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Overall Rating : 2.5/10
Directed By : Jenö Hodi
Christopher Lambert (Highlander: Endgame)
Corey Sevier (Decoys)
Irena A. Hoffman (Transylmania)
Charlie Hollway
Supplied By : MTI Home Video
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : August. 11, 2010
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| PLOT While researching the legend of the Blood Countess, in the wilds of the Carpathian Mountains, three young Americans pick up an attractive stranger who will take them on the journey of their lives. From a mountain fortress, they must outwit and elude the Vampire and supernatural forces closing in on them. As the fast-paced, horrifying action accelerates, the pieces of an ancient puzzle begin to fall into place. | ||||
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| THE REVIEW In the film METAMORPHOSIS, three American friends, Keith, .J. and Kim, travel to the country of Hungary with plans to stay at the legendary monastery of Countess Bathory. Keith, writer, is ultimately on the trip as he embarks on penning a book about the historical figure, while the other two, j.J. and girlfriend Kim are just along for the ride. On their way, they decide to take a short cut through an old cemetery, but predictably they get lost. Just as soon as they get lost, a beautiful and enchanting woman named Elizabeth shows up out of nowhere and agrees to guide them to the castle that they seek. through their continuing travels, and the more and more they get to no about one another, the more Keith and the beautiful Elizabeth begin to realize that they have in common - most notably, their knowledge for Bathory herself. Contrary to popular belief, Keith believes that Bathory was merely misunderstood as opposed to the legend that says she was evil, even bathing in blood. Keith's sympathy for the figure obviously hits and emotional cord with Elizabeth, and again predictably, the two become lovers. Meanwhile while continuing on to the castle, the gang are involved in a brutal crash that sends their car plunging off of a cliff, in which they all miraculously recover from. They eventually meet a priest and a nun, as well as two German tourist. Despite notifying the priest, Alexis that tours of the castle has been banned, due to ongoing wolf attacks, both her and Sister Catherine agree to take them anyway - it is in this time that the already mysterious Elizabeth leaves without a trace, but she does leave behind her golden medallion and a warning to "Search for the white light". While trekking up to the castle they are attacked by the wolves, but suddenly something scares the beasts away, which could very well be the arrival of Constantine Thurzo, an ages old vampire, who claims that the castle is actually his. If this wasn't enough, just by looking at her abandoned medallion, Alexis identifies Elizabeth as the daughter of countess Bathory, which this fact would make her a 500 year old vamp in her own right. When the group begins disappearing one by one after entering the castle the question of Elizabeth and Thurzo being allies or bitter enemies, soon arises to the forefront. The legend of Countess Bathory is certainly nothing new to the Horror field, in fact, her story is the perfect catalyst for any type of horror film. Legend has it that Bathory was a cold blooded murderess in her time, killing a couple hundred victims, using her clout to get away with it up until killing the child of someone of prominence. Bathory, was also said to have been a bit of a narcissist, bathing in the blood of her many victims, because she believed that doing so kept herself youthful beyound her years(Eli Roth even played off on this very idea during a scene is HOSTEL II in which a seducing character, shamelessly bsths in the blood of a hanging victim. This was indeed one of the best and most memorable scenes in the film). With so much material to draw on for making a fun Bathory story, you'd at least picture a dark and Mood film, would you not. Well, with METAMORPHOSIS, you certainly get something, but i'm not sure what to call it. Although shot on location in Hungary, with a Hungarian crew, METAMORPHOSIS is as "Americanized" as they come, complete with stereotyped obnoxious American characters who travel to a foreign land, who are the proverbial fish out water. The plot and dialogue is also common to this type of film in which history is played with, instead of trying to be factual in the film a lot of liberty is taken for the sake of making the film "original". In the case of METAMORPHOSIS, this results in the film being virtually clueless as to what it's overall goal is. The direction here is so shaky, that at some points in the movie, you just wonder if the screenwriters were basically finishing this one up as they went along - especially in the form of the film's dialogue, because, honestly, it'd pretty bad, even for this grade of movie. Speaking of plot, a good portion of the film's plot is fairly simple, and more or less just considers the characters traveling to the castle, getting there and disappearing - as we knew they would anyway. We also have Christopher Lambert's character of Thurzo, who has obviously been shoved into the film to give it as much credibility as Lambert can still give. I get the notion that Constantine Thurzo is supposed to be some kind of imposing king vampire type, but with Lambert in the role, I just wasn't feeling it. Lambert here just seems miscast and so out of place when trying to deliver his already badly written words in his put-on English dialect, towards the end it becomes terrible to watch, to be blunt. The film does try to redeem itself at the last minute with one last twist, one that virtually transforms the entire film into a sappy love story between Kyle and Elizabeth. I'll admit that this is a nice twist, and in my opinion, it's the best thing to happen in the film, but sadly, it come too late. It would have truly helped matters if the film that preceded the twist had been better scripted, but it's not, which renders the otherwise decent finale as an opportunity wasted. Overall instead of being what could have been an intriguing character study of an interesting murderess, METAMORPHOSIS is yet another humdrum straight-to-DVD effort that is very loosely based on a much more interesting true story. For a film that ties itself to Bathory, we see or hear very little about her here, and in place is original material that is hastily put together, that is just not that exciting, and quite frankly, I found myself bored, and bored fast with what METAMORPHOSIS had to offer. |
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| GORE
METER 1.5/10 Not really gory at all, some blood here and there, along with a couple of weakly captured impalements. The rest is cheap CGI | ||||
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 2.5/10 Your typical action/adventure stuff, it doesn't stray very far from the norm. |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM Well, to be truthful with you, I can't say that I was expecting a great movie out of this one, but I figured at least it would be a fairly enjoyable one. With this said, in my opinion, METAMORPHOSIS is one that fails to deliver on either sentiment. Many words could be used to describe it, dry, generic, routine, and basically a host of others, it's one of those films that is not needed, simply due to the fact there already exists a copious amount of material that is far more informative on the subject, than the film itself - far better films as well. This DVD will be released August 24, 2010 | ||||
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