ofumalow Ralph Nelson made some good movies particularly in the 1960s, mostly middle-of-the-road dramas addressing pressing social issues. But he didn't appear to have a fantastical bone in his body, and was clearly the wrong choice to direct this sci-fi variation on the Frankenstein story. Rock Hudson plays a scientist whose personal guilt over his wife's death drives him to experiments in his private lab that attempt to save the lives of fetuses trapped in the bodies of dying females. He succeeds in saving one such being from a suicidal young woman. His methods lead the fetus to develop rapidly into an adult (Barbara Carrera) who is beautiful and brilliant but, because she has skipped past all the standard character-forming years of human growth, lacks any sense of morality--when she eventually feels threatened, she doesn't hesitate at resorting to homicide. But that doesn't happen until the last 15 minutes or so in a movie without any prior "action" (a little partial nudity aside), and Nelson doesn't even seem interested in the violence when it does arrive, keeping it mostly off-screen. Hudson gives an earnest performance--he's not just walking through it, as he sometimes did with mediocre material--and Carrera, one of those actresses who seldom got to stretch much because she was typecast as cheesecake, is as good as the film allows. The supporting cast is strong enough, excepting Roddy McDowell, who throws off the straightfacedf tone somewhat with an overly hammy "guest star" turn as a snippy chess master infuriated when Carrera's "Victoria" beats him. But the script isn't quite intelligent or credible to be taken seriously. Nor is Nelson's direction stylish, suspenseful, or lurid enough to make "Embryo" any kind of guilty pleasure--it's watchable enough, but once you realize there really won't be much payoff, the entire experience becomes somewhat deflating. While the 70s was full of variable big-studio sci-fi films that in one way or another emphasized their futurism, "Embryo" has no sci-fi trappings at all beyond a premise whose ideas aren't very boldly worked out. It wasn't a success at the time, and one has to admit there isn't much reason to pronounce it under-rated now. It's a competently crafted misfire.

Red-Barracuda A scientist attempts to create the perfect woman using an advanced test-tube procedure he has developed after experimenting on a dog fetus, resulting in a super-intelligent but fast-growing canine. Unbeknownst to the doctor, however, is the fact that this new science turns its subjects into killers. To this end, he falls in love with his creation - a very beautiful, extremely intelligent woman - who happens to have homicidal tendencies unfortunately also.This sci-fi-horror-melodrama was directed by Ralph Nelson who previously was known to me for a couple of violent westerns, Duel at Diablo (1966) and Soldier Blue (1970), with the latter being a particularly controversial film. With Embryo, he is involved in something a lot less contentious, yet it does have a look at some uncomfortable issues, such as the horror of a human being growing to full adulthood in a matter of weeks and the associated tragedy inherent in that. The moral dimension of course is the old Frankenstein conundrum of man playing god and meddling with nature. The scientist here is Rock Hudson and I thought he was good enough in the part. Barbara Carrera stars as his creation, while Diane Ladd plays his dead wife's sister who stays with him to work as his assistant for some reason - it's not really much of a role for Ladd to be fair. Much better was Roddy McDowall in a cameo appearance in what is certainly the best scene in the movie, he plays a chauvinistic chess master who has his ass whipped by Carrera in front of an amused gathering of guests at a party – McDowall is really entertaining to watch in this part. Challenging him as best performer is the Doberman who nonchalantly carries out a series if very clever tricks throughout the movie.Overall, while I wouldn't say this is a fully successful film, it's still a pretty interesting one. It only really moves into horror territory in its final stages and in fact ends on a pretty commendably dark note indeed. But I found the ideas and story quite engaging and think this one is worth catching, particularly if you like 70's sci-fi.

weasl-729-310682 I think this movie was WAY ahead of it's time. Very few people were aware of the scientific manipulations that could be done for development of new life.Also it doesn't hurt that the leading actors are absolutely gorgeous. Barbara Carrera has nude scenes that even a woman can appreciate. What a goddess!If you like sci-fi from olden times that mimics the life we are living now, you'll love this one.That said, I agree with the other reviewer who noted that it was absolutely ridiculous to put in the scene about the natural language query to a computer that came back with a good answer. I worked with mainframes in 1976, and we were still feeding trays of punch cards into readers to run programs. CRT's were still command line interfaces.There are a bunch of hater's for this movie for resistance to scientists assuming the role of gods.I happen to be a Monsanto HATER, ABHORER, LOATHER, DESPISER! Did ya'll know they "own," legally, but NOT morally IMO, a terminator gene, that renders their seeds unable to reproduce? Imagine if that gene got loose and started mutating flora and fauna. That could be the absolute end of life on our planet. Fortunately, our government, stupid and clueless as it is, has so far denied Monsanto the ability to deploy such a dangerous assault against us.Watch "Bitter Harvest" with Ron Howard to see some of the corporate antics this toxic multinational corporation gets up to: contaminating (getting loose on) neighboring farms with their genetically modified seeds and pollen, then suing them for stealing their patented stuff. They get away with it, and have put many hard-working people out of business and off their land.

preppy-3 Dr. Paul Holliston (Rock Hudson) is experimenting with fetuses. He manages to remove one from the body of a dying dog and keep it alive AND make it a full grown dog within a few weeks! He gets the body of a dying pregnant woman. He removes her fetus and also keeps it alive and, within a few weeks, has a full grown female named Victoria (Barbara Carrera). Oh yes--she also is a genius. But it seems her and the dog acquire some homicidal tendencies and things slowly fall apart...I'm no scientist but I find the science in this questionable. I realize it's just a movie but it's introduced with a statement from an (allegedly) actual scientist who says the events in this film could happen. Uh huh. Well...it's been 30 years and I've never heard about this actually taking place. Factual issues aside this is OK. It moves slowly and, really, the plot is kind of silly but it's somewhat interesting. Unfortunately it falls apart completely at the end and gets pretty sick (and stupid). !!!PLOT SPOILERS!!! One of the more interesting scenes include when the dog actually kills another dog. Sounds sick but there's no blood and it's hysterically obvious that the dog being killed is a dummy and not real. Actually the dog here is super intelligent and seeing in preform tricks that a normal dog couldn't do was fun. Also note the now antique technology shown at one point. There is a VERY fun scene where Carrera whips obnoxious Roddy McDowell (chewing the scenery) at a chess game! This may or may not be a selling point to some, but there's a bit of fairly explicit nudity (for a PG film) from Carrera. !!!SPOILER END!!!The acting wavers. Hudson (who could be good) is terrible. He looks miserable and doesn't try to hide his disinterest. Diane Ladd is totally wasted as a helper of his. Carrera is very beautiful and surprisingly good as Victoria. She manages to keep the movie going almost single handedly. So--it's an OK sci-fi movie. Just pretty silly and slow at times. I give it a 6.