Top of the Food Chain

TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN (3 outta 5 stars) Canadian director John Paisz came out with some brilliant short movies back in the 80s... culminating in the brilliant "Crime Wave". He showed great promise at the time... his work sharing many surface similarities with the work of David Lynch. But for almost 15 years he seemed to disappear from the world of film... doing a little TV work in Canada and not much else. Well, he finally came back in 1999 with this zany B movie parody film and, while comes nowhere near the quality of his earlier work, it does have enough wit and style to make it worth seeing. The movie starts out TERRIBLY... so don't let the first five minutes put you off... it does get better. Man-eating aliens come down to a small Twin Peaks kind of town and start noshing on the citizens. Luckily a world famous atomic scientist (Campbell Scott) is passing through town to lend a hand. The movie's story isn't quite as well-scripted as the more recent "Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" but it does have some very funny lines... and some bizarre characterizations (the way-too-friendly brother and sister, the town policeman who goes around singing his own jazzy theme song). If you're in the mood for something silly you could do lots worse than this. Choicest lines: "An atomic scientist's life can be very lonely. There aren't many atomic lady scientists, after all." "I got backbone! Matter of fact when I was born I had a tail, too! That's just MORE backbone only it's furry!" "A genetically engineered band of devil worshiping serial killers... or a Sasquatch type thing? I don't like the sound of that!"

I just saw this film and really had no idea what to expect. I watched it twice and found that I really enjoyed it. Its a strange, funny little tale. I really thought it was going to be dumb. But as turns out I really liked it.

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical at first, but after it started I found myself laughing my ass off throughout the whole movie.

It's as B as a movie can be, it's cheesie and it's awesome.

If you liked this, I'd check out Psycho Beach Party and Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.

'Top of the food chain' is a parody of the science fiction movies of the 50s which preceded the horror stories a few decades before Polanski and the gang turned horror into a genre that cannot be ignored. It makes clear from the beginning that it is not to be taken too seriously, and keeps all over an air of freshness and authenticity, avoiding any computerized special effects. It looks like a film of the 50s with a smile, the only real big miss, but a big one is the lack of a more effective humor. Gags like the ones in this film seem too innocent to viewers have seen the heavier parody stuff of the last years. The team of anonymous actors does a decent job, among them best was in my opinion Fiona Loewi who really catches the attention and deserves some better or broader distributed roles.

The 'let's make fun of 50's monster movies' thing has been done to death but TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN is a surprising and total delight. Where most comedies lately work with visual shock and gross-out gags, the humour in this movie--often as shockingly hilarious as anything by the Farrelly brothers--is almost completely verbal. The lines fly by with dizzying speed--a barrage of bad puns, silly one-liners, kinky innuendo and loony non-sequiteurs that had my head spinning! And the fact that it's a Canadian film is the cherry on the cake. Go see it!