MUTANTIS

Firstly I just want to say thankyou to both Writer, Mark Leake and director Kelly Fitzgerald for allowing me to preview an online screener of their Grindhouse style shot Creature Feature film “Mutantis” which is inspired by some of the monster films from the 60’s and 70’s. It’s due to be released later this month. I honestly don’t know how to go about reviewing this film because this is a clearly a project made as a parody point of view (not necessarily setting out to make a good film here) and therefore making it difficult to judge accordingly, but I’ll try. Mutantis tells the story of scientist Father Joy, (who also happens to be a priest sort of…. haha) who drags his stepchildren Dennis and Cindy out to the woods in search of a bigfoot, planning to use them as bait for scientific research. What the group find is Mutantis, a creature that was the result of a toxic waste spill. Only the adventurer William Fury might be able to stop the beast until he realises the beast being a hermaphrodite( yes that’s right… you read that correctly), has intent not just to kill but to procreate as well. Could this be the end of civilization as we know it??

The film stars Darren Bolk, Gary Brown, Mark Colegrove, Megan Mundane, Patrician Rosa and many more. If you are still with me after reading that obscure plot synopsis then Mutantis might be something you want to take a look at, read ahead and find out if you should.

THE BAD

It’s difficult to point out the aspects that are positive or good about Mutantis and the things that aren’t because honestly it’s all hilariously bad and that is actually the purpose of this movie! This is a cast and crew of people clearly looking to have some fun and make a fun little film for a small budget (I assume somewhere between $10,000- $20,000 but don’t quote me on that). The film is a parody of things like “Creature From The Black Lagoon” and “Attack Of The 50ft Women” as well as films set in the groovy 60’s and at times it also felt a little like the 70s (haha). There are some absolutely disgustingly bad wigs worn by the actors along with fake moustaches, full fake beards and actresses playing the roles of men… Mutants with big penises… it’s got it all (haha). The old school synth and bad porno style soundtrack was a solid backing for the style of film. Mutantis has some very crisp clear audio and although it is shot in an old school VHS style it remains pretty fluent and professional, given the money involved.

The cheesy narration from the news reporter (at least that’s who I thought he was haha), was a lot of fun as well. The rest of the movie contains horrendously bad audio dubbing which is ridiculously out of synch. Think of the Shaolin masters in old asian kung fu flicks (clearly made this way on purpose people, not a technical error), if you understand that was the point of this whole experience, you realise you can’t really critique it. The acting from everyone is painfully bad on purpose and characters lacks anything resembling an emotion. The character of Cindy has a really bad european accent (not sure if it’s real or not… haha I hope not), it’s totally unnecessary and maybe that’s part of the point, I’m not sure. The weakest part of the entire thing was having two different male actors play Father Joy, I have no idea what was going on there it was quiet bizarre and in all my years I’ve never seen that done. Some of the scenes that took place before the group get to the woods didn’t incorporate any extras and on the streets you would expect to see at least a few people around the place (you guys are rolling your eyes like seriously Adam… that’s what you picked up on haha).

I would like to know whether the actors/actresses got to say any of their lines or was it all mimed and then overdubbed with the voices in post production?? my curiosity is peaked. At times it looked like they got to say a few things and other times it just looked like they were pretending (haha). The drug tripping scene along with the unnecessary C-bombs were pretty poorly executed and the humour (which was mostly gross out stuff) fell flat on its beardfacae (Scrubs joke ;). The editing and incredibly lame “effects” of the plane and the mountains was just ludicrous. Mutantis looks like someone covered in some plastic leaves with a face full of wool and paper mache teeth (haha) but I did enjoy the cheesy and fun attack sequences with the blood and gore shown in the manner they would have done it in back in the day.

When all is said and done Mutantis sets out to give its hardcore audience the cheesiest of all cheese. Right from word go you know this film is trying to be bad and is going to do one hell of a job at it (haha). Personally, I’m not really its core audience. I love my creature features but this one is a little to out there (haha). I don’t know if many people would give this thing repeated viewings but I admire it when people set out to achieve something that isn’t what the masses want, it’s what they want and intend on. Mutantis has ridiculous gross out humour, no real story, shockingly dubbed audio, cheesy low-budget effects and a bunch of purposely poor actors walking around the woods and having fun. It’s a quick running time of just 73 minutes and I thought it was a bit of fun. I’m hard pressed to recommend this to the people in my life because I just don’t think they would get it. If the people behind Mutantis set out to make a bad film than well done!! if not…. eek, you probably would have stopped reading by now… but if you are I’m sorry, Thanks again guys!

Trailer link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttb40xc5JEQ

My rating for “Mutantis” is 3/10