Night Shadows

I first saw this as part of the bottom half of a double bill in the mid-eighties. The headliner was Ghoulies but this was a lot better than that. I watched it again recently and it holds up well after all the years. So, if you are looking for a good old fashioned zombie movie that doesn't depend on gore and more on the characters stuck in tricky situation, well then, give it a go. You could do worse.

I was a kid when the trailer for this film started to appear, and to me it looked like a total creep-fest. I never managed to get a hold of it during the video age, but it was one of the first DVDs I ever bought (for about a pound) and I've got to say that Mutant, although not a creep-fest, is a fine chunk of eighties horror cheese.

I've heard (or read, rather) complaints that the film is too talky, but to be honest I don't think it hurts the film at all. For some reason director John 'Bud' Carlos sees fit to have his hero be a big goofy jerk, and if there's one guy who excels at playing goofball jerks, it's Wings Hauser. Right from the get go it's clear that it's his brother who is the smart one, as Wings incurs the wrath of the locals by driving like a nutter, gets into a car chase with some rednecks, and ends up crashing their car into a river, stranding them in the middle of nowhere. His brother is well annoyed, but Wings still manages to yuck it up as they head into a hick town, given a lift there by a crazy looking yokel who's not what he seems.

Once they get into town they discover a dead body and head into a bar for help, only to run into the rednecks again and get into a bar fight, broken up by local alcoholic sheriff Bo Hopkins, a washed up city cop who's lost his bottle, and is an ex-lover with the local doctor. He is led by the brothers to where the dead body should be, but instead finds the town drunk sleeping, and a puddle of strange fluid. After dropping Wings and his brother at a boarding house, he drops the sample off at the doctor's place, and things begin to get weird.

The town is strangely absent of people, and that night Wing's brother is dragged under his bed by some creature with smoking hands. Now properly stranded in the town, Wings looks for his brother with the help of a local teacher (and of course he finds time to woo her), finds a dead child, runs into the redneck again (and has a pipe fight with him) while Bo Hopkins finds more corpses and gets ignored by his boss, who thinks he's just a washed up drunk. Meanwhile, more and more citizens of the town start disappearing, at least during the day. It all builds up to loads of mutant versus the survivors, and an investigation into where exactly the source of this epidemic is coming from.

This film reminded me a lot of Salem's Lot. There's the outsider staying at the boarding house, the townsfolk disappearing, hostile locals and the protagonists trying to get the bottom of things while their numbers dwindle. That said, the film kicks into high gear when the mutants start attacking on mass, and that's where the cheese factor kicks in too. Who can forget the mutant kids attacking the teacher in the school (not to mention poor kid Billy, who, after being told he need never feel scared again, is attacked and killed by the mutants!), or the doctor describing the symptoms of the disease while her assistant transforms in the background. I was chuckling away at Wings booting a child in the head while trying to escape from a toilet. Good stuff.

There's also some huge errors on hand, from the 'acid hand' gag that's truly atrocious (a fake hand held by another hand – and they do it twice!), boom mike shadows, recurring stunt men etc, but it all adds to the charm. Wings is forced to emote a couple of times too which is a sight to behold (although the man can act, see "The Wind" for instance). This has long been a favourite of mine and was kind of remade as "Nightmare at Noon" with the same premise and same actors (both Wings and Hopkins in roughly the same roles) – I recommend that one too!

Wings Hauser, star of many a straight-to video movie in the 80s, stars in this decidedly silly, but enjoyably unpretentious slab of sci-fi/horror tosh.

With a script constructed from a hotchpotch of well-worn genre clichés, Mutant's director, John 'Bud' Cardos opts to play things straight where others may have aimed for a more tongue in cheek approach; the result is a fun filled B-movie which, despite its hackneyed script and cheesy plot structure, works extremely well.

After being run off the road by truck-driving rednecks, brothers Josh and Mike Cameron (Wings Hauser and Lee Montgomery) set off on foot for the nearest town. Unfortunately for them, the nearest town is infected with toxic waste (being dumped by an unscrupulous chemicals company) that is turning the residents into acid-secreting mutants.

Josh, along with pretty schoolteacher Holly (Jody Medford), battles for survival, while trying to convince boozy sheriff Will Stewart (Bo Hopkins) that the town is under threat from a horde of killer mutants.

Director Cardos perfectly captures the B-movie vibe and his likable cast throw themselves into their roles with gusto, giving some decent performances. Bo Hopkins is particularly good as the alcoholic cop and he shares some nice scenes with Jennifer Warren, who plays small town doctor, Myra Tate.

Cardos, obviously no stranger to the genre (his mutants closely resemble the zombies from Romero's Dawn of the Dead) has the good sense to kill off characters that you would lay money on to survive in most horror films; this means that, with the gloves off, Cardos can have fun playing with the audiences expectations.

In an exciting finale, in which Josh and Holly are surrounded by mutants, Cardos toys with the possibility of a downbeat ending, before the good sheriff and his men arrive to save the day.

The make-up FX are simple yet effective; the mutants are blueish in hue, with some yucky 'splits' in their palms from which they secrete corrosive yellow gunk. When the infected turn into mutants, we get some impressive examples of that mainstay of 80s horror movies, the 'bladder effect'. Skin undulates and veins pulsate to nauseating effect.

If you're after an undemanding and fun viewing experience, you could do a lot worse than to pop Mutant into your DVD player.

After being forced off the road by locals, the two brothers Cameron end up at the nearest town -Goodland- but there's nothing good awaiting them, besides the aggressive rednecks, they'll also come face-to-face with some "nasty" residents.

With all the bad reviews i've read, I was expecting yet another boring 80's movie but that's not the case. At times it may appear slow paced but despite that it remains effective, capturing your interest.

Good acting. Good make-up. Good score. Not a lot of blood being spilled, just chemicals, transforming residents into zombie like creatures. A little gem, worth watching. It certainly worked for me.

Maybe it is the fact it was scored so low that it surprised me. Everyone talked how bad it was so I just had lower expectations, but in general I thought this was a good horror movie. About a guy and his brother in a town down south, they run into trouble with the local rednecks right away. Then the younger brother disappears at the boarding house the two stay at. The older one then tries to find out what happened to his brother and what is happening to the town. I always like the mysterious town scenario so that is another reason I like this one. Some gore, but most of the killings are a bit to hard to see. I did not let it ruin the movie for me as it did for some of the others who have commented, still though you will notice it is particularly bad in the finish. However, overall I thought it was a good horror movie with a relatively good cast and all. I loved the scene where little Billy gets it...was not expecting that.