Metamorphosis 1990

Geneticist Peter Houseman, Gene LeBrock, a professor at a private university, leads bold research on a DNA-based serum he claims could halt aging and even conquer death, with the steady support of his friend Dr. Mike Lester, Harry Cason, and his eager young collaborator Willy Carson, David Wicker. A funding commission reviews his ongoing requests, bringing into the room the elderly Professor Lloyd, Stephen Brown, whose envy borders on bitterness, and Inspector Sally Donnelly, Catherine Baranov, a figure Peter is drawn to as much as he is scrutinized. The commission’s skepticism and bureaucratic hurdles push Peter to test the serum on himself, using a batch of the modified DNA he has created. At first the experiment appears promising; Peter grows stronger, and a fragile romance develops with Inspector Donnelly, though her son Tommy, Jason Arnold, immediately exhibits hostility toward him.

As the weeks pass, Peter’s behavior grows unstable: he visits a club and brutally beats a prostitute, with no clear memory of the act, and soon Patricia Kelly, Anna Colona, a flirtatious student who had tried to seduce him, is raped and strangled. Meanwhile, Peter’s body begins to degenerate, taking on reptilian traits that blur the line between human and monster. He is struck by a police car and admitted to a hospital, where doctors Mike and Lloyd watch as Peter seemingly ages in reverse, a phenomenon they struggle to explain. Peter contends that the serum will keep him alive forever, no matter how much he changes, while Lloyd hypothesizes that his body is regressing to an earlier point in humanity’s evolutionary history.

Escaping the hospital, Peter grows more monstrous and murders Lloyd and Willy, discovering that his condition now requires human blood to sustain itself. He kidnaps Tommy and returns to the university lab, determined to salvage the experiment, leaving a bloody wake behind him. Tommy destroys the vial containing the serum, and as Peter closes in, Sally and Mike rally the police outside to help thwart him. Peter, now an anthropomorphic dinosaur-like creature, is shot by the arriving officers and slowly begins to decompose.

Some time later, Tommy shows his mother a lizard in a box; when Sally urges him to set it free, the boy warns that it will never die, implying that the essence of Peter persists in the creature. In the shadows of that final image, the film leaves a chilling question about the price of scientific immortality and what truly outlives the human body. Serina Steinberg, Serina Steinberg, appears in the cast as Patricia’s friend, a quiet reminder of the social circle surrounding the central drama, while the old guard of academia, including the Old Professor, Wayne Potrafka, watches the events unfold with a mix of awe and dread.