The Food of the Gods

Another of Bert I. Gordon's adaptations of the works of H. G. Wells, the others being the Village of the Giants (1965) and Empire of the Ants (1977), results in yet another amusing tale of giant critters reeking havoc!

Football star vacations on an island, where a mysterious substance on a farm is causing the local animals to grow to giant, killer sizes! Whats more fun than giant poultry?

Entertaining, some what cheesy, B sci-fi thriller is great fun for fans of the drive-in era. It's a wild and bizarre tale, as we have giant rats, chickens, and insects threatening human life! Although the film does show its budget, with a wide display of hokey B movie FX, it's all pretty fun schlock. The cast does a decent job, the best being handsome hero Marjoe Gortner.

The film never gets quite as silly as Gordon's later Empire of the Ants, but it does have its share of fun for fans of the B movie genre.

** 1/2 out of ****

A rare food taken by an old woman (penultimate film for Ida Lupino) provokes the excessive increasing on animals and bugs . Then killer beasts , gigantic flies , huge chicken , wasps , worms and enormous rats strike tourists on a secluded island . Football team players (Marjoe Gotner , John Cypher) enjoying vacations have to fight the giant monsters that are attacking people (Ralph Meeker , Belinda Balaski as an unperiled pregnant woman and Pamela Franklin's last film although she would continue to work on TV in guest).

This is an entertaining movie from expert Bert I. Gordon and freely based on H.G. Welles novel , being AIP's most successful film of the year . Although it suffers from average special effects and regular performances . The flies reproduction are quite badly made but the rats are better staged by means of true bugs increased by optics effects . Over-sized reproduction of massive worms , bulky chicken were utilized to incarnate the enormous creature effects and were also used various diverse mechanized rats . As six different mechanized rat heads and four human-motivated rat costumes were also employed . The miniature design and special props were made by Von Buelow , titles and optical effects by Universal title ; plus , the visual effects by coordinator J. Richardson and , of course , Bert I. Gordon who usually makes his own FX , he's a real craftsman . The movie gives special thanks to football team of Frazer University and the children of Sir John Franklin Community of Vancouver ,British Columbia , where it was filmed.

The film was produced in little budget by Samuel Z. Arkoff who created along with James H Nicholson the American International Pictures in which during the 60s and 70s produced several monster movies and the prestigious Roger Corman-Edgar Allan Poe series . The motion picture was professionally directed by Bert I Gordon. Bert is a B series producer/director , known as Mr B.I.G. He's a monster movies expert in which animals and men suffer voluminous shapes change caused by food or radioactivity. As occurs in ¨The cyclops¨ when the protagonist becomes a giant human monster,as well as a soldier converts in ¨War of the colossal beast¨, the immense insects of ¨Begining of the end¨, a monstrous spider in ¨The spider¨, giant ants in ¨Empire of the ants¨. Other his works in fantasy-terror are : ¨Picture mommy dead¨ and ¨ Necromancy¨, among them. It's followed by a lesser sequel titled ¨Food of gods , part 2 (1989)¨ directed by Damian Lee where the huge rats strike again and maim beautiful women.

A group of people, somehow associated with a football team, go to an island for a getaway. Well, they picked the wrong time for vacation because someone on the island has developed a new kind of food that causes the animals to grow to gigantic sizes. Great if you're raising cattle, not so great when the rats find it.

Inspired by H. G. Wells, directed by B-movie legend Bert Gordon, and starring a young pre-Dante Belinda Balaski, this film is pretty much exactly what you might expect it is. There have been plenty of large animal horror or sci-fi films, both before and after this one. Is this one of the better ones? Who is to say?

The film is good for what it is: people fighting large rats. Sure, it is silly and kind of cheesy, but is that not what you expect from sci-fi films of the time period, especially the giant animal variety? I cannot say this movie had anything special about it, but it sure was not terrible, either.

For what it is worth, Gordon calls this film the one he had the most fun making, due to the cast and crew being on a Canadian island far from the studio. He also had the pleasure of writing the script on the fly when an unexpected snowstorm prevented the original plan!

Paul Corupe says this film has "the most fearsome creatures of any Gordon film", but that seems highly contentious.

A last-gasp attempt at the 1950s 'giant monster' B-movie, directed by schlock purveyor Burt I. Gordon (aka 'Mr Big') who utilises some of his famed back screen-projected beasts onto the screen for the last time. FOOD OF THE GODS is apparently partly based on a tale by H. G. Wells, but turns out to a typical entry into the genre.

The storyline is simplicity in itself: creatures on a remote island have grown to giant size, and a group of diverse characters must battle to save themselves. In the lead is former child evangelist Marjoe Gortner, one of the oddest looking leads to populate '70s cinema; in support is Ida Lupino in her last screen appearance. Still, one of the performances really register as this is a film all about the giant creatures.

And the effects are pretty decent, at least in places. Things start off badly with some dodgy giant wasps and chickens, but once the rats come into it things really pick up, with some elaborately-staged set-pieces that convince in places. After that point it's an action-packed ride to the climax, with added gore and bloodshed for modern-day '70s audience. Although I had concerns about animal welfare - some of the rats look like they get genuinely injured/drowned - FOOD OF THE GODS turns out to be a surprisingly entertaining little monster flick for fans of the genre and a film which doesn't deserve it's poor reputation.

In this adaptation of a portion of H.G. Wells's "The Food of the Gods", a strange substance bubbles up out of the Earth and causes giantism in forms of animal life including wasps, chickens, worms, and rats. Among the unlucky people caught up in this invasion of plus- sized critters are football player Morgan (Marjoe Gortner), his teams' P.R. man Brian (Jon Cypher), expectant couple Thomas (Tom Stovall) and Rita (Belinda Balaski), pathologically greedy opportunist Bensington (Ralph Meeker) and his associate Lorna (Pamela Franklin), and farm woman Mrs. Skinner (Ida Lupino).

You gotta love him; veteran film director Bert I. Gordon was *still* relying on his favourite movie theme of large menaces at this point in time. This effort is ultimately dumb, silly, and sloppy, but just like many bad B movies, it's not without appeal, especially when it comes to supposed shock scenes (that chicken attack scene early on in the movie is a riot). The special effects, as one will expect, are for the most part none too convincing. The acting is variable; Gortner is likable as always as the hero. Veterans Lupino and Meeker had certainly been in much better films, but they're as solid as ever. Meeker is particularly funny in a very one note and sleazy portrayal. The lovely Ms. Balaski does well as the young mother to be who feels no need to marry the father of her baby. Gordon does generate some atmosphere from the surroundings; this was filmed on location in the Canadian province of British Columbia.

One thing's for sure: this will rub many animal rights activists the wrong way.

Six out of 10.