Mutant

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!

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.

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!

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.

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.