Mutant Clusterfuck

Right, So awhile back i received an email from a chap who’s name I’ve forgotten and am far too lazy to look up, nor do i care to shame the man. He asked if i would be interested in reviewing a film he had been a part of creating, called Mutantis. He described it as an “old School Horror-Comedy/Sci-Fi gorefest”. It sounded promising enough, so I agreed and provided my address for a screener copy to be sent. Months went by and no DVD, and when i made attempts to contact this chap and inquire, I got no response.  I had resigned myself to selecting something else that had been emailed to me by readers, but due to an email mishap, any and all fan submissions were lost. Fuck! Still the spectre of Mutantis lived on…so much so that my Girlfriend ordered the damn thing from Amazon, because she HAD to see it. I feel I need to say that I’m not mad at this afore mentioned chap, maybe a bit annoyed, but thats the way shit goes. At the end of the day I can’t complain about not receiving something for free, so I just need to assume that he didn’t give a fuck. So, Amazon comes through, we watch it that very same night…and it becomes painfully clear that NOBODY involved with this film gave any fucks at all.

Go ahead and watch the trailer…not only does it paint an accurate depiction of the film, but this brief glimpse is actually far more watchable than the film itself. Lord knows I am a fan of Campy Retro Horror films, and even the wave of modern homages flooding the market…but this is just too much. Far too often will I see a newer film trying to pay tribute to the cheesy gems of old by intentionally making a shitty movie, but they are missing the point! For the most part, filmmakers were trying to make the best film possible with their meager means, or had accepted the fact that their budget wouldn’t allow for much, so just had fun with it. Mutantis can only be explained as the filmmakers getting together a very small budget, and TRYING to make the shittiest film possible. The costumes are worse than the Peace River High School Drama Department(Highschool shout-out!), the acting is ridiculous, almost every actor is in bad drag for no reason, characters are played by multiple actors again for no reason, and all the dialogue is horribly dubbed in the most annoying way possible. Everything about the movie is designed to suck. There are poorly focused shots, heads out of frame, dialog exposition, colour grading issues, etc. Whatever can be done badly, has been done badly.

 

Mutantis itself looks appropriately crap, a throwback to the creature features of yesteryear. I’m reminded of the classic “It Conquered The Earth”. Nothing that looks like this can be taken seriously. The whole thing is laughable, and damn it all, i did get some laughs out of the film. Props to the writers for the inventive kills Mutantis enacts on its victims. Penis dismemberment, death by extreme fellatio, cunnilingual face mastication, titty chopping, this film has it all covered. Sure the FX are amateurish and cheap, but at least it’s not CGI (No way they could have afforded CGI gore…)and it’s quite gruesome and rather funny. You have not lived until you see a man die from an explosion of semen pouring out of his eye sockets and a giant monster penis bursting out the back of his head, let me tell you.

 

How do I feel about this movie? It’s harmless I suppose…at least it KNOWS it’s crap and doesn’t pretend to be anything else. I’ve recommended it to a few friends, but even then it was pretty much in a “Troll2” kind of way. Since the bar was set so alarmingly low for this film, it was easy for the filmmakers to achieve what they set out to do, so as long as you can keep your expectations similarly low, then this may be worth checking out.

It’s Just A Dirty Black Summer

“Someone had to go this far…” -Marilyn Manson

 

Every so often you’ll run into a horror fan who thinks they are all badass because they could sit through Cannibal Holocaust. August Underground’s Mordum is what i make them watch next. Mordum is the sophomore entry in the AU trilogy, and is notoriously known as the sickest entry. Presented as the depraved home videos of serial killers and shot by the killers on shitty handheld cameras, Mordum is a disturbing ride through the depths of hell. To go over the plot would almost be futile for two reasons. 1) Most of the plot concerns the commiting of unspeakable attrocities…well, Actually, I’m perfectly comfortable repeating them, I just think the film is best viewed for yourself. 2) The details of the plot…really don’t matter that much as the film flows from one unsettling and disgusting scene to the next. 

If depictions of graphic violence, brutal murders, wanton mutilation, rape, incest, cannibalism and necrophilia aren’t enough to make your skin crawl, the filming technique blends seamlessly with the special effects to make what we are seeing hyper-realistic. For all i know these could have been the most basic gore effects ever seen…but when filmed with Mom and Dads shitty Handicam, you can’t tell the difference. One can easily be forgiven for mistaking this film for an honest to goodness Snuff Film.  In fact…While traveling to Canada to attend the Rue Morgue Festival of Fear in Toronto, co-director and writer Fred Vogel was arrested, pending charges of transporting obscene materials into Canada, when copies of Mordum and its predecessor were found by customs officials among the merchandise he had intended to bring to the convention. The charges were dropped, after Vogel had spent roughly ten hours in customs prison, and his films were sent to Ottawa for further observation. He should have gone to Vancouver instead. I’m sick of Toronto always getting the cooler Festival of Fear over Vancouver!!!

The exploitation film database The Worldwide Celluloid Massacre has Mordum ranked as the third most “vile” film viewed by the website, below Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom, and The Angel’s Melancholy. The review of the film (which is categorized as “worthless”) referred to it as “pointless hardcore depravity”. I really can’t argue against that too much. Having said that, I suppose the point is the shock itself. It forces you to feel something, whether it be disgust, contempt, mirth, or arousal…it is impossible to watch this film and not be effected. The August Underground Films are to Horror Films what GG Allin is to Punk Rock. Sometimes we need some crazy-blood-drenched-shit-smeared rebel to make such a disgusting and visceral display, if for no other reason than to show us that what we previously thought was too far, is nowhere near far enough.

 

*smooches!*