There have been some unusual murders lately in Los Angeles. So far there have been eleven murders and the police have no idea as to who the murderer is. The only clue is a slimy substance found at the scene. Detective Lou Capell (David Moses) is assigned to the case. Lou is getting some pressure from his boss, Police Chief Dennis Warren (Walker Ediston). Lou wants to bring in former detective Ted Lonergan (John Stinson) to help but Warren forbids Lou from discussing the case with Ted. The murders continue.
Ted left the police force under questionable circumstances. Since then he has become fairly profitable as a writer of detective fiction. Ted meets Jennifer Stanton (Diana Davidson) when he crashes into her car. Ted and Jennifer are annoyed with each other but it doesn’t take long for romance to spark. In the meantime, the murders continue.
Ted doesn’t want to be involved in the investigation, but Detective Capell wants him to be involved. Warren also doesn’t want Ted to be involved. It’s not until Jennifer is attacked that Ted changes his mind. By then the police, believing that the killer is human, shoot and kill a suspect. Convinced that the dead man is the killer, the police decide to close the case.
Ted is approached by Sherry Carpenter (Toni Jannotta). She tells him that when she graduated from college she went to work for a Doctor Aberdeen. Aberdeen specialized in genetic research. He managed to create a life form that he called a Syngenor or a Synthetic Genetic Organism. Before he could destroy the creature Aberdeen died from a heart attack. The creature lives on spinal fluid that it drains from its victims by the use of a needle-like tongue.
Ted and Sherry team up to try to locate and kill the creature before it can reproduce.
“Scared to Death” AKA “The Aberdeen Experiment” AKA “Scared to Death: Syngenor” was released in 1980 and was directed by William Malone. It is an American science fiction horror film. An unassociated sequel called “Syngenor” or “Scared To Death II” was released in 1990.
The film isn’t all that impressive. What brings it down the most is the bad acting and directing. It takes almost an hour before the hero actually gets involved in the investigation. On top of that, the acting is awful and the chase and stalking sequences are too long. Under a steadier hand and with more seasoned actors, the movie could have been much more interesting. The plot is also the usual mad scientist creates monster type film except that the mad doctor has already died and the monster is loose.
The creature itself is actually kind of cool looking but it does resemble a robot more than a life form of any kind. It gives off more of a metallic Xenomorph impression, which is what I believe Director Malone was going for anyway. Once you get past the bad acting and pacing the last half of the movie is better, not great but better. It’s a decent enough monster movie if you’ve already watched everything else and need to watch a creature feature type movie that you haven’t seen before.