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Time for "What movie is this #3" So lets begin

I was maybe 10 when I found a horror movie on t.v. How'd I know it was a horror movie...well lets see. A guy in the hospital starts bulging out all over his body, then he gets claws and sharp teeth. I think all the other people in the room ran out but one man with a shot gun shot the monster in the chest but the monster killed him. The people get in cars and drive away in the woods. They come to a jail and a man that looks like one of thos "Evil Corporal Exutive" people (he's small, dressed nicely, bald, wears glasses, he's weak ect.) runs in and locks himself in a cell and stand against the wall. For some reason the people are ready for the monster ( I guess maybe they heard noises outside so they stand ready with guns, why didn't they just keep driving out of the woods? Hey it's a horror movie) then a big claw breaks through the wall right by the Man in Cell, and the claw closes around his head and rips it off. Then it cuts to a man and women in a car and if I remeber carefully the man got out and the car and walked off. Then the women looks out the window and sees the monster (I only got a glance at it but I think it had a fly like mouth and bug eyes remeber. I this was like five years ago so I may be wrong about the looks) The woman runs out the car and is chased by the monster but then the first group of people run into the monster and they wrestle with it for a few seconds, then one man with a shot gun gets on top of it and is able to blow it's head off. (We don't see the head explode but we see him and the pointing down gun) And the people are all reliefed (note : this all takes place at night) My brother saw it and suggested that it could be "Xtro" but i've read summays of it and I doubt this is "Xtro". So any one know this movie?

-the first rule of fat club-

Based on the novel by Edward Levy (poor adaptation)
Directed by Phillipe (Howling 2, 3, and Communion) Mora
Starred Ronny Cox, Bibi Besch, R.G. Armstrong, and Don Gordon (he played the dude in the cell).

A 1982 or so era thriller known for its use of the then cutting edge 'bladder' effect technology.  Mora had the effects artist inflate the bladders to see if they would burst and left the balloon head look in the movie.  Now available on a Midnight Movies DVD release.

Is the movie any good (entertaining wise)? When I saw it I liked the gore.

-the first rule of fat club-

It's good for the gore, if that is what one considers a needed element for quality horror (I don't).  The storyline is rather fuzzy (why the transformation happens is never clearly explained much less even given a credible theory) .  But the acting is fairly decent (considering the quality of the cast though, it is not surprising) and the young man who plays the transforming-into-a-monster-youth specialized in those kind of trapped in a body gone mad roles (he played a Tourette's sufferer on the TV show Quincy) before retiring from acting and become an Edgar Allan Poe scholar.  

Sadly the director never gives you a close look at the monster (outside of a
screaming at the heavy through a car window BOO moment) and the photography is murky (though that might be corrected on the DVD - wretched screen projection being one thing I do not miss from my drive-in/grindhouse days of youth).  This is the best horror movie Phillip Mora made, though.  He followed this with the wretched Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf and only slightly less bad The Howling III: The Marsupials before "bouncing back" and making a fairly acceptable adaptation of Whitley Strieber's abduction account Communion.  Don't know what he's up to now.

The producer of the movie was Harvey Bernhardt, most famous for The Omen trilogy.

I think i'll give the movie a shot. I agree gore does not make a movie scary.

-the first rule of fat club-

Well...it sounded like"Tremors"to me.