Mutilations

I take a lot of pride in the fact that I can fully appreciate a psychotronic movie, as I had occasion to see many of them at the now out of business Backtrack Video and Records in Seattle Washington. I also feel very lucky to own a VHS of this movie, of which I will never part with. I put MUTILATIONS in the same category as WINTERBEAST, another film that regularly gets trashed by, shall we say in a polite way, those who just don't get it. They don't get the fact that independent films back then could actually be above their heads, regarding the craftsmanship it takes to make a movie that is so funny at times that it couldn't have been anything but planned. That's not to say that the film is all campy, however. There are many scenes that are well crafted fright scenes. And anyone who takes the laborious time and effort to create stop-motion effects deserves a lot of credit, since very few movies employed those techniques back then. If a camp Oscar was ever a possibility, the guy who played the teacher would win hands down. So a big salute to the people who made this film, which stands out as one of the best in its genre. And thank god MST2000 hasn't gotten hold of it, because they would again deserve to be shot for souring a whole generation of would be fans who, rather than using their independent brains, just go along with what they see on the brainwashing TV set. But that's a whole different subject. I regularly search for films they they "comment" on, which, by the way, they edit to fit their verbose, non-intellectual humor. I know, because I've seen many of the uncut, unedited films in all their campy glory. Video Watchdog missed a huge opportunity to "out" that bunch, since they often do side by side comparisons of alternate versions of movies. The only "cheese" in my vocabulary is that which I eat, and anyone who uses that term automatically goes into the uninformed, unintelligent, generation of "watchers" who can't go beyond what they merely see.

A college professor takes his students on a field trip to see alien sightings in rural Oklahoma and to check out mysterious cattle mutilations.The group runs into a half-dead cow with its flesh ripped off,a flying saucer and a farmhouse with an old hermit named Oliver Matson.They find themselves having to fight for their lives as they get attacked by stop-motion animated alien monsters obviously inspired by the works of Ray Harryhausen.Extremely cheesy and cheerful piece of local sci-fi/horror effort made in Oklahoma by Larry Thomas.The make-up and gore effects are pretty decent.I also enjoyed the stop-motion creatures and claymation effects.The acting is amateurish and the script is fairly silly,but this is a perfect movie to watch with the bottle of cold beer.7 out of 10.

Although this movie is truly a jewel, I don't feel it is fair to bump this up to the category of "Plant Nine From Outer Space". If you are looking for nit-ch film cult classics this would be one, I would think. The movies two best qualities are the scene in the caves where the hero and heroiness are running from the aliens and that the total running time is somewhere around 45 minutes. In the caves the most incredible actor, the fuzzy rat, bears its fangs… priceless. But if you have anything else to do, like laundry, mowing the yard or even taking out the trash your time would probably be better spent else ware. This is time you will never get back.

Now that is really funny. I'm sorry that I don't actually recall any of the "actors falling asleep on the set" and it being a "one shot, one cut" because I am pretty sure that dozens of takes were done before the final cut left the cutting room. I think you need to get your facts checked out since all of that slander is coming out wrong. And no, do not envision yourself as a twelve year old watching the movie because that is exactly what got the movie it's bad ratings. The film was intended to be taken in a clownish-fifties-saucer-meets-modern-day-movie-like context. I can tell you even films like Plan Nine from Outer Space took on some type of popularity. Please, in the future if you go bashing the producers and film crew of certain "oddly made" movies, please get your facts checked before you go blurting stuff like this silly boy did. I know because I was there when my father, the sole "owner" of the production company made the film. Please, please lets keep it interesting by keeping all comments on this site because that is why they let us use it.

Any faithful aficionado of truly bad film should find MUTILATIONS to be a near "Crown Jewel" that surpasses the vacuously mind-numbing dreck passed off as "bad film", raises the bar on too-bad-to-be-true production values though it's mind-warping psycho-nuttiness makes a case for itself. A simplistic masterpiece of ultra-low budgetry gone wild with creativity. When an astronomy professor and his students go on a field trip to investigate a possible meteor landing and reports of cattle mutilations in the same area, they find more than what they expected. Before they even make it to the suspected site, they are greeted with a near-skeletal, but still living, cow and an unfriendly space craft. Does this stop them? Noooo! They follow the leads to the home of a reclusive religious freak who babbles on about the end of the world and hideous monsters from space coming to Earth. Armageddon strikes, for this old coot anyway, shortly after when the alien space craft makes a landing in his living room!

The rest of the film is filled with the professor and his students battling the hilariously bad giant aliens. Kudos to the FX though, the aliens are both inventively done and disturbingly entertaining. This is no STAR WARS, but if you enjoy an over-the-top low budget mind blower this flick just may be your ticket to the loony bin!