Mold!

The blurb and quotes on the DVD cover for writer/director Neil Meschino's Mold! compare the movie to 80s cult horror classic Street Trash, which seems reasonable to me: I didn't rate Street Trash all that highly either.

Set in 1984, Mold! takes place in a top secret laboratory where a highly virulent, genetically engineered strain of mold (or mould, as we English spell it) has been developed to wipe out illegal drug crops. Unfortunately, it also proves deadly for humans, as the scientists and military top brass in the establishment discover when, one-by-one, they come into contact with the super spores.

I was expecting bad acting, I was expecting dreadful dialogue, and I was expecting unconvincing special effects, since all of these elements are par for the course in deliberately cheesy trash such as this. However, I was also expecting the whole silly affair to be a lot more fun that it actually was.

Mold! takes an awfully long time to get to the good stuff, with way too much talk and unnecessary plot development before getting gross. Unfortunately, when the messy special effects eventually happen, they're not all that special: a lot of green goop and blood gets thrown around, and there are some extremely unconvincing rubbery body parts that go splat and plop, but there's nothing that proves particularly memorable (unlike Street Trash, which at least ended with a genuine showstopper—a glorious decapitation by gas canister).

I rate Mold! a disappointing 4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for the brief shot of a mouldy prosthetic schlong, which promised levels of deviancy that never materialised, and for finding a flimsy excuse to get actress Ardis Campbell down to her undies.

Bad writing, bad acting, bad direction...the only good thing about this flick is that it wasn't longer. This horror of a horror flick made me not only pray, but to use every New Age mind trick imaginable to influence those who responsible to never be involved in any form of entertainment (especially movies) of any kind.

Neil Meschino's first attempt as a director to make a full feature. First of all, this isn't a straight horror with gore and blood like the old slashers, neither can it be compared with the horrors of nowadays. This is clearly a throwback to the low budget horrors from way back when effects were done without CGI.

By doing that and not giving us the nudity we expect from a horror or not seen a drip of gore or an amount of blood this isn't one to recommend to newcomers. this is really one for the old school B-movie buffs.

One thing that the production had in mind must have been, okay, we don't have the big dollars, how are we going to attract viewers. Luckily they made the right choice by putting their cash into the effects and let take it all place in a simple setting. On the other hand they let some characters doing over the top acting which luckily worked out fine. By doing so I even had to laugh a few times because it sometimes had a bit of humour in it.

Still, the effects are very simple and do refer to the old school horrors like the melting of a head or eyes being melted. I wont go into titles but there are so many to mention. The score used is also a throwback to the early eighties. But as I said, I never had any problem with Mold! but I can understand that some buffs will miss nudity and gore. The female do get out of her clothes but sadly the underwear she is wearing is a real let down.

Gore 2/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 1/5

The actors were not completely bad and the premise, even with the low budget and cheesy special effects, could have gone towards a nice little horror movie. Instead, they decided to make it a horror parody, which pretty much spoiled everything as the result was neither horrific nor funny.

The film itself gives off a lot of mixed signals. A psychopath seems to have written the dialogues, the special effects and acting are like from a 70's movie, down to the gigantic security cameras, the black and white monitors, the time lapsed "mold" growth and giant moustaches, but it was made in 2012. There is no real comedy in the film, only inadvertently, from the really bad script and ridiculous green and red goo splattered all around.

Bottom line: I don't know what the makers were trying to achieve, but the movie sucked on several levels. What annoyed me more was that with the same resources and a decent script this could have easily become a cult movie.

and here's why... I love classic 70's and 80's horror films, especially in the Lucio Fulci Italian horror movie style. The makers of this film, are definitely fans of the genre.

I went in expecting a cheesy, bad film, and that's exactly what I got, BUT it's made cheesy and bad on purpose. THAT'S what makes it great!! Set in the 80's and filmed very much in that style, I could totally flash back to renting old VHS and Beta tapes (yes, I'm old) of cheesy horror movies at the party store 2 blocks from my house. This was time BEFORE video rental stores like Blockbusters and Family Video.

I would rent these movies, and spend my whole weekend watching them over and over, THIS movie brought me right back to that time, and I felt like digging out my old toys, laying on the living room floor, and just reliving my childhood.

This has everything a great 'bad' movie needs, just enough comedy, cheesy effects, laughable dialog, and even a couple spots of bad over dubs. I loved it!! and if you loved anything about the 80's low budget horror genre, you should LOVE this movie too!! Thanks to everyone involved in this film, for making me feel young again... now where did I put my Quiet Riot LP?