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Okay, "The Being" is probably one of the absolute crappiest and cheesiest low-budget horror productions the 80's decade ever spawned (and that is saying a lot), but who can honestly bring him/herself to slamming it so harshly and even discourage other people to watch it? If nothing else, this film guarantees tremendous fun and it's never boring; not even for half a second. Surely the basic concept is unoriginal, the script is unimaginably incoherent and the acting performances rank among the absolute hammiest we have ever witnessed, but you could pretty much derive all that from one short peek at the DVD-cover, so don't come complaining afterwards! "The Being" is (unintentionally?) hilarious, with insane and totally irrelevant sub plots, unnecessary narrative voice-overs, stereotypical small-town USA rednecks, and grotesque splatter effects. The small town of Pottsville, Idaho (self-acclaimed potato capital of the world, mind you) has an unwelcome new arrival in the shape of a gooey & bloodthirsty mutated monster. He clearly likes cars, as he always hides in them, and he's undeniably the result of years of pollution even though the local scientist openly claims that it's safe to dump toxic waste in the water reservoirs. But Pottsville is dealing with more issues than just the slimy monster. The mayor's wife is on a sole mission to banish all pornography, the potato export business may under no circumstances get in danger, there's a lonely woman wandering around the streets without apparent motives, the deputy is too busy arresting Mexican immigrants who're fishing without a license and the local radio DJ blames all the missing person files on the tornadoes even though I didn't notice the slightest sign of bad whether. At one point, I was even suspecting the DJ to be the monster in disguise, because he seems to know who vanished before they're even reported as missing persons. In case cheesy gore and bad dialogs is what you crave, "The Being" certainly won't disappoint! We're already treated to a fabulous decapitation moment during the first five minutes, and there are several more delightfully gross massacres to enjoy throughout the rest of the film. Martin Landau receives top billing but his role is rather small. Good call, because he clearly wasn't very interested in the lines he had to speak and I suspect he just signed up because he had nothing better to do. Rexx Coltrane – his name makes him sound like a porn actor – is probably the most wooden actor I ever saw and his lack of talent particularly becomes transparent when he tries to convince the mayor something stinks in Pottsville. Honestly, feel free to watch this demented sick puppy in case you're looking for a couple of laughs and a handful of undemanding smut effects. Please do avoid if you have low tolerance for poorly scripted and inane 80's trash movies. "The Being" anonymously remained lying on a shelf for three years before it got released and the same director was also responsible for "Blood Diner" … How's that for bad omens? I guess the term "guilty pleasure" was invented exactly for movies like this.

The first thing that struck me when watching this was how on earth the lead actor got the job. He has to be one of the worst I've seen, honestly, he delivers his lines like he's in a school play. Then I found out he's married to the director, who is also the writer. Aside from all that this very much wears its influences on its sleeve, it's mostly 50's style B-movie horror. A monster movie that begs and borrows ideas from its predecessors. It's not very good to be honest, it's badly edited, poorly lit, wastes its location, has weak monster design, and of course the terrible wooden acting from the main character. There's also out of place voice-over moments early one where we hear the lead characters inner thoughts, really odd. Also, we hear a radio broadcast every now and then telling us about a storm that is never actually in the movie, completely pointless. Landau, Ferrer, and Buzzi are actually ok in their supporting roles and ultimately carry the movie. Not surprisingly the director didn't go on to have much of a career, a case of too much imitating over innovating it seems.

Though it has its faults, this movie has several core messages that make it work as a horror film. First, environmentalism: Showing how the disposal of nuclear material can negatively affect the world Second, the philosophical question of the innocence of children: The monster in this movie is just a mutated child who has little to no control over their actions, which brings into question the ethical validity of killing them/.

Happy Easter, you One-Eyed Willy Monster.

As a bona fide horror fan, especially from the 80s, I'm shocked I missed this one. I've known about it my whole life, but never got to it. And wow, I'm pretty shocked how much they put into this.

The biggest positives stem from how many times they showed the penis creature, or at least, parts of the penis creature. Like right from the beginning, every couple of minutes until the great penis monster's climax.

Now, the acting, editing at times, continuity and people's unnatural reaction to green ooze all over the town or the monster's appearances are all bad, but I was actually entertained through to the end...even when I couldn't really comprehend how many penis monsters there were, if there were more than one or their powers.

I will have to also point out that I suspect the studio invited morons to its test screenings. In the beginning, there were a lot of odd narration (over a radio DJ - hard to hear both!) and voice overs to explain the thoughts of our husky lead detective. I bet they added these in post because, I assume, the test audience had less-than-desirable I.Q.s.

Some of the subplots I found amusing: Mayor Spuds Mackenzie and his extremely limited Jaws ripoff scenes and the townsfolk's objection to smut coming into their very Southern-acting town in Idaho. Specifically, they're scared of a massage parlor opening as they might be massaging something else...

(Insert penis monster reference here.)

It's not perfect, but I would've enjoyed the heck out of this as a kid for how many times we saw the monster in a creature feature. If you're like me with cheesy 80's monster movies, watch this.

***

Final Thoughts: It was a major coincidence I decided to watch this on Easter-Eve and I didn't even know it was a holiday film. Huh, they should really market this as such. I can't think of another Rated-R Easter Horror movie, other than The Passion of the Christ.

I actually enjoyed "The Being" for the most part. Obviously it's awful but isn't that the point? The basic plot is a small town in Idaho is victimized by a big, blubbering, wet and greasy, reddish-pink blob with one eye. He kills people at random and a determined detective is going to get to the bottom of it. Martin Landau plays a 'scientist' who is heading up a toxic waste dump research project who tries at first to stand in the detective's way, but then conceded that 'yes in fact, there is a problem in Pottsville...' Along the way we meet some awful actors and actresses and we are treated to many cheeseball performances and some lame killings. We get a nice view of the monster in the end and it actually is a little creepy. One thing we can say about this flick is that it is never really boring, no; it moves along pretty quickly with a decent amount of action.

All in all, I've seen worse, but I've definitely seen better within the genre. The genre of whence I speak being 80's drive-in trash, I mean what do you want?

5 out of 10, kids.