Embryo (1976)

 

 

 

 Embryo is a sci-fi thriller directed by Ralph Nelson.  This goes on his resume along with Lilies of the Field, Father Goose, and Charly.  Not his worst attempt but it definitely leaves something to be desired.  But that's jumping ahead a bit, firstly Embryo stars the legendary Rock Hudson as Dr. Paul Holliston, a scientist who performs experiments on human fetuses.  One night, while driving in a rain storm he accidentally hits a dog.  He takes the dog back to his house where he has a lab and tries to save the dogs life.  He's not able to but he does discover the dog was pregnant and two of her underdeveloped puppies were still alive.  He removes the puppy fetuses and puts them into tanks hooked up to all kinds of mad scientist type wires.  Only one of the puppies makes it and he soon discovers his treatment is causing the puppy to grow at a rapid rate.   

 

 

 

 The puppy is "born", so to speak, and aside from growing quickly it also acquires quite a temper and kills another smaller dog pretty violently.  Soon, the doctor has the brilliant idea of doing the same thing to a human fetus all for the betterment of man.  I mean, what could go wrong?  Diane Ladd  (Chinatown, Christmas Vacation, and Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore) plays Martha, the doctors sister-in-law and sometime assistant.  The human fetus grown rapidly as well.  The embryo that he took from a suicide patient ages seemingly over night and she quickly develops into a 22 year old girl Holliston names Victoria.  This part of Victoria  is played by  Barbara Carrera star of such films as Never Say Never Again and The Island of Dr. Moreau.  Not only is Victoria beautiful and smart, she is also conniving and violent just like the puppy was.  She too begins to age rapidly and before the aging can kill her she discovers a way to stop it.  But it will involve her murdering people to have a constant supply of what she needs to stay young.  I won't tell you what that is so you can go see for yourself.     

 

 

Also in the film with a cameo appearance as a chess master who Victoria easily can defeat is Roddy McDowall (Planet of the Apes, Fright Night, and The Poseidon Adventure).  Doctor Rock realizes what is going on and he tries to kill Victoria himself in order to stop her evil plans.  This film is sort of an enigma to me as it has all the star power you could want and a director with a pedigree of creating really good films.  None of that seems to matter here as the film is slow, plodding, and boring.  It also suffers from just being too dark which I don't know if it was the copy of the film I have or what but I felt some of the film was just too dark to get a good grasp of what was happening.  We give two and a half doses of methotrexate out of five for this science gone wrong ... what's the opposite of masterpiece?  Debacle?  Yeah, that works.