Die Insel der Ungeheuer

If you are a Pamela Franklin fan, this is a must! Campy, schlocky, and plain bizarre are words too weak to describe this movie. Check your brain at the door and enjoy Ms. Franklin in her last cult appearance.

A last-gasp attempt at the 1950s 'giant monster' B-movie, directed by schlock purveyor Burt I. Gordon (aka 'Mr Big') who utilises some of his famed back screen-projected beasts onto the screen for the last time. FOOD OF THE GODS is apparently partly based on a tale by H. G. Wells, but turns out to a typical entry into the genre.

The storyline is simplicity in itself: creatures on a remote island have grown to giant size, and a group of diverse characters must battle to save themselves. In the lead is former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner, one of the oddest looking leads to populate '70s cinema; in support is Ida Lupino in her last screen appearance. Still, one of the performances really register as this is a film all about the giant creatures.

And the effects are pretty decent, at least in places. Things start off badly with some dodgy giant wasps and chickens, but once the rats come into it things really pick up, with some elaborately-staged set-pieces that convince in places. After that point it's an action-packed ride to the climax, with added gore and bloodshed for modern-day '70s audience. Although I had concerns about animal welfare - some of the rats look like they get genuinely injured/drowned - FOOD OF THE GODS turns out to be a surprisingly entertaining little monster flick for fans of the genre and a film which doesn't deserve it's poor reputation.

If you don't know who Bert I. Gordon is let me give you the jist of his movies: big things attack people. What's with this guy. Just about every movie he does has a giant something or other attacking people. And this is no different. This film is unintentionally funny and feature giant rats, bees, maggots, mosquitoes and funniest of all: giant chickens! You haven't seen a bad movie till you see a movie that has a man fight a giant chicken and still take itself seriously!

This is one of those movies that should have appeared on MST3k but didn't (a darn shame). With really fake gunshot wounds (rats are "shot"... shot with red paint and look perfectly unharmed) this movies good for heckling with friends.

Another of Bert I. Gordon's adaptations of the works of H. G. Wells, the others being the Village of the Giants (1965) and Empire of the Ants (1977), results in yet another amusing tale of giant critters reeking havoc!

Football star vacations on an island, where a mysterious substance on a farm is causing the local animals to grow to giant, killer sizes! Whats more fun than giant poultry?

Entertaining, some what cheesy, B sci-fi thriller is great fun for fans of the drive-in era. It's a wild and bizarre tale, as we have giant rats, chickens, and insects threatening human life! Although the film does show its budget, with a wide display of hokey B movie FX, it's all pretty fun schlock. The cast does a decent job, the best being handsome hero Marjoe Gortner.

The film never gets quite as silly as Gordon's later Empire of the Ants, but it does have its share of fun for fans of the B movie genre.

** 1/2 out of ****

A group of people, somehow associated with a football team, go to an island for a getaway. Well, they picked the wrong time for vacation because someone on the island has developed a new kind of food that causes the animals to grow to gigantic sizes. Great if you're raising cattle, not so great when the rats find it.

Inspired by H. G. Wells, directed by B-movie legend Bert Gordon, and starring a young pre-Dante Belinda Balaski, this film is pretty much exactly what you might expect it is. There have been plenty of large animal horror or sci-fi films, both before and after this one. Is this one of the better ones? Who is to say?

The film is good for what it is: people fighting large rats. Sure, it is silly and kind of cheesy, but is that not what you expect from sci-fi films of the time period, especially the giant animal variety? I cannot say this movie had anything special about it, but it sure was not terrible, either.

For what it is worth, Gordon calls this film the one he had the most fun making, due to the cast and crew being on a Canadian island far from the studio. He also had the pleasure of writing the script on the fly when an unexpected snowstorm prevented the original plan!

Paul Corupe says this film has "the most fearsome creatures of any Gordon film", but that seems highly contentious.