Embryo – 1976
aka Created to Kill
Director
Ralph Nelson

Writers
Anita Doohan
Jack W. Thomas

Cast
Rock Hudson
Barbara Carrera
Diane Ladd

Review by Wayne Malin

Not uninteresting but slow and kind of silly

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).

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. !!!

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.