''The Kindred'' is a 1987 American

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

directed by

Jeffrey Obrow Jeffrey Obrow is an American film director and a professor at USC School of Cinematic Arts. He has also produced many music videos with Propaganda Films. Career Obrow's first project, ''The Dorm That Dripped Blood'', was underfinanced but throu ...

and

Stephen Carpenter Stephen "Steph" Carpenter ( /ˈstɛfən/ ''STEF-ən''; born August 3, 1970) is an American musician, known as the co-founder and a guitarist of the alternative metal band Deftones. His guitar technique makes use of both ringing open strings an ...

. Obrow also produced the film, and co-wrote it along with Carpenter, Earl Ghaffari and

John Penney John Penney is an American film producer, screenwriter and director who has been working in the horror genre for over thirty years. He has created material for, and been involved in, a range of subgenres, including zombie movies ('' Return of t ...

. Starring David Allen Brooks,

Amanda Pays Amanda Pays (born 6 June 1959) is an English actress. She is known for her roles as Theora Jones in the film and television series ''Max Headroom'' and as Christina "Tina" McGee in ''The Flash'' and reprised her role in the 2014 series of the ...

and

Rod Steiger Rodney Stephen Steiger (; April 14, 1925July 9, 2002, aged 77) was an American actor, noted for his portrayal of offbeat, often volatile and crazed characters. Cited as "one of Hollywood's most charismatic and dynamic stars," he is closely assoc ...

, ''The Kindred'' was released on January 9, 1987 and grossed just over $2 million.

Plot

Amanda's deathbed request to her son, John, was for him to destroy all the lab notes from her last experiment. She also blurts out he had a brother. At the funeral John meets Melissa, who claims to be his mother's biggest fan. Together with some of John's friends they go to Amanda's house, but none are prepared for what they find there: his monstrous, tentacled baby brother. Now he has to get to his mother's greatest advancement in Human Evolution before a

mad scientist The mad scientist (also mad doctor or mad professor) is a stock character of a scientist who is perceived as " mad, bad and dangerous to know" or "insane" owing to a combination of unusual or unsettling personality traits and the unabashedly amb ...

gets to him first.

Cast

* David Allen Brooks as John Hollins *

as Dr. Phillip Lloyd *

as Melissa Leftridge *

Talia Balsam Talia Balsam (born March 5, 1959) is an American television and film actress. Early life Balsam was born in New York City on March 5, 1959, to actors Martin Balsam and Joyce Van Patten. Her ancestry is Russian Jewish (father) and Italian, Dutch, ...

as Sharon Raymond *

Kim Hunter Kim Hunter (born Janet Cole; November 11, 1922 – September 11, 2002) was an American theatre, film, and television actress. She achieved prominence for portraying Stella Kowalski in the original production of Tennessee Williams' ''A Streetcar N ...

as Amanda Hollins *

Timothy Gibbs Timothy Brian Gibbs (born April 17, 1967) is an American director, actor, producer, and screenwriter who has starred in films, such as '' 11-11-11'' as Joseph Crone and ''The Kings of Brooklyn'' as Maximilian Sentor and television programs, such ...

as Hart Phillips *

Peter Frechette Peter Frechette ( ; born October 3, 1956) is an American actor. He is a stage actor with two Tony Award nominations for '' Eastern Standard'' and ''Our Country's Good'', and frequently stars in the plays of Richard Greenberg. He is well known on ...

as Brad Baxter *

Julia Montgomery Julia Montgomery (born July 2, 1960) is an American film and television actress. She first gained public attention for her role as Samantha Vernon on the soap opera ''One Life to Live'' (1977–1980). She subsequently appeared in the slasher film ...

as Cindy Russell * Bunky Jones as Nell Valentine (as Bunki Z) * Charles Grueber as Harry *

Bennet Guillory Ben Guillory (born Bennet Guillory on November 7, 1949 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana) is an American actor, theatre producer and director. Biography Raised in San Francisco, California San Francisco (; Spanish for " Saint Francis"), of ...

as Dr. Stone * Edgar Small as Dr. Larson *

Jim Boeke James Frederick Boeke (September 11, 1938 – September 26, 2014) was an American football offensive tackle in the National Football League for the Los Angeles Rams, Dallas Cowboys and New Orleans Saints. He played college football at Heidelbe ...

as Jackson (as James Boeke) * Randy Harrington as Paramedic * Benjamin J. Perry as Porsche Driver (as Ben Perry)

Production

Principal photography began and wrapped in

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

, United States.

Release

The film began its theatrical release on January 9, 1987. After over a decade of work and legal tangles,

Synapse Films Synapse Films is an American DVD and Blu-ray label, founded in 1997 and specializing in cult horror, science fiction and exploitation films. History Synapse Films was owned and operated by Don May, Jr. and his business partners Jerry Chandler a ...

announced in September 2017 that they would release the film for the first time since its VHS run. It was released on Blu-ray and DVD in a limited

SteelBook Optical disc packaging is the packaging that accompanies CDs, DVDs, and other formats of optical discs. Most packaging is rigid or semi-rigid and designed to protect the media from scratches and other types of exposure damage. Jewel case A ...

edition of 3 500 units on December 14, 2021, from a new

4K resolution 4K resolution refers to a horizontal display resolution of approximately 4,000 pixels. Digital television and digital cinematography commonly use several different 4K resolutions. In television and consumer media, 38402160 (4K Ultra-high-definitio ...

scan.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 40% based on , with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

rating of 4.5/10.

Caryn James Caryn A. James (born Caryn A. Fuoroli) is an American film critic, journalist, university lecturer and writer. Biography James is one of at least three children born to James M. Fuoroli Sr. and Joan A. Ford. A native of Providence, Rhode Islan ...

at ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' called the film "a disjointed, jigsaw-puzzle movie that is constantly announcing its borrowed characters and subplots and special effects."

TV Guide TV Guide is an American digital media company that provides television program Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or t ...

awarded ''The Kindred'' one out of five stars, criticizing the film's plot as "overly complicated and unengaging" and its special effects as uneven. Brian J. Dillard from

Allmovie AllMovie (previously All Movie Guide) is an online database with information about films, television programs, and screen actors. , AllMovie.com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by RhythmOne. History AllMovie was founded by popular-cult ...

stated that ''The Kindred'' "remains watchable in spite of its weaknesses," commending the film's visual effects, music, and

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

trappings. However, Dilliard criticized the film's numerous plot holes.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Kindred 1987 films 1987 horror films 1980s science fiction horror films American supernatural horror films American science fiction horror films Films shot in California Mad scientist films American science fiction thriller films Films with screenplays by Joseph Stefano 1980s English-language films Films directed by Jeffrey Obrow 1980s American films