By Geno McGahee
I am a huge fan of low budget movies and I like monster movies. So, we have a low budget monster movie in the 2008 film “FINAL SPAWN,” which was noted to have a budget of $500,000. That’s hard to believe unless Lance Henriksen is that expensive.
Henriksen plays “Chance,” a gangster that is confined to a wheelchair, but his character only really comes into play at the end. The majority of this film focuses on a detective, Sean Fallon (James Horan), and his battle with his own inner demons as he investigates a real life demon that is roaming the streets and killing prostitutes.
Fallon begins as a wannabe Dirty Harry sort of cop, but Dirty Harry was easy to support. He did the wrong things but he had the right reasons to do so. With Fallon, much of his actions are strictly self-serving and just bad things to do. He steals guns from evidence and sells them to thugs, slaps around women, has sex with prostitutes while snorting coke off their backs and doesn’t think twice about killing innocent people. He is not likable even though he does make me chuckle from time to time.
Misty Mundae of PLAYMATE OF THE APES fame, has made her way into a few really bad horror films and her calling card is to be totally nude throughout, but not in this. She plays “Mary,” and I found her performance very decent and sincere. She has proven that she can actually act and doesn’t need to be nude for every single movie that she does. If however they make a RETURN TO THE PLAYMATE OF THE APES, I hope that she will resume her nudity/sex scenes thing for that. You can’t have a PLAYMATE OF THE APES without a nude Misty Mundae.
The prostitutes that are being wiped out are being “raped to death,” according to the autopsy reports and the DNA of the rapist is of unknown origin. When we get to finally see the monster, it’s pretty obvious that it’s an alien. Aliens ALWAYS rape humans. What do you think abduction is about? Research? No, no, no, my misguided friends. Aliens rape humans for the same reason that humans rape sheep…they are horny and slightly disturbed.
FINAL SPAWN started out with a lot of promise, but the pacing was just terrible. There is so much of this film that is repetitive and meaningless and it’s very easy to lose interest. There isn’t a lot of monster either and that could have helped the movie out. The script is weak and Fallon just isn’t interesting enough to carry the film. Henriksen shines whenever he’s on the screen and Mundae did bring a sincere approach and enjoyable softness to her character, but it doesn’t come together.
The conclusion of the movie is enjoyable. We finally see the pimps unite with the renegade cop and wheelchair-bound Henriksen to take on the monster that looks similar to the alien from SIGNS. He’s a tough cookie but our anti-hero, Fallon, gets the better of him and (spoiler) uses a buzz saw to send his junk into orbit, but this would also spell his end as well. The bad cop, the good cop, the drug addict, the crime fighter, and the lady’s man all in one dies and it reminded me a lot of WINDTALKERS and how Nicolas Cage died after a life of misery…bringing the end to a sad story. This doesn’t pull the emotional strings as Cage did, but the idea is the same.
I have some mixed feelings about FINAL SPAWN. The potential was there to make a really good monster movie, but the pacing and general focus of the story made this a mediocrity at best. It’s not a movie that I would tell you to avoid, but I wouldn’t tell you to seek it out either. Take it or leave it.
Rating: 4/10
