Scared to Death
Scared to Death
R | 01 March 1980 (USA)
Scared to Death Trailers

A series of hideous murders is taking place, and Inspector Capell and cop-turned-novelist Lonergan are investigating. The murders are found to be the work of an out-of-control experiment in genetic engineering. The two men must descend into the city's sewer systems to destroy the horrific miscreation. It won't be hard to find, as it's already looking for its next victims...

Reviews
Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much
Claysaba Excellent, Without a doubt!!
Acensbart Excellent but underrated film
Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.
Vomitron_G William Malone didn't exactly deliver a good movie here. Far from, actually, but heck, it was his first one. Still, you'll have to tolerate some atrocious 'chop-chop' editing, some bad acting and a plot way too basic for its own good. All the events in this film move at the pace of a snail that's stuck in the mud. The whole story is played by the book, and it's one with not many pages in it (just enough to write down the premise: a murderous creature is loose in the city and two people must stop it). Surprisingly, things do remain watchable most of the time, somehow. The creature design is pretty cool, but also nothing more than a man in a rubber suit. A bit of full frontal female nudity during the opening-scene and a lack of gore throughout the entire film is what we get. But my guess is that it's still worth a watch for lovers of obscure creature features (honestly, I myself didn't mind watching it). "Scared To Death" always seemed to me a bit of a stupid, unsuitable title for this kind of film though. Given the place where the creature resides, why not dub it... "The Sewer Dweller"? Malone's first outing even got some sort of a semi-(un)official sequel nine years later, called "Syngenor" (1990). Would have been much easier if they had called that one "Syngenor 2" and this one simply "Syngenor". Aw, what the hell am I talking about.
lastliberal While Star Wars Episode V and The Howling were winning awards from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films, this film was also a winner as Best Low-Budget Film. Low-Budget filmmakers could do worse in watching how William Malone (House on Haunted Hill ) managed to make an interesting film with award winning special effects for $74,000.It was Malone's first film and it starred Diana Davidson, whom I am sure no one remembers as they girl who was shot in the swimming pool in Dirty Harry. It also stars John Stinson, Jonathan David Moses, and Toni Jannotta, in her only film. Malone made sure that he had a good selection of beautiful victims to keep your interest.The staging was good in the respect that terror was built up gradually with a lot of suspense, and the creature was only partially shown until it got towards the end. You never really knew what you were dealing with.And, of course, when it is all over, you don't really know if you solved the problem.
Woodyanders A lethal scientific mistake called a Syngenor (an acronym for Synthetic Genetic Organism) makes its home in the Los Angeles sewer system and occasionally comes out to either stick its slimy forked tongue down people's throats so it can feast on their spinal fluid or drag various unfortunate folks underground to feed its grotesque shellfish-like offspring. Dorky ex-cop turned bestselling novelist Ted Lonergan (an engaging performance by John Stinson) and attractive genetics student Sherry Carpenter (the fetching Toni Janotta, who resembles a young Barbara Steele) go after the malevolent humanoid reptilian monster (Kermit Eller in a nifty rubber suit) while the police make fools out of themselves trying to figure out the baffling clues. This really fun and lively earthbound "ALIEN" clone starts out rather sluggishly, but still winds up delivering the satisfying creature feature goods with an especially stirring and suspenseful conclusion. Writer/director William Malone, who went on to helm the big budget "House on Haunted Hill" remake and the dreadful "FearDotCom," keeps the pace moving at a reasonably brisk clip, only slowing things down for a few dreary dialogue scenes and a boring romance between Lonergan and girlfriend Jennifer Stanton (the lovely Diana Davidson) that are sandwiched between the pleasingly snappy and fairly gruesome beast attack set pieces. Moreover, the sequences in the sewer have a genuinely creepy and claustrophobic atmosphere to them, the monster is very cool, and the film overall has a certain earnest quality to it that's both endearing and entertaining.
William This is your typical regional horror sci-fi filmaking from the late 70's early 80's period, the ones without any "names", with slow pacing, foggy cameras, poor lighting, and music that can actually put you to sleep! In fact it reminds me of another small town sci-fi film called ALIEN FACTOR! This creature, SYNGENOR, is actually cool looking, so cool someone made another film with the syngenor titled, what else, SYNGENOR, but with a better budget, and a professional cast (not sure why William Malone didn't get involved in this one.). This film the violence is very tame, not really scarely, the random act of attacks by the creature to nameless victim is few and far between, in between you get a boring cop and his partner trying to solve the crime, losts of talk, overall a slow film that probably bored the audeince to tears! This film actually got a decent release back in 82, but didnt play here in Seattle, but was playing in Oregon as a double bill with SCREAMER! The creature is really cool looking for its time, so I don't know why they didn;t show it more often.`