Offspring

Jack Ketchum is one of the best current horror-novelists, Stephen King and Psycho novelist Robert Bloch among those screaming their praise for his gruesome and down-right disturbing stories (it's hard to find a single Ketchum book without a King quote plastered on the jacket somewhere). However, Ketchum film adaptations haven't lived up to their original text and most of them have been forgotten...despite all coming out within the last few years. With the release of Offspring, I found myself hoping Jack Ketchum film adaptations existed within some Bizzaro universe, where good books made bad movies and bad books made good movies. Offspring wasn't a particularly bad novel, but was definitely one of Ketchum's weaker efforts. A sequel to Off Season (which hasn't been filmed yet due to a rights issue), which was your typical generic cannibal movie in book form, Offspring followed a group of children cannibals terrorizing some cardboard cut-outs from Maine. If Ketchum's more enriching experiences couldn't be duplicated in film, maybe one of his more generic pieces would lend itself better to the medium of film. Unfortunately, my parallel universe fantasy was dead wrong and what we're left with is incrementally worse than any prior Ketchum adaptations.

It's easy to forget that film-making takes immense skill, work, experience and luck to produce anything of quality. It seems like every other month there's another critically acclaimed independent film from someone who had nothing but a dream and a few grand. Unfortunately, these are the very rare exception and the reason why The Blair Witch Project, Clerks, El Mariachi, and Paranormal Activity are so famous is precisely because they are the exception. For every low-budget, low-experience success, there are numerous failures. Offspring is a harsh reminder of this. Everything about it shouts out "student film" or some deviation on the word "amateur". It's rare to see something of this low quality on the rack in a video store, let alone with distribution from Sam Raimi's Ghost House Underground and the only reason for this surely must be the link to Ketchum.

The picture is cheap consumer digital video, fluctuating in and out of focus. The camera-work is utterly bland with no sense of purpose or reason, simply shooting from one seemingly random chosen angle. Editing is sporadic, sometimes going through the standard way to edit a sequence (conversations cut almost on cue to the three requisite angles: long shot, over the shoulder 1, over the shoulder 2), other times apparently unintentionally jumpy. The lighting is so evidently off studio lights, particularly in the cannibals cave dwelling which looks like a cheap studio set. The sound effects are of the variety downloaded off the Internet, including the monotonous cricket loop, the popping gun sound and cheap thwacking sounds for axe impact. These are all aspects of film that are not always apparent upon viewing, but do make a gargantuan difference in quality and effect. Offspring, because of all this and more, appears to be a cheap student exercise rather than a real, albeit low-budget, production.

There are more superficially obvious muck-ups among Offspring though. The acting is quite frankly horrendous. Whether floundering under lacklustre direction or just simply bad, the actors appear to be attempting to outdo each other in lack of emotion or personality. However, it reaches its apex when paired with the atrocious costuming of the cannibal children. Drabbed with loin cloths straight out of Tarzan Halloween costumes and with tacky Walmart wigs atop their heads, these have to be the some of the least menacing cannibals possible. It isn't until they begin giggling like Chucky had he been sucking on helium that they become the least menacing villains possible, dethroning the killer leprechaun from Leprechaun and the killer snowman from Jack Frost. They run, scream, and jump around with the overacting zeal of an ecstatic kid playing charades.

The biggest problem however, is the script itself, which sadly was written by Ketchum himself. Few would have any doubts about his ability as a novelist (even if some critics do find his material repugnant or without any substantial merit), but his first foray into screen writing is deeply flawed. He has essentially transcribed the glut of the scenes from the novel directly to the screen with little to no alteration. An endless battle over the course of a night with cannibals worked within the context of the novel as the written form allows us to explore the characters thoughts, feelings and experiences, making it something more than just endless fighting. Here, this isn't true; the scenes are, when taken out of the context of the novel, pointless and meandering. The characters are stripped of their character. The story is stripped of all its insight and intelligence, already quite limited. Film and writing are two different mediums and in this case what worked decently well in one doesn't work in the other. We don't know why, for instance, the Sheriff so willingly helps track down the cannibals (don't worry, this is essentially the first plot point). In the book, we learn through his thoughts that it's motivated by a previous encounter with them that scarred him deeply. Here, he just does it and we don't care, true of nearly every event. The despicable menacing ex from the book comes across as a mere d-bag, the three adult protagonists as boring and shallow yuppies who speak constant cheese dialogue.

Of course there are those who will propose that Offspring is primarily a bloody, gore-fest and that if the film succeeds in delivering the carnage, it's a success. All I can say is that if baby dolls smeared with blood in plastic bags and the sporadic blood spraying of an insecticide pump filling in for a severed vein, there isn't much here to recommend.

• Dylan, allhorrorfilms.com

Offspring 2/19/2010

This is the third book by horror author Jack Ketchum to be made into a movie, the others being "Red" and "The Girl Next Door". "Offspring" published in 1980 was his first novel and deemed very controversial for it grotesque violence. The movie was made last year from Ketchums's own script and directed by relatively new director Andrew van den Houten.

The movie was obviously made on a very small budget and except for the violence and gore it really shows. Even though Ketchum is credited with writing the script, he should really stick to novels. The dialog is utterly comical, there is a paper thin plot and together with terrible acting it can be a chore to watch. This film can really only be endured by either hardcore horror fans or Ketchum Fans. This movie has clichés galore for every taste, the retired alcoholic cop, the small town police force, and the angry ex husband on a mission. Revealing past events in the form of old newspaper clippings is another one that is used in about 80% of all horror movies. The story, like the book, takes place in the coastal Maine town of Dead River (the ominously named town).

The story of "Offspring" involves a clan of feral savage. Think of Deliverance meets P.O.'d Native Americans. The reason I chose to write about this particular movie is for its depiction of the clan. This film is similar to the book in that it doesn't shy away from anything. This is a balls-to-the-wall bloody horror spectacle. It has kids killing adults, dead babies, cannibalism and so much more. Our main characters are quite one dimensional, like cattle being led to the slaughter. But they are not annoying like a lot of horror movies. With a bigger budget a lot more talent this could be a decent flick. For example, although the story takes place in Maine, an up close scene with a police car in the foreground is obviously from Michigan (which is were the film was shot). However, I did like how they used sound to heighten the suspense and creepiness.

The Clan members themselves which are mostly children, are well played. The actors really dug into these intensely psychotic roles. The violence and gore is also quite impressive and well done. Now that we know where all the money went, you can understand why the rest of the production is quite poor. Like I mentioned before if your not a hard core horror fanatic like myself I wouldn't bother with this one.

Offspring first? What about Off Season? Well, I've read on the Offspring message board that the reason why Offspring was chosen for film before Off Season is because of some rights issue. There were probably a couple skirts who were not being paid as much as the hard-working durable men, so they made a fuss. Eh, whatever.

But enough of that garbage, let me tell you a little something about Offspring, the latest Jack Ketchum work brought to celluloid. Well, it wasn't much. Actually it's as average as average gets.

The flick revolves around the.....what's the word...ya know, children, er, no....products....ehhh. Offspring revolves around the...leftover brood (that works!) from Off Season and these rabid savages aren't done hassling the surrounding community. This go around the young savages have this idea that a regular baby will help them somehow. So that's the target while they bite, chomp and stab everyone they can. I really didn't see the logic there since they had their own baby, but I think they mentioned something about that theirs was cursed or haunted. I don't really remember as I was focusing more on the the ridiculous acting by the savages. Roooaaaarr!! So yep, it's basically a fight for your life type flick. Which is fine by me.

My issue isn't with the story. It's with just how plain old uninspiring it all felt. When it comes down to awesome horror writers, Mr. Ketchum is the man. He writes some awesome stuff. But almost all of his flicks have been severely lacking, with Red being the best. And this is no different. The acting is really just so damn noticeable. It's just flat-out amateur. It's not awful in the sense that you hate the movie because of it, but it is at times cringe worthy.

And what's most strange about this film is that Ketchum wrote the screenplay. And by God, I can't tell if it's just the amateur acting that makes the writing seem poor, or it's the writing itself. The more I think about Offspring the more I'm thinking the actors aren't to blame. Sure they stunk, but I hate to say it but Ketchum's screenplay writing isn't up to snuff. I also throw a lot of the blame on the director as well.

Even though I say the movie isn't anything special, cause it ain't, but it's not totally a mess either. There's some pretty brutal violence on display. And there's even some nudity to boot. I'm also a fan (sucker) of the wilderness type setting, and this has a cave setting, a beach setting, forest setting.....so it looks nice.

But for all the child violence scenes that gives you that quick moment of joy, there's that scene of chit-chat that makes you roll your eyes. The flick is as average as it gets, but at the same time it's still a Jack Ketchum movie, and that's reason enough to watch it.

I hate it when movies start good and only after few seconds they deteriorate in a very bad way. I liked how it started with the man at his door sees a naked girl standing faraway and throws something and leaves. That took my mind in a totally different direction than that the movie turned out to be later.

Anyhow, it is only fair to say that there is one scene, only one scene in the movie that was reallllllllllly good. The scene when the blond girl eats the intestines of the husband and he is looking at his wife and kid and remembering how his day started. He is being eaten in a very savaged way and he is looking back at how beautiful his day started with his wife and beautiful baby girl. This was a very disturbing scene and one that horror fans usually appreciate and seek in horror movies.

I was going to say that this film was lazy and incompetent independent film-making at its worst. I keep trying to make this point; low budgets needn't matter, and we don't mind the cheap special effects and the limited sets if the film is made with passion and conviction. It doesn't cost anything to get the plot right; just imagination and attention to detail. But that's exactly what this film seems to lack.

An update of the Scottish Sawney Beane legend and transplanting to Maine and the Canadian coast, it has some promising ideas and a couple of effective sequences, but it fails to establish them or develop them properly. What's with the lighthouse keeper? We get a glimpse of a newspaper clipping while the opening credits roll, and one of the characters makes a brief reference during the film, but this history deserved telling properly, even if only narrated by one of the characters, and could have added real mythic power to the plot. But it appears the film-makers just couldn't be bothered.

And then 76 minutes later, barely achieving the minimum respectable length for a feature film, it comes to an abrupt end, with several characters and plot lines unresolved. Please no, don't tell me you're leaving the door open for a sequel. (Adopt appropriate gravelly voice: Offspring 2 – the new generation!) In between, there's a load of confused stumbling around in night-time woods or on stretches of beach that look nothing like the earlier panoramic daytime shots we had of the coastline.

I was going to say all this, but then I glanced up at the technical information in this IMDb entry. 100 minutes, it says. A hundred! But my UK rented copy was only 76 minutes; both the sleeve and the DVD timer confirm it. That's a quarter of the film gone! No wonder the plot seems sketchy, and you can't follow what's happening.

It is entirely incomprehensible. It carries a UK 18 certificate, which is the most serious apart from the 18Rs that can only be bought from licensed sex shops, and I don't imagine they have anything in them that can't be seen for free on the internet. What on earth can the UK censors have found that required 24 minutes of cuts? If it really was originally 100 mins I frankly don't see what the point of releasing the film like this is. At the very least, this review stands as a warning to UK viewers; check the length. If it's the 76 minute version I saw, I'm certainly not recommending it.

Edit: Barely a couple of weeks after posting this, I read in my newspaper that "The Serbian Film" had received between four and five minutes of cuts at the hands of the UK censor, and that this made it the most cut UK film for sixteen years. If that's so, then I was wrong to blame the cut from 100 to 76 minutes on the censor. This makes it all the more baffling. Why would you voluntarily cut your own film to such a skimpy dog's dinner? In any case, it doesn't change my recommendation (or lack of it): just the attribution of blame.