The Deadly Spawn: Douglas McKeown

It breaks my heart to know that The Deadly Spawn was director Douglas McKeown's only feature film. The film, which followed a host of horrific aliens attacking a small town after crash-landing there one night, is a true triumph of ultra low-budget film-making. McKeown only had a budget of $25,000, yet managed to create monster effects on par with John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). The aliens, which resemble Frank Herbert's sandworms crossed with your worst nightmares, could have sufficed as the film's only draw. But McKeown creates the rare horror film where the regular humans who find themselves at odds with the alien monstrosities are just as interesting to watch. The heroes are a group of teenagers who are extremely intelligent and act like rational human beings in times of crisis, even going so far as to dissect one of the dead aliens to better understand them. In a move that predicts the Scream franchise, one of the hapless humans is a young boy who is a devout fan of monster and horror movies. He is one of the first who figures out how to properly fight back against the terrible aliens. The cinematography is...cheap. McKeown's low budget really becomes apparent in early scenes where the colors are dim and washed out. But then again, it's obvious that McKeown did the best he could with the resources available. Unlike many cheap horror movies from the early 80s, The Deadly Spawn endures the test of time and remains a chilling and thoroughly entertaining creature feature.

8/10