Parts: The Clonus Horror (1979)

Admit it: you've wondered what would be like to have a clone of yourself. If you feel weird about that, don't. I'm sure everybody has wondered about that sort of thing at least once. But while the idea of real human cloning has always raised all kinds of moral and ethical questions, there's nothing stopping it from being exploited by science fiction. Movies, novels, and comic books have used human cloning as a plot device countless times, many of which seem to range from mediocre to bad.

Among the bad is the 1979 flick Parts: The Clonus Horror. Perhaps most famous for being the focus of an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Clonus is a movie with an intriguing concept that just doesn't turn out as well as it could have. So let's see where it went wrong, okay?

Hidden deep in the California desert is an isolated facility called "Clonus," a compound where clones of the wealthy and powerful are bred for the purposes of organ harvesting. They're put through vigorous physical training and are promised to be eventually "chosen" for a trip to the idyllic land of "America." Their true destination: to be put in suspended animation until their organs are needed.

The clones are raised to be naïve and unquestioning about their existence, but some do grow wise to things. Such is the case with Richard (Timothy Donnelly), who begins growing curious after he discovers an empty beer can in a nearby creek. His queries regarding what it represents are summarily dismissed by Clonus's higher-ups, prompting him to become more suspicious about things. Richard's curiosity regarding the outside world leads him to escape the Clonus facility, where he finds that America is not the utopian society he had been promised.

If that plot synopsis sounds somewhat familiar, then you're probably one of the few people who saw The Island. Michael Bay's box office bomb from 2005 borrowed a lot from science fiction movies from the '60s and '70s, one of them being the very movie I'm reviewing right now. The owners of Clonus's trademark actually filed a lawsuit and got a nice seven-figure settlement out of the deal. It's always kinda cool to see some obscure, low-budget indie movie get one up on a big-budget studio movie.

But does being ripped off by Michael Bay make Clonus good? I can't say that it does. Clonus is a movie with a lot of promise, but it's ultimately weighed down by its many flaws. The biggest of these flaws is the fact that the movie completely runs out of steam after about an hour or so. Once Richard gets to America, the movie hits a wall creatively. There's not a lot it can do after a certain point within the narrative because it essentially blows its load way too soon.

The movie's problems could be blamed in part on the script, credited to Ron Smith and Bob Sullivan. As I said, the movie's running on empty after about an hour. The rest of the movie is just the characters connecting dots that the audience put together long before they did. Smith and Sullivan could have written a great movie if they'd wanted to. All the tools were there. But a combination of poor pacing, annoying characters, and lackluster storytelling really hurts things.

Director Robert Fiveson does his best to try and fix things, however. He actually makes an effort to raise the movie from crappy to mediocre. Fiveson uses Max Beaufort's cinematography and Hod David Schudson's excellent score to establish an odd atmosphere where you can quickly tell that something isn't quite right and nothing is as it seems.

But as with the writing, Fiveson's direction starts falling apart after the first hour. While he does try his hardest, the movie becomes less and less interesting after Richard escapes Clonus. If the entire movie had focused on Richard finding out what Clonus is and climaxed with either his escape or the revelation of Clonus's secret activities to the world, the movie could have been a lot better.

It doesn't help anything, though, that Clonus has some really bad acting. With a bigger budget, the producers probably could have afforded better actors. The ones they did get, though, are all kinds of lame. This is especially true of Timothy Donnelly and Paulette Breen. I know the clones are supposed to have been intentionally dumbed down (as a plot point), but Donnelly and Breen play their characters as being just plain stupid. You get kinda tired of seeing them play dumb for the whole movie. Donnelly in particular spends much of Clonus with a rather dour, unhappy frown on his face. It seems to be his default facial expression throughout the whole thing, which is really weird to stare at for an hour and a half.

There are a few good performances in the movie, though. Three of them, to be exact, coming from Dick Sargent of Bewitched fame, character actor Keenan Wynn, and the late Peter Graves. Their collective screen time in the movie is way too short, but all three put forth some great work. I'm actually surprised that they'd appear in a movie like this, but a guy's gotta find work somewhere, right?

Parts: The Clonus Horror is one of those movies that couldn't really do anything with itself in spite of its intriguing concept. That's really a shame too, because Clonus could have been a really cool, thought-provoking movie. Instead, it's a mediocre disappointment whose only claims to fame are being mocked by Mystery Science Theater 3000 and getting ripped off by Michael Bay. Somewhere inside it is one heck of a great sci-fi movie, but it's still sadly waiting to be seen. Parts: The Clonus Horror gets two stars on my usual scale of five, and if you must watch it, I definitely recommend tracking down the MST3K episode. You can't go wrong with those guys.

Final Rating: **