VHS Visions: The Kindred (1987)

By Brad Henderson

Like I’ve said countless times already, there are thousands upon thousands of movies that have never been released on DVD or Blu-Ray. That’s kind of the whole point of this VHS Visions feature: to make people aware of some amazing films that have never seen the light of day and hopefully shed some light on them, so that distributors are aware that there is a market for these movies.

I love monster movies and creature features, both things that movies today lack. This makes me sad, but thankfully we have plenty from back in the day to choose from. This brings us to The Kindred, directed by Stephen Carpenter. Yes, the dude that brought us The Dorm That Dripped Blood (a.k.a. Pranks), The Power, and Soul Survivors. Carpenter directed four films and all four are fan-damn-tastic. I’m admitting that I love Soul Survivors and I don’t care what you say because we can all have guilty pleasures.

When I think of films like The Kindred and how they are not on DVD or Blu-Ray it makes me wonder what kind of film world we live in. I understand that there are copyright issues and people prevent these films from being released, but I don’t get how the people that own the rights to this film don’t want to see it brought into the world again. Some big companies own these small horror titles and reissuing them would make them some extra dough, but it seems they have little interest on doing so.

The Kindred is, hands down, one of the best monster movies I’ve ever seen. I remember seeing the box on the shelf when I was little and it took me a while to get around to picking it up. I bought it on VHS a while ago but I recently revisited it and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.

The Kindred has some of the best practical effects that I’ve ever seen. Matthew Mungle is responsible for some of the most impressive special effects and makeup I’ve seen in horror films. Just look at his IMDb credits. He worked with Stephen Carpenter on all his films and has done a hell of a job on others but nothing comes close to The Kindred.

One thing I find very humorous is that The Kindred had five writers. FIVE. It’s weird how many writers were on this thing but I imagine there were a bunch of buddies who wanted to make a film and all get credit for it. Still, five writers came up with this: A woman recently wakes up from a coma and tells her son to destroy the experiments at her old house. When he and his friends arrive there, they find that the experiment is loose and loves to kill.

My only issue with The Kindred is that it’s too dark. I’m not sure if it is the film itself or just the VHS transfer. Other than that The Kindred is very solid and a hell of a ride.