The Food of the Gods
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Movie Reviews of The Food of the Gods
Movie Review: Giant Chooks
Summary: 3 Stars
Wow, giant chooks, rats & wasps, what better premise for a movie! Ida Lupino and husband combine a natural outflow with chicken feed to create monster size creatres on an island in British Columbia. Unbelievable story with great scenery but loads of fun.Movie Review: Food of the Gods
Summary: 2 Stars
Nature strikes back once again in 1976's FOOD OF THE GODS, a loose adaptation of the H.G. Wells novel directed by B-movie favorite Bert I. Gordon. Giant over-sized animals are set loose on the inhabitants of a small island after drinking a mysterious nectar that flows from one of its farms. If giant rubber chickens and giant rubber wasps weren't enough to kill tourism, giant puppet rat heads certainly will be! This cheesy creature feature is filled with horribly unconvincing special effects and weak acting, but Gordon's monstrous rats are not nearly as entertaining as the rabbit rampage in NIGHT OF THE LEPUS. What it does feature is an unexpected amount of animal cruelty, where live rats are maimed and dismembered on screen. A few scenes take advantage of some decent miniature work and forced perspective, particularly when the RV is overrun by the bloodthirsty rodents. While FOOD OF THE GODS has aged poorly, it is still good for a few cheap laughs at its own expense.
-Carl Manes
I Like Horror Movies
Movie Review: Fans of Marjoe Gortner Will Like It
Summary: 1 Stars
And very possibly nobody else. I suppose this is indeed what's called a "cult film."
MGM calls this series "Midnight Movies," and that's appropriate. Remember when you'd watch all the low-budget horror flicks on local TV stations at midnight? "Shock Theater" was ours from Philadelphia, but we all had something like, I'll bet. This movie fits that mold.
I reviewed the book only recently[...]and said that I had to know whether Marjoe Gortner plays a big person or a little person. Well, folks, this IS a low-budget flick: they only alluded to the part of the book where humans got really huge. And BTW, in true cheap trick flick style, the picture on the cover is not something that ever happened in the movie. But it does give you a cleavage shot, which I'm assuming is the point.
[...] That was what made me want to see this movie. Actually, he's pretty believable as an actor. Or maybe it's just that the rest of the cast was not particularly good actors. Only Ida Lupino, who played Mrs. Skinner, was a name you may have heard. Lorna, Marjoe's love interest was played by Pamela Franklin, and she did the best she could, but the part was very oddly straddling several cliches. She was Bensington's (Ralph Meeker, a name vaguely familiar) employee, some sort of biochemist. She talks frankly to him about what a pig he is, presumably knowing he can't afford to fire her.
OK, plot synopsis, for those who expect the movie to at least resemble the book. It's real different, folks. Morgan (Marjoe) is a football player who decides he needs a bit of a vacation, so he goes to "the island." Said island is never named, but the credits mention Vancouver. He takes his PR guy with him, who needs a break, too, and one of the other players, I think. It was not quite clear exactly who the third guy was. Perhaps he was a former player who was now coaching? Seemed a little old to be an active player.
Anyway, he was the first to die, stung by giant wasps. They took the body to the coroner, who concluded that he must have been stung by at least 150 wasps -- but then he's thinking the regular size ones. So Marjoe and the PR guy return to the island to try to find out what's going on. Mrs. Skinner has the Food of the Gods (although she would not call it that, since she is apparently a very devout Christian), only in this movie it came pouring down a hillside. Therefore, the "mad scientist" part falls on Bensington, who (as Lorna points out more than once) doesn't care anything about anyone except himself and his money. Mr. Skinner had gone to the mainland to discuss a deal with Bensington, and he returns to the island to try to consummate the deal with Mrs. Skinner, or simply rob her of the stuff.
You see, it makes anything immature grow big, very big and very fast. When she explains about the giant chickens, she pointed out that it didn't seem to affect the full-grown chickens at all. "So nothing happened to the adult chickens?" asks Morgan. "I'm not saying that," she answered. "They got et by the big ones."
It doesn't take long to discover that rats have gotten to the feed prepared for the chickens, and the rest of the story concentrates on the rats. Mrs. Skinner does get attacked by some sort of larval, wormy thing, but they have legs, so maybe they are supposed to be caterpillars. Anyway, they are gross, and they grab her hand when she reaches into her pantry. If you can explain why she kept her hand there instead of drawing it back quickly, I'd appreciate it.
Much of the special effects are pretty obvious, and the size of the creatures doesn't seem to stay all that consistent. The rats, especially, seem all much of one size when they are attacking what is clearly a model house, but seem different when they are shown up close. The DVD case lists this Fun Fact: "Oversized reproductions of worms, chickens, wasps and rats were used to create the 'gigantic creature' effect. Six different mechanized rat heads and four human-motivated rat costumes were also employed." Worms don't have legs, folks.
There are many questions. Why was Mr. Skinner driving with his car window down when it was pouring rain? What were those mysterious lights in front of him, perhaps reflections on the camera lens? Where did the food of the gods come from, after all? Once a single rat broke through the kitchen window, why didn't they pour through there? Why was there a single white rat leading the pack?
I can give it one star. It's not a total waste of time. It's just a cheap and rather predictable movie.
Movie Review: To Be Avoided at All Costs!!1
Summary: 1 Stars
This film was simply awful in the lowest meaning of the word. It has no connection with Wells' interesting classic, despite the title. Wells' story ends with the created food having been fed to babies, producing a new titanic form of humanity. In this film, the "food" seeps up from the disturbed Earth in a remote area, wrecking vengeance on the evil humans polluting Mother Earth. I don't object to the film being made on a limited budget, but a limited budget is no excuse for producing rubbish (look at the wonders Val Lewton achieved with low budgets). The acting is poor - how a gifted actress like Ida Lupino got involved is a wonder to me (maybe she just needed the money?). The script is lame and the dialogue predictable. The action lurches and limps: for me, there was no dramatic tension at all. I give this film one star because there is no lower grading. Save your money and time: don't buy this film and don't watch it if you are offered a viewing. Other film adaptations of HG Wells' novels will reward you if you give them a try, eg, "War of the Worlds," "The Time Machine," "Things to Come," and "The Island of Dr Moreau." (I advise viewers go for the originals, not the remakes.)Movie Review: Actual animal abuse. Wish someone told me earlier.
Summary: 1 Stars
I first watched this movie 'years' ago when I was a kid and remember liking it. So when I found it again I bought it. It's campy, the acting and special effects are bad, but overall it's entertaining enough if only because it's so easy to make fun of. I mean, seriously. You find some weird gloop coming out of the ground and after realizing that it's not oil, your first instinct it to 'feed it' to your chickens?! And don't get me started on the 'transparent' flying wasps.
But the most important thing that I really wish someone told me about is the actual, REAL LIFE ANIMAL ABUSE that is show in this movie. Rats are killed, maimed, drowned - you name it. Not fake rats but real ones. I don't know how it was allowed, seriously. I kept telling myself that it was just really good special effects beyond their time but...nope. Looked it up and it was real. Real animals being killed. Great. That's one movie I'll never watch again.