The Deadly Spawn (1983) and How Effort Helped the Movie

The 80s.  It was a time when bad low-budget movies were good, and good low-budget movies were even better.  That age of movies has long since come and gone.  It no longer exists.  Most bad movies now are just plain bad.  With advances in technology, you would expect low-budget movies to improve, but there is one thing that technology cannot fix.  That thing is effort.

Effort is one of the, if not the, most important aspects of making a movie.  It is a desire to create.  It is a need to create.  Throughout the late 70s and well into the 80s, this could be seen in both major and minor budget films.  The filmmakers cared about what they were doing.  They wanted to make something that an audience would find meaningful, fun, or both.  They wanted to make something enjoyable.  To do this took a will to overcome obstacles.  The result might seem like a mess in terms of quality, but the effort of the filmmaker bled through the screen, and the audience could feel it.  This hardly exists in low-budget films today.  A lot of this could be blamed upon technology.

In the 80s, technology was not at the fingertips of every person with a few spare dollars.  There were little to no home computers, cell phones, there were no iPods, and home video was a relatively new concept.  The vast majority of films were released in theaters, and those that were not had to compete with the theatrical releases.  This meant that a certain amount of effort was necessary to make a movie.  Take, for example, The Deadly Spawn.  The writing may not have been great by any stretch of the imagination, but other aspects of the movie made up for it.  Most notably was the creature design, which was semi-unique, and seemed thought out.  There was effort put into making the movie better through how it looked.  This is no longer the case.

Some guy's Deadly Spawn tattoo.

In the current day and age, a lot of movies are the result of some friends sitting around and deciding that it would be fun to make a movie.  Most of these people don’t care about the results.  The final product is an afterthought.  It becomes more about the fun times that could be had making the movie than the movie itself.  Someone goes out and buys a cheap camera, and they begin production.  If they can’t film certain action bits, or they don’t want to put in the effort for practical effects, they don’t have to worry.  Technology has advanced enough that there are widely accessible computer graphics programs that make it easy to create action.  It might look like a mess, but who cares.  The action is there.  Luckily, a lot of these movies don’t come to fruition, once the friends hit an obstacle or get bored.  But a lot of those seem to be missing the same sort of effort that was present in older low-budget films, such as The Deadly Spawn.

The Deadly Spawn might be far from a perfect movie, but there is a lot more to appreciate than with the majority of current low-budget fare.  This is entirely due to the effort and care that you can see on screen while watching it.  They tried something, and though not entirely successful, the movie is better because of it.  If made today, with the computer graphics technology that is available to anybody with a small amount of computer knowledge, The Deadly Spawn would probably be a complete mess.  Or maybe not.  The people behind the movie were invested in what they were making.  They put their heart and soul into the movie.  Though not a completely personal film, the effort is something special.  The effort shows why the 80s low-budget movies were typically better than current low-budget flicks.  But, hey, what do I know?  I’m as full of shit as anyone.  I just write my stuff down.

Goodnight, everyone.

 I have one note:

• If you have a suggestion for a bad movie, either leave a comment, or message me on Twitter.  Thanks.
• This movie was suggested by @Flyye01