), which turned out to be a bunch of crooks. Time goes by, we say 'Where's the money?' They tell me, 'What are you gonna do? The jurisdiction is California, so sue us'. And that was that. So they screwed us over and we had to get the movie back from them. 

 

In the end, to get the investors their money back, Vidmark, which was later bought by Lionsgate, bought the domestic rights and owning the film outright while we own rights for foreign sales. It was a horrible deal and a fiasco all around that left a bad taste in my mouth. After all of this, I got to where I'd rather go back to low budget films and control everything myself. Whether I'm directing, or producing, or producing, directing and writing, at least I wouldn't have partners that could ever have a say in anything again. After that, the next film I did was THE REGENERATED MAN (1994), which was a very low budget film, but at least I had control of it; it got sold, it made money, and then I moved on to do VAMPIRE VIXENS FROM VENUS (1995) which was a little Science Fiction-Comedy.

 

V5: Why was the title changed from METAMORPHOSIS: THE DEADLY SPAWN 2 to METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR?

 

TB: Early on it was just called THE DEADLY SPAWN 2. Then it was called DEADLY SPAWN 2: THE TRANS-FORMATION. And that title stuck for a while but as we had these arguments and all the craziness with my partners, they knew DEADLY SPAWN was associated with me, and they didn't want that; they wanted a separate entity that wouldn't be tied to me for when they would try and take it over. The excuse was. 'We don't want this $1.2 million dollar movie associated with this little low budget movie', which of course, DEADLY SPAWN was a cult film at that time. I got out-voted again, so now the title is just METAMORPHOSIS. When we went to the American Film Market there was another film there, an Italian film that was also called METAMORPHOSIS with a similar plot. So we decided to change the title of our film to METAMORPHOSIS; THE ALIEN FACTOR. 

V5: What was the reason for the film shutting down? Did all the backstage turmoil have something to do with it?

TB: We ran out of money. At a certain point, my partners realized the investors weren't going along with them to get rid of me. They figured they'd make this the biggest film possible because that was the only way they were going to get more work was if they made a really big movie. They kept bumping the budget up by wanting to do this and do that, and the budget kept going up. After a while, they told the investors if they didn't come up with more funds the film would be shut down and they'd lose everything. We had a lot of good stuff and they liked it, but to continue like that we needed more money. The budget ballooned up to $1.2 million while all this crazy stuff was happening.

V5: I know you had issues getting one of the main actresses to come back to complete the film, but when you shut down, was it difficult to get everybody back on a set date in case some of them were working on other projects?

TB: When we closed down to raise more money we told the crew the investors needed time so we could pay for everything. A lot of them had jobs so it wasn't an issue, but one of the actresses wanted back-pay for the length of the shutdown. It was like she was extorting the production to her benefit. I said to hell with it. My partners wanted to know what we were going to do to finish the picture. I told them my girlfriend has a similar build, so we can put a wig and lab-coat on her and shoot her from behind and kill her off. That way we don't have to deal with this extortion. After some back and forth we decided to go with that so we killed her character off and carried on from there.

V5: That ended up being one of the best scenes in the movie, too.

TB: Sometimes things like that just work out for the better. After going through everything I went through, you just never want to have an ordeal like that again.

V5: What was the primary location for the movie?

TB: Since we had a decent budget, we rented a warehouse in Jersey City. It was a big place so we built all our sets in there. Other places like the Talos building we shot on location. I’d go around to these places and knock on the doors and talk to the owner and ask if we could shoot at night after they closed and a lot of them were more than happy to help us out. The house we shot in was my parents house.

 

V5: I take it the Atomic Shotgun Room was both a full-size set and a miniature? How much does it cost to build a set like that?

 

TB: Dan Taylor built a miniature and we also had a full set we built inside the warehouse. It can take weeks to build. We had a good budget and a good crew. We had people doing things for us that might cost $50,000 on a regular set that only cost us $2,000. We had to get the film ready to shoot in a matter of months.

V5: Were there any special effects sequences you wanted to do but were unable to?

TB: Yeah, the same thing happened on THE DEADLY SPAWN where we didn't have much money to work on that. I was sitting outside at Tim Hildebrandt's house. He asked me what's the matter and I told him that we didn't have the money to do the ending of the film I really wanted to do. He asks me what's the ending, and I tell him I want the people to hear a rumbling and then the big Spawn head, like a mile wide, comes up out of the earth. I told him, "but now, we're gonna have one meteor come down, then two, then three, then four, to insinuate there's Spawn's in all of those meteors". So Tim says to me, "For a few hundred dollars I'll get that scene done for you". Tim Hildebrandt got the guys together and they built that set in his garage, the set you see at the end where the head comes out of the ground. 

And then the same thing happened in METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR. I wanted a big ending with the creature breaking out. Dan Taylor and the FX guys came through for me where the creature breaks up through the roof of the building. 

V5: Which of the two SPAWN films was the better to work on for you?

TB: They both had their pluses and minuses. I had better times on THE DEADLY SPAWN. It was a smaller film, we were only shooting on weekends... there were problems without a doubt, some major problems, like the director being let go in the middle of the film because people were not getting along; there was crazy things happening on that film too, but there were more good times on that film. Aside from one or two people, we all got along pretty well. We shot that one for over a year because we were only filming on weekends other than one time we shot for five days straight. So if I had to pick one I'd say DEADLY SPAWN was a more pleasant shoot than METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR, there were just so many crazy things going on filming the sequel.

 

V5: Why do you think the film hasn't been picked up for a blu-ray release as of yet?

TB: The only thing I can think of is that Lionsgate doesn't have worldwide rights, they only have domestic, so maybe they don't want to pay out for a global license, I don't know. I keep telling people to write letters, email them, call them up, and ask them why it's not yet out on blu-ray. 

 

V5: How do you feel about METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR today? Are you satisfied with it?

 

TB: I think it holds up pretty well. By Hollywood standards it was a very low budget film. We had a ton of special effects in it and all those FX guys did a really great job. Vincent Gaustini was really supposed to be overseeing all the FX and he ended up having a problem with my partners as well. It was a shame because we had so many top-notch people working on this thing and I think a lot of what we did still holds up. A lot of people prefer prosthetics compared to CGI and our film had all that in there. I think it all holds up well today although I wish I'd have done what I wanted to do in the beginning and just done the movie myself with that kind of money. I probably would've kept everybody together. It might've been a little better film, who knows... the special effects hold up well but with the technology you have today you can do so much better effects-wise; but for what it was, both films still hold up.

 

V5: I think you have a lot to be proud of. The film looks great considering all the problems you had getting it made. 

 

TB: It turned out to be a pretty decent film. We got it done, it got distribution, I think we could've done a bit more with it, but hopefully in the near future there'll be a blu-ray and some kind of comeback for this film.

V5: You have a book out on the making of THE DEADLY SPAWN (1983). You've also got one coming out with more on the making of METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR?

TB: Originally, the first book had everything in it but I was told I should probably just release it as a stand-alone book on the first movie since there's so much to talk about. Now, I'm doing a series of books called Candid Monsters which is like the making of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, the making of FORBIDDEN PLANET with hundreds and hundreds of behind the scenes photographs I've been collecting for 55 years. You can buy these on amazon and ebay. I've got more DEADLY SPAWN books coming since I sold out of them. 

 

The other book is Making Low Budget Science Fiction Films: It's a Real Horror Story. In that I talk about all the other films--DEADLY SPAWN 2, THE REGENERATED MAN (1994), VAMPIRE VIXENS FROM VENUS (1995), DESTINATION FAME (2012), THIS THING OF OURS (2002) and HELL ON EARTH (2010); and including some films people don't know about. I did two films for Japan only called FANTASTIC FILM SHOW 1 and 2 which were compilation films that a lot of my friends worked on contributing short films. Those two movies have never been released in the United States so it will be fun discussing those; and some other films I worked on like MIND KILLER and LONE WOLF made out in Colorado. So there's plenty for another book, and that might come out sometime next year. I still have 3 or 4 of the Candid Monsters books I want to do first. 

V5: Mr. Bohus, I sincerely appreciate your time, it's been an honor discussing this movie with you.

 

There were several other low-budget monster movies in the 1990s that are worth revisiting and likewise unaccounted for on blu-ray. METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR is a rare example of a film that's faithful to its predecessor while paying homage to the many Science Fiction and SciFi-Horror pictures that came before it. DEADLY SPAWN 2 is a worthy follow-up to the original low-budget cult favorite that, in this reviewers opinion, is deserving of its own cult status. With so many of its special effects crew willing to discuss their days working on the picture, there's a lot of potential for a well-stacked special edition celebrating not only an entertaining, bloody good SciFi-Horror picture, but the art of old-fashioned style moviemaking with a lot of heart and passion behind it.

If you’re a fan of METAMORPHOSIS: THE ALIEN FACTOR (1990), there's a Facebook page with many behind the scenes photographs with comments by those who worked on the movie. You can find that page HERE.

If you're a fan of THE DEADLY SPAWN (1983), Ted A. Bohus has written a lavish, all-color, 136 page book on the making of the movie which you can purchase HERE. It's a stunning volume on the making of one of the most strikingly original monsters in one of the best low-budget horror films of the 1980s. From its Amazon description: "MAKING The 1980’s Science-Fiction / Horror Monster Cult Classic THE DEADLY SPAWN not only tells the story of putting the film together, but also makes you aware of what to watch out for when making your own film. Put together by the films producer/co-story writer/co-creature designer, Ted A. Bohus, this book features the Making of Deadly Spawn article, commentary by filmmakers and actors, interviews with Executive Producer/Artist, Tim Hildebrandt and Director of Special Effects/monster designer/builder, John Dods. It also features a Deadly Spawn Scrapbook containing hundreds of candid behind-the-scenes photos, storyboards, script pages, synopsis, video/DVD/Blu-Ray/Laser Disc jackets from around the world, Deadly Spawn posters, prototype spawns, Deadly Spawn art, toys and figures, two Deadly Spawn Prequel Comics, newspaper ads, reviews…and more! All in Full Color!"

 

Ted's CANDID MONSTERS series of books are labors of love in classic SciFi and Horror cinema. Each 120 page issue is generously packed with production stills, behind the scenes imagery and interviews with those who starred in, and worked on the films. These books (I've purchase two so far) are highly recommended if you're a monster movie fan or a Monster Kid who grew up with them seeing them either in the theater or on the Late Show or Saturday Afternoons on channels like WSET-13 out of Virginia and channel 48 WGGT-TV out of Greensboro, NC that I saw many of them on. You can learn more about CANDID MONSTERS and purchase issues HERE or at amazon.

The review is representative of the Lionsgate DVD. Specs and extras: fullscreen presentation; trailer; running time: 01:36:47