The Kindred (1987)

Directed by: Stephen Carpenter, Jeffrey Obrow

Writers: Stephen Carpenter, Jeffrey Obrow, John Penney, Earl Ghaffari, Joseph Stefano

 

 

Two directors, five screenwriters?! I mean what the hell? A lame and generic story such as this could have easily been written by a ten year old on a lunch break, but here it took them no less than five people, including the writer of Psycho (!)

It all starts when a woman (apparently a famous scientist or something) on hear deathbed (because, you see, she is dying) pledges her son to go to her old house and burn everything, I mean EVERYTHING, from top to bottom. She has been conducting some dangerous experiments and wants all notes, equipment and other stuff gone before someone EVIL uses it for their EVIL purpose. However, her idiot son equips himself with a group of other idio... errr, I mean friends, and instead of fulfilling his mother’s wish, he continues her research. Sure enough, all hell breaks loose, by which I mean that a hideous monster appears and starts killing everyone. Also worth noticing is a supporting role by Rod Steiger, who plays a mad doctor.

To be perfectly honest, I wasn’t paying much attention to the “story” (if you can call it that) because I was tired and it wasn’t very engaging anyway. I couldn’t care less about any of the characters and the acting was absolutely horrible.

Thankfully, however, this movie was made in 1980’s, back when they were still trying to entertain the audience instead of just shooting random crap on a shoestring budget and hoping to sell a few DVDs by making the cool-looking cover. What I’m referring to are the special effects, which are way above average here. Great looking monsters, nice killings and one exceptionally well-made transformation scene where a woman slowly turns into a horrible fish-like creature – it’s all something you simply won’t see in today’s CGI-dominated movies. So, despite the obvious shortcomings, The Kindred deserves a look.