I initially had this movie and it’s sequel (Syngenor) under one review, but I decide to separate them, so if you’re looking for the review for the sequel go here!
In the interview provided on the disc Director William Malone states they started filming this (his first movie) in February of 1979, and he considers his flick to be the first Alien rip-off ever committed to film, which is odd since Alien didn’t hit theaters until May. Yet his creature does look like something H.R. Giger would have designed. He obviously must have heard about the in-production movie and/or saw stills of the xenomorph before hand, to inspire his design, I’m guessing.
Scared To Death is a creature feature with blatant shades of a slasher flick. The way it plays out I’d go so far as to comfortably call it a creature slasher. The creature, a Syngenor (SYNthetic GENetic ORganism), is filmed stalking and killing in very similar fashion to any Halloween or Friday The 13th flick. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, the movie is a product of its time and John Carpenter’s Halloween had just come on the scene in 1978 so, I’m giving it’s slasher vibe a pass.
It’s modern day L.A. (circa 1979) and the city is being hit by a wave of homicides the local police are stumped by because the “perp” seems to exhibit abnormal traits like incredible strength, the door to a car was torn off as it claimed a victim not to mention one of the victim’s leg. The victims run the gambit, but most of the ones shown are hot, young chicks. The stalk scene that opens the movie is straight out of slasherdom, (spying on a naked chick from outside the home), but when we finally see the “perp,” or a glimpse of him anyway, it’s pretty clear there’s a monster loose in the City Of Angels, not a madman.
Below is a couple of publicity shots from the movie. I saw this photo on the left when I was a kid and for the longest time thought the creature had a bluish hue to it. It doesn’t. But it sure does look cool in that lighting. Second photo is more of its correct coloration from the film.
There’s chick shown a couple of times in the first hour whose appearance is unexplained until she decides to lay out all her cards on the table and explain to our hero, private dick, Ted Lonergan (John Stinson), what she thinks is really going on, and it involves a scientist she used to work for who wanted, and actually did, create a new life form he dubbed the Syngenor. The doc intended to kill it before it grew up, but he died from a heart attack before he could, and it escaped. Shelly Carpenter (Toni Jannotta, the director’s real life wife at the time) just assumed it would die eventually.
Yeah, well, guess what?
It didn’t.
The Syngenor feeds on spinal fluid, and it does this by grabbing its victim’s face and shoving its forked tongue into their mouths. The resulting death is from a brain tumor and epileptic seizures. I guess that’s what happens when your spinal fluid count is at ground zero. At least that’s what the not so obvious victims of the creature look like that.
Ted is pulled into this case by his good friend, Lou (David Moses), who’s still a cop, and thinks Ted’s skills could help the case. While the creature plot is unfolding the movie tracks Ted’s burgeoning love life with this chick he met through a fender bender, Jennifer Stanton (Diana Davidson). After a successful first date that ends in sex, she’s suddenly helping Ted at his office and interviewing clients, which is what gets her nabbed by the creature. You can blame Shelly for that. Jen heads down to the lab where this thing was created to talk to Shelly who, I think, told her to meet her there and she bumps into the creature and gets her spinal cord sucked on. Jen’s in the movie for a good hour before this happens, but she’s not killed. The attack puts her in a coma, with signs of a brain tumor. Now this case just got personal for good ol’ Teddy.
In the final half hour he and Shelly head back to the lab to find the creature and learn it’s using the sewer system to move around unseen in the city, and that’s only the half of it. It’s breeding using these Giger-esque pods that attach themselves to some of the victims it brings back. Ted and Shelly stumble upon a portion of the sewer full of them. Cutting the tentacles attached to the half-alive victims kills them outright. Whoops.
The ending confrontation happens in a metalworks warehouse the two are trapped in. There are obvious shades of James Cameron’s The Terminator (1984) before Terminator, but if you look further back in scifi movie history, the movie Malone was actually homaging was The Fly (1958), specifically in how David Hedison’s mutant character was killed, because it’s the same way they kill the Syngenor—crush the fucker under a hydraulic press!
Keep in mind Ted did not have the chance to shoot all those, leaving open the possibility of a sequel. In the Malone interview on the disc he states he was going to make Scared To Death II, but was offered Creature (1985, aka Titan Find) around the same time and decided to do that film instead. But there was already a commitment to do Scared To Death II, so that movie was eventually made with his only contribution being that he made the monsters. Before William Malone became a director he was working as a Halloween mask sculptor for Don Post.
It was through a movie magazine back in the early 80s where I discovered Scared To Death, but I cannot for the life of me remember the name of it anymore. For a long time I thought it was Cinefantastique, but now I’m not sure. I remember the issue covered Alien (1979), but not the Alien FX, it was mostly about the movie’s set design. There was also an article about Scared To Death in it that had some pretty good photos of the pods and the creature.
Scared To Death was covered in Starlog #38 & somewhat in Fangoria #7 under the title, The Terror Factor. It’s was covered through an interview with FX artist Bob Short. Click photos to enlarge & read.
I never saw the movie until DVD came around and it was on a three movie disc with Malone’s Creature and Snowbeast (made-for-TV 1977). There is a good chunk of people who don’t particularly like Malone’s first movie basically because it’s pacing is lethargic. I will agree with that, but personally that doesn’t bother me, I quite like watching Ted and Diana meet and fall in love. Both actors give good performances. The creature doesn’t get fully shown until the final act, which might also contribute to the movie’s dislike. The creature and the pods FX are very well done and I liked the design overall.
Some trivia that’s also related by Malone in his interview: 80s heartthrob and musician Rick Springfield was supposed to star but backed out the night before the shoot. His real-life girlfriend, Diana Davidson, stayed in the film, and subsequently fell in love with co-star Stinson. They eventually married.
Below is a slideshow of various behind-the-scene photos culled from William Malone’s Facebook page. Hopefully one day, if he ever does a blu-ray, he’ll add these to it. If you want to see them full size just pause the slideshow on a random photo, right click and select ‘OPEN IMAGE IN NEW TAB.’
William Malone’s Scared To Death (1981) has been on various DVDs in the worst shape imaginable, until Fred Olen Ray rescued it and released it on DVD only in 2008. That DVD is now out-of-print, but it’s still available on Amazon
UPDATE 9/7/2022: There’s now a US blu-ray release in existence, thanks to boutique distributor Vinegar Syndrome. If you want the limited edition slipcover version then you need to buy it from their site here, but if there’ll be a standard NON-slipcover version available on Amazon here. There’s also a novelization that’s come into existence in the past year, which is also available on Amazon, and on Vinegar’s site, with a different cover.
RETROMEDIA 2010 DVD (OUT-OF-PRINT)
VINEGAR SYNDROME 2022 BLU-RAY (LIMITED EDITION WITH SLIPCOVER)
REVERSE ARTWORK (BELOW)
VIDEO/AUDIO/SUBTITLES (RETROMEDIA): 1.85:1 (anamorphic) widescreen—English Dolby Digital Stereo—No subs
VIDEO/AUDIO/SUBTITLES (VINEGAR SYNDROME): 1080p 1.85:1 high definition widescreen—2.0 English DTS-HD Master Audio (mono)—English subs only
UPDATE 9/7/2022: As you can see above there are two versions of this film included in this release (on separate discs), the restorations of which both look fantastic. Speaking transfer-wise, however, each have their own pros and cons. Malone’s version, while having some obvious moments of visible print damage (there’s distracting white speckling that occurs in the very beginning of the movie with the first female victim as she sits on her bed talking to some guy trying to get her to go out to a movie), the lighting and the color grading appear slightly different than what’s on display in the Theatrical Cut. The overall vibe I felt with Malone’s version is the transfer feels more “natural” looking, and I liked that. Sharpness and colors were better too. Both have moments where you can ever-so-slightly see the color grading shift, and the transfer wobbles in the scene where Lonergan is arguing with Jen after he accidentally hit her car with his. But that wobble is also present in Malone’s version, as well as the slight shifting colors. All of these “defects,” “anomalies,” whatever you want to call them, happen early in the film and in the last act with Malone’s cut. The Theatrical Cut is devoid of any of them. These defects not withstanding, overall both transfers are light years ahead of the DVD Retromedia had out, and that DVD in turn was light years ahead of the previous public domain versions, which were so dark in some scenes you couldn’t see what the hell was happening. Below are some before and after restoration photos from Malone’s version.
There’s only one scene Malone cut from his version and I agree with his decision to cut it. It’s after Sherry sees the newscaster (William Malone’s cameo) talking about the murders and goes into the next room to try and call the cops, she does, but says nothing and the cop hangs up. That whole scene in the other room is gone.
EXTRAS INCLUDED (RETROMEDIA) . . .
- Interview With Director William Malone (19:20)
- Original Theatrical Trailer
EXTRAS INCLUDED (VINEGAR SYNDROME) . . .
Disc #1 (Theatrical Cut—1:37:20):
- Audio Commentary With Writer/Director William Malone, Actor Bryce “Kermit” Eller And Actress Diana Davidson
- Rise Of The Syngenor (Doc) (1:15:03)
- The Locations Of Scared To Death (8:34)
- Dracula Party–Scared To Death (Music Video) (3:50)
Disc #2 (Previously Restored Alternate Version—1:34:25):
- None
Extras for these kind of memory movies are my jam. On Vinegar’s disc we get a very informative commentary, and an equally informative and nearly feature length documentary. Davidson’s Zoom connection (assuming that’s how she’s present for the commentary) is fairly awful, however, you can still make out what she says. As for Malone and Eller, they sound like they’re in the same room with one another. I commend Vinegar for managing to get a decent chunk of the main and supporting cast together in the doc to reminisce: Diana Davidson (Jennifer), David Moses (Detective Lou Capell), Toni Jannotta (Sherry Carpenter), Mike Muscat (Howard Tindall) and Bryce ‘Kermit’ Eller (Syngenor). Crew members they managed to snag: director William Malone, makeup supervisor James Suthers and effects artist Kevin Altieri. Unfortunately, for whatever reason, they could not snag lead John Stinson. I also loved the revisit extra of the locations with Malone. I have no opinion on that “music video.” What?! A music video?!
So, as of this review, three of my favorite flicks William Malone directed have finally reached blu-ray: Scared To Death, Creature (aka Titan Find), and the 1999 remake of House On Haunted Hill. Now if we could just get his Masters Of Horror episode, “Fair-Haired Child,” Freddy’s Nightmares (1988-1990) (he directed three episodes) and Tales From The Crypt (1994-1996) (he directed two episodes) transferred to blu-ray here in the U.S. I can add them to my library and then feel my Malone collection is complete.
MEMORY MOVIES 