The Food of the Gods

Disappointed to see some recent reviews that give this score a low rating. This movie is from the 70s - of course it's cheesy and the special effects are low budget when you compare it to movies made today. Watched this film when I was a kid and loved it - very scary for its time. And the end scene - what if! Definitely haunted me.

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.

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.

If you don't know who Bert I. Gordon is let me give you the jist of his movies: big things attack people. What's with this guy. Just about every movie he does has a giant something or other attacking people. And this is no different. This film is unintentionally funny and feature giant rats, bees, maggots, mosquitoes and funniest of all: giant chickens! You haven't seen a bad movie till you see a movie that has a man fight a giant chicken and still take itself seriously!

This is one of those movies that should have appeared on MST3k but didn't (a darn shame). With really fake gunshot wounds (rats are "shot"... shot with red paint and look perfectly unharmed) this movies good for heckling with friends.

A great title (borrowed from the greatest science-fiction writer of all time) and downhill from there, but this fun flic with a bad rep, for good reason in a couple of spots, taken in its entirety offers more entertainment value, pound for pound, than most of the other 'eco-terror' flics of the '70s; that's not saying much, but there were plenty of 'em: Bug(75); Night of the Lepus(72); Squirm(76); Kingdom of the Spiders(77); Prophecy(79); Empire of the Ants(77); Frogs(72); Day of the Animals(76); Ben(72); and even Phase IV(74), which was more intelligent but a bore. The only one on par with this is Piranha(78), whose director, Dante, moved to the A-list, and the original Willard(71), which had the added psycho angle. Beyond this, "Food.." contains a wicked depiction of American 'can do' gumption, embodied by Marjoe (an odd choice for leading man). He kills a rooster which was just minding its own business and defending its turf, and never apologizes to the owner (Ida Lupino). Later, he causes the deaths of his buddy (Cypher) and the obvious villain (Meeker-slumming,but the 'go to' guy those days for bad guy roles) by refusing to listen to their logical arguments for getting out of the mess they're in. No, it's his way only, 'cause he's the toughest around these here parts, and if a few people get eaten due to his manly choices, well, that's the American way. In a very strange way, it called to mind the relentless expansion & colonization represented by the American spirit; OK, that's a stretch, but, in another genre, his role would be played by someone like John Wayne, who needs to make the tough decisions. However, if you look more closely at Marjoe's character, he seems to have some crazy death wish. At one point, when they already know the island is infested with giant killers, he decides to go look around in his jeep, which offers no protection at all; his friend, echoing the thoughts of the audience, asks what the hell for? Marjoe doesn't really have an answer; he even says "I don't know." Wild. I first saw this as a teen when it came out, in a downtown theater in San Francisco and sure, most of the FX, especially the dam breaking and water pouring out, caused me to groan in another sort of horror, but seeing people getting eaten alive by giant rats was nothing to laugh off back then. This looked pretty grisly. I recently acquired a decent DVD version and the photography was quite good. Oh, and a bit of a twist ending, to boot! The much later sequel, having little to do with this picture, really was a waste of time.