First things first - before I have lots of you writing in and complaining that I am contradicting myself (I am of course assuming that someone reads this) I want to inform you of the following: I know I am. But stick with me and I hope that I’ll explain why….
Vaughan came over to me and passed me a number of DVD’s that he had for review. Looking at the pile I noticed, in the usual mix of vampire flicks, a title that struck me as unusual. ‘Feeders’ it was called, and unlike the rest of the detritus that Vaughan had so gleefully abandoned on my desk it did not involve naked ladies with pointy canines and a penchant for the red stuff. I picked it up and instantly realised the greatness of what I held in my hand. So on to the review:
This is, at it’s heart, an alien film. There are all the usual ingredients: Aliens, spaceships, blood, heroic guys and sexy girls, suspense, thrills and million dollar special effects. At least this would be the case if there were a budget. And a script. And a couple of good actors. What is closer to the recipe is this– Green papier-mâché covered balloons on sticks, computer graphics of a spaceship from when the abacus was still king, red jam squirted from ketchup bottles, gormless blokes and women more wooden than Pinocchio (before he went through ‘the change’), all the suspense of butter, all the thrills of picking someone else’s nose and special effects created by someone who didn’t quite grow out of the Corn Flake box and a washing up bottle phase of childhood.
The story is simple. Two men on a road trip end up in a sleepy backwater town just as aliens are deciding that it looks like a nice place for a picnic, using the locals as the starter, main course and dessert, and that is pretty much it. There are some very long drawn out scenes where nothing happens (and I mean NOTHING) that fill up the gaps between the alien scenes and there is even a twist at the end! But I don’t want to spoil the plot (which I probably already have) so I won’t go into any more detail.
When I watched this film for the SECOND time I made my better half watch too and after seeing the aliens for the first time she was quite literally crying with laughter. I’m pretty sure that this wasn’t the intention of the filmmakers but they achieved something that many mainstream comedies don’t – they made a genuinely funny film. And here I go with the contradiction: This film is diabolically bad but I would strongly suggest that if you manage to get your grubby mitts on a copy then you should sit down and watch it. The aliens will quite possibly cause you to rupture something important inside.
Here comes the best bit…..the DVD has Feeders 2 on there too along with extra's such as directors' commentary, interviews, still galleries, promotional art gallery, making of and test footage of special effects.
