Review - Mutant (1984 - Dir. John 'Bud' Cardos)

This is a film that was an ever present at the legendary Creepy's Video Emporium. And I never actually saw it. I watched virtually everything else Creepy had to offer but not this. It never really appealed. Maybe I sensed its severe lack of blood. That doesn't explain why I rented Teen Wolf though.

Like so many horror films, Mutant starts with some young whippersnappers - brothers Josh (Wings Hauser) and Mike (Lee Montgomery) - driving down a road and surprisingly they have a near miss. With some hillbillies. Who bear a grudge.

But Mutant doesn't veer into Wrong Turn territory. It becomes (amazingly enough seeing as though it's part of the Year of the Dead Season) a zombie film. Admittedly they are comedy zombies, complete with pale faces, dark eyes and outstretched arms. The comedy zombie (would that be a comebie or a combie?) arms are justified by their need for some kind of biologically scientific component of blood which they take from their victims using tiny little slits in their hands. Hence the outstretched arms, you see. There is also a worrying steaming excretion that pours forth from their hands that looks like what can only be described as nose dirt that has been percolated in Satan's bottom. 

Wings (father of Cole Hauser from The Cave for anyone mildly interested) is a strange choice for a leading man. The romantic scene between him and 'way out of his league' Jody Medford is completely preposterous and cringeworthy. Surely, even in the eighties ladies didn't fall for fellas with huge Hasselhof haircuts. Now if he had a moustache maybe I could have understood it.

Mutant is all fairly entertaining. It has a relatively slow build up but when the combies come the pace picks up. None of the cast take it seriously and it's a good job. But there's no outright winking at the viewer, which again, is a good job. In a similar manner to other films of this time period and ilk it doesn't try to do anything fancy. It's just fun. Not gory in the slightest but fun nonetheless.
5/10
evlkeith



If you like this you could also try:
Dead Heat, Monolith, C.H.U.D.