The Kindred — The Kindred (Blu Ray)
The Kindred is a late 80’s mad doctor sci-fi thriller meets horror-fed creature feature. Its first half is a medical mystery thriller, then the second half is a whipping tentacle-bound and gooey monster movie. It’s an entertaining if slightly derivative film featuring some good moments of tension and neat practical effects. Here from Synapse Films is Blu Ray release of the film- featuring a new 4K scan of the picture, as well as a few extras too.
The Kindred (aka Anthony) appeared in the year 1987. It was jointly directed by Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow. Carpenter has four directorial credits to his name-these go from slasher film The Dorm That Dripped Blood (1982), possessed by an ancient Aztec doll horror The Power (1984), and psychological Thriller meets teen horror Soul Survivors (2001). And Obrow has ten directors credits to his name including jointly helming The Dorm That Dripped Blood and The Power, as well as religious cult horror Servants Of Twilight (1991), low-budget mummy horror Legend of the Mummy (1998), and shock jock thriller One by One (2018).
The film focuses on John Hollins (David Allen Brooks) a ragged-haired geneticist, whose secretive professor mother Amanda (Kim Hunter) has had a heart attack. She begs her son to go to his isolated house to destroy her work- including 'Antony', who she says is his brother. John heads out to the house with a band of assistants, including an admirer of his mother's work Melissa (Amanda Pays). Meanwhile, at the local private hospital, the decidedly shifty Dr Phillip Lloyd (Rod Steiger) is also keen to find out what the prof has discovered.
The film's first half focuses on Dr Lloyd’s dastardly deeds in his purple-lit lab- paying off ambulance drivers for half-dead accident victims, experimenting on kept just alive animals, and harassing critically ill patients. Also, in the first half, we have John going to his mother’s house, with his team- and seemingly there is something in the basement.
The second half kicks into the creature feature side of things- at first, we have one or two on the loose tentacles causing mischief, then a great in-car attack with monster limbs under the skin. Before things start to really kick off, with a blend of smaller lashing limbs monsters, a half fish/ woman, and we of course get to meet the considerably bigger Antony- with slime, fleshless torment, and many trashing & twitching tentacles.
Acting wise Brooks is serviceable as the films dashing, if a little raggedly-haired hero of the piece. Pays is an ok, as the flirting & up to no good Melissa- though her British accent is a little ropy at points. But the highlight here is Rod Steiger- who is really most effective as the sinister, and unpredictable Dr Lloyd. On the whole, The Kindred is an entertaining enough slice of 1980’s horror- mixing mad doctor and creature feature elements, sure you’ll have seen similar plotting/ outcome before but the just over one-hour-and-a-half-hour film runs by well enough.
Moving onto this new Blu-Ray- and we get a 4K scan of the film, this is very clean and bold- with thankful most of the effects still look quite good & not too rubbery. Moving onto the extras side, and we have a commentary which finds directors Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter moderated by horror journalist Steve Bart. They begin by commenting on the fashions and haircuts in the film. Talk about how Joseph Stefano (writer of Psycho) got involved in the project, and other Hitchcock/ Psycho connections with the cast/ crew. They discuss working with more seasoned actors like Steiger and Hunter. We get breakdowns of key scenes and pointing out of notable supporting actors. Later on, we get discussions of ADR issues in one of the scenes, and the film's great prop maker. We find out how the creatures' noises were sourced, and the creation of the particular effects. And how the film was funded after they made a ten-minute reel entitled Experiment DNA. All in all, an interesting enough track.
Otherwise, we have Inhuman Experiments – The Making of The Kindred (51.16) which is a most worthwhile doc, taking in interviews with the two directors, the film's production designer, and a few of the film's producers. There’s nearly eighteen minutes of rare on-set footage. And a still gallery and original storyboards, and the original theatrical trailer.
Before this reissue, I’d never heard of The Kindred, so it’s great to see Synapse Films giving their normal classy presentation of this mad doctor and creature feature crossbred. And if you’re a fan of either genres or 80’s horror in general you’ll be wanting to check this out