Supersize That Food of the Gods

Synchronized swimming

‘80s stylin'

Cute rats

Cute giant rats

Giant kids that curse

A character named Carlos singing La Cucaracha while peeing in bushes

My question is obvious: in all the list of great sequels, why oh why oh why has nobody ever mentioned Gnaw: Food of the Gods 2?

Quick Plot: Set in a university, Gnaw begins with a bunch of flaky animal rights activists protesting the medical experimentation going on inside. I say ‘flaky’ not because it’s silly to protest this kind of thing, but more because these particular people are idiots who make the monkey releasers of 28 Days Later look like Stephen Hawking. The kind who break into a laboratory after hours to expose its cruelty and embark upon a 'trash the room!' montage (that truthfully, I long to participate in) without actually helping any of the creatures. Best of all, after making the papers and pissing off the administration, the trespassers return...THE VERY NEXT NIGHT.

Although I can't really blame these ill-advised coeds. They only have their education to blame, and considering a university that had been BROKEN INTO the very NIGHT BEFORE has done nothing to beef up its security measures, why would they possibly think repeating their crime would have consequences?

Thankfully for us, these do gooder dumdums are about to kickstart one of the best plot standbys in the history of film: giganticism. See, unbeknownst to the critter crusaders, Dr. Neil Hamilton was experimenting with a growth hormone. Why would a scientist experiment with a growth hormone you ask?

Well, that.

See, Neil’s doctor friend a few towns away was doing some of her own work with hormones and...oops, made little Bobby a hilariously gigantic (and even more hilariously foul-mouthed) monster. Although Neil generally restricts his research to plants in order to still be able to sleep with his horribly not smart animal rights activist galpal Alex (played by Prom Night 2’s Mary Lou herself, Lisa Schrage), he takes the risk and feeds a rat some untested drugs as a few others nibble on supersized tomatoes that would put Lisa Simpson's lost science fair project to shame. In the words of his assistant, Neil has created “an accidental hormone concoction, like trying to make a martini and ending up with LSD.” Shockingly, in the 1980s, this was considered a bad thing.

Naturally, once the lab gets broken into (for a second time in a row, did I mention that?), a few hulk-in-the-making rats get loose and begin a reign of terror on the small college town. Even more naturally for a genre film, there’s a single-minded bureaucrat (in this case, the college president) who refuses to close the campus despite, you know, the threat of Rodents of Unusual Size chomping through the student body. 

But how could one POSSIBLY be expected to cancel class when there’s a synchronized swimming competition on the horizon?

Yes dear readers, Gnaw: The Kind of Not Really Sequel to Food of the Gods features a synchronized swimming massacre. See, such a sport was apparently a HUGE spectator coup back in the day and therefore equals a battleground akin to Gettysburg when the rats decide to crash. What follows is a glorious scene of carnage that cares so much about its audience that it even includes a randomly crazed mob member picking up a policeman’s freed handgun and firing madly at the innocent crowd.

I pretty much adored Gnaw from start to finish. The effects of the rats--what I imagine is a combination of puppetry and forced perspective, much like Bert I. Gordon's original--are colorful enough to not worry you with whether they look believable in any way, and the kills, plentiful enough to keep you watching. It falters a tad in the dullness of its leads, but hey: any film that gives us the transformation of a greedy scientist into a low rent Toxic Avenger can't escape being awesome.

High Points

There are a lot of small touches in the supporting cast that makes Gnaw something clever, including an overly enthusiastic hunter with a flamethrower and minor character with a receding hairline and a subtle but quite funny obsession with scientifically curing baldness

Low Points

Though I loved her bitchy prom queen attitude as Mary Lou, Schrage’s good girl Alex is painfully unlikable here. Paul Coufos fares a tad better, but both roles are just not nearly as much fun as the movie they're in

Lessons Learned

To do experiments you need a lab...and research data

Don’t forget to take the lenscap off the camera

You would think diehard animal activists wouldn’t be afraid the thing they’re trying so hard to protect (i.e., rats). You would think but be very, very wrong

What’s wrong with this country: people not taking pride in their work

HILARIOUS DREAM SEQUENCE ALERT!

I was initially confused as to why the white toast Neil would allow himself to be so easily seduced by the school slut, but then something wonderful happened: Neil tasted some of his hormone juice and the effects were felt by his first confused, then grateful, then understandably horrified new squeeze. Then he woke up.

Crazy Cat Lady Alert

I tell it straight here: Neil’s habit of letting his favorite pet rat drape herself over his shoulder as he goes about his day is pretty much how Joplin and I spend evenings here at the Doll’s House

Montage Mania

Ingredients: 

Computer

Rock music

Bunson burners

Petri dishes

A rainbow of food coloring in glass vials

Fist pumps

That my friends, is science at work

Goof Squad

I am, quite possibly, the absolute worst judge of continuity (somehow I missed the infamous Leif Garrett wig/no wig switcheroo in Devil Times Five), making my catch of the lead protester's hair going from near House Party style to crew cut back to House Party over the course of two days either impressive on my end or really sad for the film. And yes, I rewound to see if I was missing a hairnet and no, I found none.

Rent/Bury/Buy

This is a fun film. Not scary or thrilling or, you know, actually good, but an enthusiastic animals attack popcorn flick made with fresh enthusiasm. Considering most of its competition in 1989 featured silent slashers, Gnaw is ridiculously refreshing for its throwback style. The DVD is sadly sans special features, but nature strikes back fans owe it to themselves to seek out this subgenre with an ‘80s sheen. 

Test Tube Bozos

Watching today's Vertically Challenged feature, Attack of the Puppet People, I kept being reminded of a very different film.

No, it wasn’t another gloriously scale-playing flick from the master of big and little things, Bert I. Gordon.

It wasn’t Puppet Master.

Despite its efforts, it wasn’t even The Incredible Shrinking Man.

It was this. 

Sadly separated by 50 years and color, The Human Centipede’s Dr. Heiter and Attack of the Puppet People’s Mr. Franz would have had the cutest (grossest) bromance in all moviekind.

But anyway...

Quick Plot: A young woman takes a secretarial job at Dolls Incorporated, a one-man operation headed by John Hoyt’s Mr. Franz that’s as creepy and ominous (bom bom bommmmmmm musical cues keep us informed) as it sounds. Thankfully, there’s a dull traveling salesman who stops by for a whirlwind courtship, proposing an elopement at a drive-in showing of The Amazing Colossal Man.

Wait, maybe this guy isn’t so dull after all. Nope, he is.

When the ho-hum Bob stands her up for their Las Vegas wedding, the not-too-surprisingly named Sally’s suspicions of her employer (who also seems responsible for the disappearance of a previous assistant and unlucky mailman) finally grow to tell-an-unbelievable-story-about-a-man-turning-folks-into-dolls-to-the-dubious-authorities level. Not surprisingly, the police prove ineffective and Sally pays with her height.

Shrunk to the size of a Barbie (or, to be timely, the commercially successful Incredible Shrinking Man) Sally and now Bob meet Mr. Franz’s other mini-friends, two couples who have more or less accepted their itty bitty fates. Between dance parties and matchbox baths, there’s not too much too much to complain about. The kindly Franz even offers to shrink a priest in order to marry the sad lovebirds, but the ungrateful little people want nothing more than their big selves back.

Attack of the Puppet People is a weird little film, one clearly aiming for the Colossal/Shrinking Man’s 1950s audiences. There’s no real underlying metaphor or social significance worth gleaming, but this being a Bert I. Gordon film, there sure are plenty of rats shot to look giant. We get a lovely Phantom Menace-esque near-rat attack saved by a bigger cat attack, plus other cute sound and sight gags involving the Puppet People’s smallness. There’s never really any moment of fear or poetry, and the fact that our leads come across like that mildly successful couple you dread breaking ice with at a poorly seat-planned dinner party certainly doesn’t do the film any favors.

Still, oversized (real-sized shot big) rats, cats, and dogs!

High Points

A loopy little song-and-dance number called “My Living Doll” is a nice touch of surreal

Low Points

Though I like the self-pitying fate of Dr. Heiter--I mean, Mr. Franz--why are we left with the unanswered question of what became of four other main characters?

Lessons Learned

Be careful what kind of clothing you admire in front of your dollmaker boss. You never know when he’ll choose the wardrobe that you’ll be confined in as a tiny person, and while Scarlet O’Hara hoop skirts are flattering, they’re also quite difficult to flee a madman in

Before you can confess your sins to your employer, you must first be friends

Always spank your doll when it misbehaves

Rent/Bury/Buy

I have a soft spot for ‘50s sci-fi, one made quite cushy from my father’s taste and annual MST3K Turkey Day marathons. For someone like me, Attack of the Puppet People is an enjoyable enough Instant Watch, less than 80 minutes of misogynist ‘50s fun, adorably dated and charming special effects, and other grand nonsense. Not really a film worth tracking down, but if Netflix is your homepage, it’s a fun--and fast--enough time.

Mmmmm...Ambrosia Salad? Oh. A DIFFERENT Food of the Gods

Going into Food of the Gods, I had no intention of doing a review. I turned it on, hit up the Internet, and had planned to spend the next hour or so occasionally glancing up at the screen for ‘70s wackiness while paying bills and answering old emails.

But then a rubber chicken the size of Chewbacca attacked our permed quarterback of a hero and I realized there was no way I could not write about this film.

It must be said: Food of the Gods makes Frogs look like a masterpiece.

Quick Plot: Eager to take a break in the comfort and innocence of nature, football star Morgan grabs a few buds and heads off to a sparsely populated island. Before you could say touchdown, one member of the posse is mauled to death by oversized wasps. It’s a tragedy. It’s bizarre. But the levelheaded Morgan decides alerting the authorities is a dreadful idea because they’ll never believe him.

Also, because he’s an idiot.

Elsewhere on the island are the recently widowed Ida Lupino (hamming it up in a film just a hair better than The Devil’s Rain), an evil scientist and his assistant (And Soon the Darkness’ Pamela Franklin), and a very pregnant couple who are boring and very pregnant. 

Oh, and herds of Rodents of Unusual Sizes that would be adorable if they weren’t trying to rip you apart with their fuzzy little mouths.

The terrible evil scientist, you see, has been developing some form of toxin that makes living things grow to immense proportions. Much like Lisa Simpson in that science fair subplot, he rationalizes his Frankensteinian crime with the idea that such food could be fed to all the poor orphans of the world. 

Don’t worry: he gets eaten by the cuddly rat puppets too.

You don’t need to know much else about this movie, made by that incorrigible, oft-MST3K’d Bert I Gordon (Earth Vs. the Spider, Village of the GIants, childhood favorite Empire of the Ants, etc). Too many characters survive. The mean ones die painful and hilarious deaths. The dumbest narrator in the history of film (yes, I’m including Diary of the Dead’s Deborah) slurs his way through a framing setup. Not a single creature looks anywhere near either a) real or b) large. If these descriptions don’t make you grin, this is not the movie for you.

High Points

Sorry, but I can’t not love a movie that has its female protagonist sweetly proposition the male hero with sex right as he’s about to set fire to a bunch of bear-sized rats

Low Points

For what it is, this is a perfect(ly bad) movie that will make anyone expecting an animals attack tale exceedingly happy. HOWEVER, a bone to pick with the ending: I’m not one to ever quarrel with a film that ends on what is supposed to be an ominous shot of a cow mooing into the future, but I don’t think the twist makes any of the sense Gordon was intending. See, ingesting the Food of the Gods makes you giant. Soooooo what’s the problem with drinking it in milk form, especially if all other creatures are already getting a head start? Shouldn’t you WANT to grow to insanely large sizes in order to better defend yourself?

Lessons Learned

Jobs for female bacteriologists are just not that easy to find

A plus side about shooting giant toxic bees: instead of exploding into gutty messes, their innards just melt and evaporate upwards

if you live on a farm, you’ll know everything there is to know about birthing babies (unless, I suppose, you’re black)

Rent/Bury/Buy

Currently streaming on Instant Watch, Food of the Gods is a riot and joy for those who enjoy awful ‘70s cinema. Great for kids or easily amused adults, it offers no intelligence, no scares, and no good taste. In other words, it’s some kind of wonderful.

Ants In My Bell Bottoms

Childhood is a fickle mistress. As a young lass growing up in the 80s, I spent many a day pitting Mr. Potato Head Kids against Smurfs, always with a VHS loaded and rolling in the background. One of those stalwarts of those recorded-off-cable days was Bert I. Gordon's Empire of the Ants, a 1977 monster movie loosely based on an H.G. Wells novel. Though I don't recall the film ever giving me nightmares, I had convinced myself that it was a well-done creature feature with a killer premise and frightening execution.

Wow. How our impressions change. Not that Empire of the Ants isn't enjoyable--my goodness is it entertaining....just not for the reasons I recall.

Quick Plot: Joan Collins divas it up as Marilyn Fryser, president of some land selling scam where wealthy fools are wined and dined in the hopes that they'll purchase a few acres of glorified swamp. Her Bruce Campbell lookalike boyfriend helps out while a surly sea captain huffs away with a no nonsense eye and even more no nonsense beard. The guests include a mildly would-be rapist, a penny pinching couple dressed in matching Kermit the Frog suits (not really, but kind of really), a drunken Joe David Carson, who seems like quite the catch to the spurned woman blond, a recently fired secretary fishing for sympathy and a lucrative investment, and a few other bodies tossed in to bland soap operatic effect. 

Oh yeah, and giant carnivorous ants that range in height from even with your knees to larger than a small yacht. By range in height, I don't mean workers vs. soldiers. Sometimes an ant approaches a character from a wide shot appearing to be the size of an RV trailer only to then shrink in closeup to be smaller than a yellow lab. This all depends on which effect is being used: are the ants actual live creatures climbing their way over, I kid you not, blown-up photographs of the set, or have the filmmakers switched back to the leftover animatronics used to much more terrifying effect in Them!?

For the first hour, our characters get some memorable chase scenes through a rainy jungle. Naturally, the caddish horndog leaves his wife to be eaten (because there’s no way a movie like this could resist featuring a helpless woman with a twisted ankle) while Bruce Campbell saves Joan only to then, well, be eaten. A guy can't win. A nice twist gets tossed in towards the third act when we meet the queen, whose talents are far more impressive than just laying eggs or doing the cupped hand wave. Sadly the film doesn’t quite capitalize on its human slavery/giant sugar bowl potential, but that’s not to say it doesn’t try.

Watching Empire of the Ants for the first time in probably 18 years, I can see why I would have loved this as a kid. The effects are ridiculous, but not dull. After a slowish opening that establishes every one dimensional character's sole dimension, the action is pretty steady, with a brief break to turn the story in a different direction. In no way is the film ever scary, but the cheese tastes good enough to melt over fries and enjoy with a beer. After all, this is coming from a director responsible for not one, not three, but EIGHT films (more than a few from the Gigantic Animal genre) prominently featured in memorable episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. The fact that Empire of the Ants managed to evade this may be its biggest accomplishment.

High Points

This isn't exactly something to be proud of from the filmmaker's point of view, but every time I heard the blatantly Jaws-ish soundtrack cues, I laughed like a schoolgirl

Ants are inherently disconcerting, what with their socialist attitude and unionizing abilities. Despite the middle school project quality if the special effects, the mere sight of a few ant closeups does make even the Amazing Colossal Man wrinkle his nose in minor discomfort

Low Points

The ant attacks basically involve shaking the camera while an actor "wrestles" a giant ant doll. Do the ants eat the bodies? It's unclear. One character seems to die because she's poked by an antennae. A little more specifics (am I really saying this?) on the ants' abilities would have been useful

So ants’ vision is the equivalent of covering a camera lens with a mesh t-shirt?

The lack of English subtitles wouldn't be so annoying if the audio wasn't so muffled, which is even more frustrating when the ants’ screams and beeps (because apparently ants scream and beep) weren't so painfully shrill and loud

Lessons Learned

Being nearly raped by a stranger should not in any way discourage you from pursuing the kinder eyed alcoholic stranger standing alone in the corner

Favorite cuisines of the ant world include sugar, radioactive waste, and people

The best way to assert yourself is to bite into an especially crunchy piece of celery

Contrary to many beliefs, candy does not make everything better

This one's for the ladies: in order to survive an army of killer ants, hedge your bets and latch yourself onto the right man 


Only those that are great in the sack should expect a justifiably high salary, at least if your boss is Joan Collins

Rent/Bury/Buy

Why this DVD's sole special feature is a far too revealing trailer I don't know, but Empire of the Ants is a fun ride for those fans of 70s cheese and, well, giant killer ants. Best rented from your local library or streamed via Hulu and certainly not for those without a sense of humor about their insect politics. A double feature DVD is out there with Tentacles, a film I haven't seen nor heard any recommendations regarding. Empire of the Ants won't creep its way into your nightmares, but it will make you smile enough for 90 minutes to warrant a lower real estate valued place in your collection.

But remember the tagline warning: it's no picnic!

Man, sometimes I really wish I was alive in the 70s.