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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.

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.

Take Dawn of the Dead, let the light hurt the eyes of the zombies so that all the action takes place in unsatisfying darkness, add stupid characters that keep putting themselves into unnecessary danger, and you have Night Shadows. I saw the movie under the title "Mutant" and for the most part regretted having rented the video. The movie, reminds me of Chud, except not as good (provided that you would even want to Chud good). Personally, I'm tired of "chemical waste makes monster" theme - so any movie with that focus has to be good to get my attention. This film is not good. Its not quite a total bomb either, it has some good scares, and one or two spots of worthy black humor. So after you've rented all the other good zombie-type movies, this one might be worth a look -- barely. Rated 3 on 1-10 scale

Granted it is my undying love and interest for the horror genre that lured me to watch "Night Shadows" (aka "Mutant") when I happened to stumble upon it by sheer random luck. And never having seen it, much less having heard about it, I did of course sit down to watch it.

Sure, "Night Shadows" is oozing with a thick layer of 1980s horror flick, so much actually that it permeated out of the TV and into the living room. But that is part of the charm of the movie, and it definitely worked well in favor of the movie. So fear not.

The story told in the movie was actually entertaining, albeit somewhat generic. But hey, it still made for adequate entertainment, which is what really mattered. And I must admit that I was genuinely entertained by the movie for what it was and for what it turned out to be.

"Night Shadows" is well-paced, also one of the key factors that kept the movie watchable and afloat, for certain.

Oddly enough I can only remember seeing Wings Hauser before in "Beverly Hills 90210", but I must say that he actually turned out to carry the torch in this movie quite well, despite it being a little odd seeing him in a movie such as this at first. And if you have been watching movies in the 1980s and 1990s, then you definitely will also be familiar with the face of Bo Hopkins.

The special effects in the movie were cheesy, let's not beat around the bush here. The special effects were little more than a thick layer of corpse paint slabbed onto the actors and actresses to portray those infected with the mutation. They somewhat were a bit zombiesque in their demeanor, but they were intended to be zombies - hence the "Mutant" title of the movie, obviously.

"Night Shadows" is the type of movie that you will watch once, and probably never again, because the storyline didn't really have enough plot and contents to it to sustain multiple viewings. But if you enjoy a good old traditioned cheesy mid-1980s horror movie, then by all means do sit down and watch "Night Shadows" if you get the chance.

The cover box called this movie 'Mutant' so I knew it wasn't going to be about flower arrangement (good) and it starred Wings Hauser (could be good but then again he could overact mightily) and it was very cheap might be awful) but as it was a wet tuesday I bought it. Much better than I expected.

Wings was restrained, Bo Hopkins good as usual and the other cast members fine. The two female leads were particularly good. They all took part in your usual chemicals contaminates town turning folks into murderous zombie type things sort of plot but the photography was atmospheric, the music creepy or emotional as appropriate, the make up scary and it all built up slowly but surely to a suspenseful ending.

The ordinariness of the setting makes it more frightening. It could be happening in the next town to you!

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.

This was one of the worst movies I've ever had the misfortune to buy. I got a copy for $4.99 and feel I was ripped off! First of all, Mutant was filmed almost entirely in the dark. So for most of the film, you can barely see anything and you keep thinking, "Someone get a flashlight, please!" Then, the script was so awful that nothing happens for almost an hour and a half. You're just waiting for something to happen and it doesn't! Only in like the last ten minutes of the film do you get to see anything. Basically, the directing was awful, the script was awful, even the acting kind of sucked. The only good point was the monster makeup was great, but you barely got to see it. This movie had the potential to be a great horror film, but failed miserably.

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!

Brothers Josh (Wings Hauser) and Mike (Lee Montgomery) are driving south for a vacation when they run afoul of redneck Albert (Marc Clement) and his gang. The resulting encounter leaves Josh's car in a creek so the brothers head to the nearby town to get some help. What they don't know is that the town folk are turning into zombies that can burn you with their touch thanks to some illegal toxic waste dumping. A favorite from my childhood, I was surprised at how well this held up upon re-watching some 20 years later. Director John "Bud" Cardos - who apparently replaced HOUSE ON SORORITY ROW's Mark Rosman - creates a good crazy small town atmosphere and the last half hour is full-on craziness as Josh, love interest Holly (gorgeous Jody Medford) and Sheriff Stewart (Bo Hopkins) try to survive. It ends up coming together like a remake of Romero's THE CRAZIES with less Army. Plus, anytime you have the intense Wings in a lead role, you know you will get good things.

*version I watched not original UK titled "Night Shadows", but same minutes* 1st watched 11/12/2020, (Dir-John "Bud" Cardos): Bland zombie-like cheaply made movie. The movie starts with a couple of city brothers(Mike & Josh) taking a drive in the country to get away from their daily stresses. They are harassed by country folk who drive them off the road and wreck their car. They than head into the closest town hoping to get some help, but don't get any and instead are drawn into the town's problem. A company in the town is dumping chemical waste and creating mutated folks who love to kill just like zombies!(who knew, right?) The sheriff played by Bo Hopkins and a doctor played by Jennifer Warren seem to be figuring things out, but that doesn't last for long. It than just becomes a "Night of the Living Dead" re-tread and it can't climb itself out of it. This movie was originally titled "Night Shadows" in it's UK theatrical release, which makes less sense - but it basically the same movie as the US release titled "Mutant." Either way, it's not a very good movie. Wings Hauser (As Josh), and Jody Medford(as the girl that follows him around) have the most screen time, but their acting is not very good. Only watch this if you just want to watch a bad movie(which sometimes I do), so it's understood.

The citizens of a small town start to disappear, and the few remaining people discover a local toxic company has had a toxic spill that has turned the people into blood thristy mutants or zombies. Technically well made, the story is familar though. Scary and exciting in a few scenes, but the film strives to be scary throughout and misses the mark by a little bit. Still a worth while film, but no classic. 7 out of 10. Also, the effects are good. Available on video as Mutant. It played in theaters as Night Shadows.

If you can overlook terrible acting (particularly by the female lead), incredulous character behavior, and gaping plot holes (in other words, if you like 80s horror flicks), this isn't too bad. The make-up effects & stunts are above average, as are the suspenseful build-ups to some chilling scenes in the last third of the movie. Plus, any horror flick that isn't afraid of bumping off a few kids gets extra credit from me. It never fails to make me giggle when two youngbloods can get it on in the midst of dying relatives and utterly bizarre circumstances. The last lines of Mutant (the alcoholic proposes getting a drink) are priceless. 2/4 stars

Brian De Palma protégé Mark Rosman was originally slated to direct this atmospheric tale of dark small town secrets and horrific toxic waste effects. Unfortunately, schlockmeister Montoro's runaway ego not only sinks this production, but ultimately brought his company, Film Ventures International, crashing down in ruins. After rewriting the script himself (via hired gun Orton), he fired Rosman after a week's shooting and replaced him with marginally competent ex-stuntman John 'Bud' Cardos. The result is an exasperatingly dopey "action/jeopardy thriller" (Montoro's term) that retains just enough creepiness to not completely disappoint fright flick fans.

Cardos manages to keep the actors from bumping into the scenery, cinematographer Al Taylor achieves some spooky lighting effects on what was clearly a minuscule budget, and Richard Band contributes a surprisingly rich score.

Acting is iffy, as is common in this genre. Seemingly impervious to the mind-numbing dialogue, Wings Hauser plays the hero with all the customary bug-eyed ferocity that he brings to villainous roles. Bo Hopkins looks a little sheepish slouching through his clichéd "lawman on the wagon" part. But most sympathy should be reserved for Jennifer Warren -- she must have wondered how she could have plummeted so far from the glory days of working with Paul Newman and George Roy Hill in "Slap Shot" and Gene Hackman and Arthur Penn in "Night Moves." Also watch for a wooden Cary Guffey -- the little boy from "Close Encounters" -- who apparently had all his dialogue looped by a 30-year-old. All glory is fleeting.

Night Shadows AKA MUTANT, is a very overlooked horror movie. I remember Wings Hauser in various films and TV shows in the 80's at the time. He does well with the characters he played. In this film, I give him a lot of credit. In "Night Shadows" AKA "MUTANT", plays Josh, he and his brother go out in a Southern town after being run off the road by some local ruffians. Josh and Mike(Lee Montgomery) go into town. They enter the bar where the rowdies hang out. The sheriff(Bo Hopkins) helps the out of towner's to a Inn. They spend the night, but when daylight hits, Mike goes missing. Earlier, Mike found a man dead near the fence. But when it was the town drunk, the sheriff picked up a sample which later became hot to the touch. When Josh went to the gas station, it was closed. He goes to the bar which he meets Holly(Jody Medford). She works at the bar and is a teacher. She informs that the owner of the station is sick. Not only that, it appears the whole town is sick as well. When he uncle who work at the bar got sick, he developed a light sensitivity. When the sun goes down, strange beings roam the streets. It's the towns folks! When they got sick, they become mutant zombies. The cause of the insanity is the plant built by some of the locals dumping chemicals, causing the whole town to be sick and zombified. Sadly, the brother and the kid from school were the unlucky ones. So Josh, Holly, and the sheriff fend off the undead locals until the state law enforcement arrived. It was a very interesting movie. I liked it well. 2.5 out of 5 stars.

Sub-par, below mediocre. Strictly incompetent. There is nothing to recommend in this dog of a movie, save for a couple of decent actors like Bo Hopkins, Lee Montgomery and especially Jennifer Warren. But the writing is awful, the special effects are shoddy, and this is 99 minutes you'll never get back !!!

I tried desperately to watch this. The good brother is eye candy, & the acting is what you'd expect. But from the jump, one stupid southern stereotype after another prevented me from investing in the story. I loved/lived the '80's, but this is too much even back then. I'm from that the South, & we're not all a bunch of stupid, ignorant rednecks (although lately, living in Texas has been hard).

So, I'd give this one a pass. There are so many other great '80's B movies, I'd just move on.

This movie, sadly, went unrecognized. I am a fan of B movies mainly because they view a part of out mind we haven't or may never see or think about, an almost creative part. Anyway, this movie was pretty good in my view. However, I think they should've stuck with the name Pestilence because that sounds so much more deadly than Night Shadows (sounds too much like a haunted house movie) or Mutant (sound too much like a mutant monster movie like Spawn of the Slithis or The Being). Anyway, if you really like zombie movies, especially any of the Night of the Living Dead trilogy (yes, it is a trilogy) or Dead Alive (aka Brain Dead), you might really like this movie.

Well, I've seen far worse horror flicks but I've seen better, at least this isn't another Italian movie just using gore to satisfy the viewer. By the way, in Germany this movie runs with the title "Mutant 2", and don't ask me what the first one is, I don't know and I don't care. But basicly I like this kind of cheap horror movies, sometimes I think the low violence level is not wanted but a necessity due to short budget. But that doesn't make it worse, cause I've seen too may movies that were bad enough, but the violence scenes were just so badly made and cheap that it ruined the rest. The thing that really freaked me is that I've seen a few known faces in this flick, they must have owed the director something.