EMBRYO is a low-key science fiction film of 1976, notable for starring a middle-aged Rock Hudson in the protagonist role of a misguided scientist who invents an incredible growth hormone that can transform an embryo into an adult being in the space of a week. Hudson begins the film by experimenting on his own dog before he manages to create a young woman in his own laboratory, but his experiment has typically unforeseen circumstances.There are obvious parallels to the FRANKENSTEIN story in this film, but otherwise it's very much a low budget production of the 1970s. Most of it takes place in the dark and there are few if any effects or the usual sci-fi trappings. This means that the actors have to work a lot harder in order to convince us of their situation, and thankfully they're up to it. Hudson is a solid presence who pivots the whole picture, but the real treat is Barbara Carrera who is a convincingly otherworldly Victoria. Roddy McDowall has an amusing cameo too. Like COMA, EMBRYO is a thinking person's science fiction thriller in which ethics are a primary concern, and thus it builds to a suitably horrific - and fitting - climax.

I found the movie an interesting update of the Frankenstein story; The monster, an innocent, returns to kill his creators family. How sad. Every action by the players have logical and even good intentions, but they had disastrous results. One wishes that Victoria would have told the doctor of her condition, and both could have worked out a solution. Instead she choose to fight for her survival alone.Although she read the Bible, she had no moral background, Her body was adult (was it ever!) but her experience was child-like at best. Perhaps it was the experimental hormone that created the killer nature; after all, even the dog displayed homicidal tendencies as a result of the his injections.All in all very tragic on a large scale. I recall another Rock Hudson film, that dealt with a thriller/sci-Fi theme ten years earlier, "Seconds"(1966) by John Frankenheimer. Spoiler alert;Rock Hudson does not end up very well in that one either.This movie was better then I was expecting. I thought it well acted, and conceived. The fashions, computers and telephones fix it into it's time zone: Nineteen seventy six. This seems to be an issue with some viewers, not I. Embryo does not need CGI, the effects were adequate. The Dog fetus, being born was well done, as were most of the other effects.

This movie was dark, not moody dark but pitch black, filmed with the lens cap on dark. And creepy. Old guy creates young hottie and gets busy with her creepy. Aside from that, meh. The dog was amazing, the things they got her to do was cool. The first thing we are supposed to notice that there is a bad seed in the "created" creatures is when the Doberman kills a yappie yorkie that got in her face. Large aggressive animals are actually known for being large and aggressive so what's the big deal? The dog actually covering up evidence better than my children when they steal cookies was impressive. And how exactly is there an existing remedy for rapid aging when there is no drug or case of rapid aging? Did he just fill her fulla whatever crap he had laying around, which happens to only be harvested from <6 month old fetuses!? and hope for the best? As an aside, thinking like a 2009 parent, when the weird chick is in the park and a strange child approaches and insists she swing him/her/it, (I couldn't tell), and then the weird chick ends up playing on all the kids' rides having way more fun than the now pack of parentless children she then leads to the beach. Holy Megan's Law Batman! My aforementioned children are fighting behind me now and I think I lost my train of thought. All in all, an odd cinematic thing. Also if the poor actress is traipsing around starkers at least have the decency to turn some overhead lights on. Why was the poor thing there catching her death of cold and we the audience can't see squat.

Rock Hudson's second venture in the science fiction genre after Seconds is Embryo a film that combines elements of the Bride of Frankenstein and Pygmalion in one rather weird film about for lack of a better word a test tube baby that grows up to be Barbara Carrera.Hudson is scientist experimenting in organic development and gets a chance to first experiment on his own Doberman pincher when it is accidentally hit by his car. Some pituitary secretions from the female dog are given to a prematurely born puppy and it grows remarkably into an adult. Exalted with his success, Hudson takes a fetus from a dead accident victim and gives it some of the same stuff.What he gets is Barbara Carrera. And she develops physically and intellectually at a prodigious rate. What she doesn't do is develop emotionally. Still Hudson passes her off as his new research assistant to friends and family like sister-in-law Diane Ladd, son John Elerick, and daughter-in-law Anne Schedeen. Embryo doesn't explore some of the real issues in this kind of science, it exploits them instead. The special effects as they are, are pretty second rate. Hudson looks like he lost interest in the project about halfway through the film.Now what would have really been interesting is if he had gotten boy child and it grew up to be a harlequin novel hero. Now that would have been something Rock Hudson could have sunk his teeth into.