Feeders (1996)

Two friends on a road trip stumble upon the dawn of an alien invasion. Jon McBride (CANNIBAL CAMPOUT) teams up with the Polonia brothers (SPLATTER FARM) to bring us an instant cult classic. Sit back and prepare yourself for an alien frenzy unleashed upon the unsuspecting citizens of a small Pennsylvania town.

 Derek (Jon McBride) and Bennett (John Polonia) cruise along the open road in their red convertible headed towards the beach where they plan on getting some action with the babes in the skimpy swim suits. But, in the nearby woods, Ranger Gordon spots a UFO, but before he can alert the police, one of the skinny gray aliens prods him with a metal rod and feeds on his throat. Now, this is a low-budget picture, so don’t expect too much from our gray little men. The feeders are small puppets with wobbly heads that make strange gurgling growls and move low to the ground. I personally think their fantastic! After taking pictures of the area the boys stop at a gas station to fill up the car and buy some more film. Bennett has nothing but women on his mind so he tries to pick up a cute girl, and he does so with one word: "Hello!". The nice girl, Michelle, says "Hey, what are you doing?", and slam bam he’s got himself a babe; and a friend of Michelle’s, Donna, for Derek. Meanwhile, a local fisherman is attacked by a feeder and walks out of the woods, dazed where he gets clipped by Derek’s car. The two friends take the poor man to a doctor where he is pronounced dead. In his demented ramblings the fishermen kept repeating "little men". The doctor phones the police and the two friends leave.

Donna is getting herself ready for the "party" in the park with her friend and the two young men Michelle met when she hears strange noises in the garage. She goes to investigate, when a feeder lunges at her throat and eats her stomach out, leaving a bloody gaping cavity. These little guys may look funny but they are vicious creatures! They like to feed on victims’ throats especially, going for the sweet spot, for the instant kill! That is exactly what happens to the aforementioned doctor. Now Derek and Bennett are in the woods when they hear strange sounds and feel as if they are being watched. They also spot a low flying UFO. Meanwhile Michelle shows up at her friend’s house and finds her dead, there are two feeders ready to pounce and attack. She thinks fast and stomps on one of their heads. Then she lights a match and combines it with a spray can to shoot flames at another feeder. But is this enough? Are more feeders going to join in on the attack? We get back to the boys as they dash frantically out of the woods but they have become lost and there is no way out for them. They run into an alien but before Bennett can smash a rock on it the feeder sprays Derek in the hand with acid. Night is approaching, but they find a house to hold up in.

I believe the house they found was Donna’s?! There is also a skeleton with hair in a car that could be Michelle?! I hadn’t picked this up before but it seems to make sense. They do some exploring inside the home but the electricity is out and they can’t call for help because the phone is dead too. One of our little gray men jumps out at Bennett and he swiftly hacks it to pieces with a scythe he found lying around. Outside the house, what appears to be an alien leader, growls some commands at the other feeders. A spacecraft abducts Bennett where he undergoes some strange torture which we don’t see clearly. The house then begins to shake and Derek is knocked out. He wakes to find Bennett coming in through the door. But then something really strange happens. Another identical Bennett appears and Derek can’t figure out which one is his friend and which one is evil. Both Bennetts start fighting it out outside. Without giving it much thought Derek grabs the scythe and kills one of them. The dying Bennett sprays blood from his neck wound as he dies. Then, but not before he decided to kill a Bennett, Derek asks the surviving Bennett how can he tell he’s the right one. Derek, dude, you have two identical guys, one is your friend and the other is evil. Why wouldn’t you first try to figure out which was your friend before going and killing one of them?? It turns out Derek killed his friend Bennett! The fake Bennett twitches and disappears; presumably back up to the ship. The feeders are here to stay, here to slay, and here to destroy earth! We get stock footage of buildings being demolished and then we see, from outer space, the feeders’ ship nuking earth.

The Polonia brothers have made another b-movie blast, and this time, with Jon McBride!! The story goes that Blockbuster Video was looking for alien films because INDEPENDENCE DAY (the movie) was out, so they picked up FEEDERS and had it available for rent at their stores. That is how I first saw the film! Jose and I had an awesome time watching this near-masterpiece b-movie. The Polonia’s and McBride put in their best efforts to make a fun, campy, alien movie. I really did fucking love the aliens themselves, wobbling around and eating people. Watching John Polonia and McBride together onscreen was magic. My two heroes from SPLATTER FARM, and McBride from CANNIBAL CAMPOUT, directing and acting in this new film collaboration was simply beautiful!

 There are many b-movies out there; many good ones, and many awful ones. FEEDERS rises to the top being funny, exciting and easy to watch. FEEDERS is b-movie comfort food and you’d be doing yourself a disfavor if you passed on this cult classic.

4 / 5 STARS

Subconscious Cruelty (2000)

Disgust and contempt for the human condition expressed through graphic sex and gore. That is pretty much this film in a nutshell. It was directed by Karim Hussain (THE BEAUTIFUL BEAST, ASCENSION) which apart from his original aforementioned works also worked as cinematographer on ANTIVIRAL and HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN. You can spot him again in his segment “Vision Stains” from the movie THE THEATRE BIZARRE.

CRUELTY is divided into four segments. The first segment, “Ovarian Eyeball”, is the shortest. We see a hand holding a brain with flashing lights and later an eyeball is removed from the abdomen of a naked woman laying on a slab. In “Human Larvae” a delusional man kills his pregnant sister and the child inside her belly. He says he wants to ‘deface the process of creation’, whatever that means?! He spends his nights masturbating in his bedroom, dreaming about his sister’s naked body. He is afraid of her menstruation and has a nightmare about that. The woman chooses to give birth in her bedroom with no one else there but her psycho brother and his dirty nails. He holds the infant’s corpse to her face and proudly thinks (narration) he has committed the ultimate  mockery by killing during creation. Stupid, filthy fucker was what I was thinking!

“Rebirth” is also fucking retarded. Six naked people are writhing on the ground, playing with mud and blood that spurts out from a hole in the earth. Of course one dude sticks his wiener in there and fucks the gawd-damn ground, while we see his naked ass humping. Another woman GIVES A BLOWJOB TO A TWIG! I have to admit that watching her work that mouth was pretty hot. The final segment is titled “Right Brain/Martyrdom” and it’s about an office worker that beats the meat at home watching porn on television. He plays with his sticky hand and for no good reason flicks some jizz at the TV screen. He then has a nightmare where a hand is mutilating his cock and jacking him off. Abruptly as fuck we jump to a “Jesus figure”, a nude dude with a crown of thorns and three cannibal women eat his flesh and masturbate themselves with his entrails. They also sodomize him with a tree branch!

I don’t buy this pretentious crap one bit. I write poetry and this is a bad example of “poetry on screen“. A good example would be any Bergman film. Good imagery stimulates your imagination but this garbage insults the audience. That was why I gave this movie zero stars. It’s a waste of good nudity and gore. CRUELTY, joins the ranks of BEGOTTEN and ERASERHEAD and if you like that type of film you might like to give this a watch. Being a poet, I know that getting your work slammed is part of the trade and I dare say, any great poet is humble enough to loathe his own work. I don’t know if that makes sense to you guys. Anyway, my intention here is not to pass judgment on the filmmaker but write an honest fun review.

0 / 5 STARS

Don't Go in the House (1979)

The people that worked on this movie may not have had a conventional idea of how a horror film works but they did a damn good job creating a character in the throes of madness. I say this because director Joseph Ellison only worked on one other film and it wasn’t a horror movie. Certain talented directors hone in on the roots of psychological terror and here it is presented wonderfully.

Donny Kohler is a pariah stuck in the midst of late 70s libertinism. He is a broken young man; a schizophrenic with a troubled childhood. As a  kid his mother would pull out his arms across the burning stove and let the flames “purify” him from sin. He works at a garbage incinerator plant. Fire is all around him and it is only natural that when he snaps he would kill with that disastrous flamethrower. To add to the impact, he wears an asbestos suit (a suit that protects against fire) with the heavy hood and foggy glass visor. Arriving home from work one night he finds his mother dead and this opens up  Pandora’s box, releasing pent up violence and wild delusion.

 From here on out he stalks young women, luring them into his house (hence the title). Then he strings them up naked, by their hands, like a piece of meat on a hook. This all takes place in some kind of steel plated room he happens to have?!…in the house that he shared with mom?! You know I don’t really care about the how or the why because this scene is jaw-dropping fantastic. The beast stands with the full bulky outfit, big-ass flamethrower and a naked girl hanging like a pig. He douses the victim with paint thinner and burns them alive!! Unfortunately we only get to see the full murder scenario once. Although there is no blood in the film the burn effects and burn victim makeup is cool. He keeps the decaying, charred, corpses in the house and often has nightmares and hallucinations in which these zombie like victims rise up to get him. I would have wanted to see more flame thrower action but sometimes less is more.

A friend from work invites Donny to hang with some horny girls at a disco club. Donny doesn’t want to dance, and when pressed, he sets a fat girl’s head on fire with a table candle. Her brother catches up with Donny and pummels him saying “You scarred her for life.” I found that hilarious and laughed out loud! Donny flees in his pick-up truck and finds two drunk girls wanting a ride. He makes up something about throwing a party at his house, to which they reply “far out!” I wanted to see these women naked but we don’t because his murder ritual is interrupted  by unwanted guests. All the excitement turns into a fearful hallucination where the zombie-like victims circle around him. Donny ignites the flamethrower INSIDE the house (not in the special steel room) and sets the whole place on fire and gets burned up himself. Those who live by the fire die by the fire.

After watching this movie I was not sure whether to assign it 2 or 3 stars. Everything that happens is cool and fun and creepy. But I couldn’t fully immerse myself in the story. I couldn’t get lost in the flames or in the killer’s psychological clockwork. In theory I should have loved this film, since I love serial killer profiles. Just writing up this review entices me to watch the movie again. I think about the zombie hallucinations, Donny’s complex character and the wonderfully original idea of having a serial killer with a flamethrower!!  Quentin Tarantino selected this film to be included in his film fest in 1996! I’d certainly watch it again and definitively recommend this to you sickos!

3 / 5 STARS