"Embryo" has a touch of "Bride of Frankenstein" plus a pinch of "Lost Horizon", but all in all, I still find it a guilty pleasure.
Dr Paul Hollistan (Rock Hudson) is a genetic scientist who uses experimental growth hormones to speed up the growth of embryos. He has success with a dog, which becomes fully grown in no time at all. He then tries his luck on a human embryo and within a few days has produced a stunning Barbara Carrera. Not bad for his first human. He names her Victoria and sets out to educate her, finding that she absorbs information at a furious pace.
Of course, as devotees of horror/sci-fi well know, these kinds of experiments always have a catch and the growth hormone continues to accelerate Victoria's growth well past the hottie stage into old age; there are tears and screams before the final fade out.
The film has suspense: we wait to see people's reactions when Victoria explores her world and surprises them with her superior intelligence. The film starts stronger than it finishes, it has some interesting bits of pseudo science at the beginning with even a reference to DNA long before the acronym tended to pop up in every second sentence.
The presence of Rock Hudson gave the film a lift. The director, Ralph Nelson, had some big ones under his belt by this stage, and the film is many notches above the standard of many of the science fiction/horror movies that were around at the time.
I think Rock gave it some of the same juice he gave "Seconds" 10 years before; he ends up railing against fate at the end of both. "Embryo" was in that period between his big hits of the 50's and 60's, and before his career had a revival of sorts on television. However he was always watchable and had charisma to spare.
Barbara Carrera is captivating. She played a lot of femme fatales in her time, but that's fair enough; along with a sexy accent, she had a sensuous look that could easily cause turbulence amongst the male population. She works well with Rock, although she looks tiny alongside him despite the fact she was 5'8" (according to IMDb); he sure was a big dude.
"Embryo" is still worth a look even though there have been many variations on the theme over the decades, it doesn't outstay its welcome and the stars make it worth the effort.
