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23. Feeders 2: Slay Bells



It's your Horror Review Advent Calendar.
25 Christmas themed movies.
Ho, ho, ho.

Director: John & Mark Polonia (1998)
Starring: Bob Dennis, Jon McBride, Patricia McBride
Find it: IMDB

I had no idea that there was a Feeders 1. After watching this sequel, I'm vaguely curious. More than any other movie I've watched on this Advent Calendar, Feeders 2 is the biggest surprise. I loved every moment of it. Feeders 2 has itself a merry Christmassy theme, with the titular aliens invading Earth during The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year. It's up to Santa Claus and his Elves to save the day. Really. A handy opening montage recaps the story of the first film.

I don't know what I'd been eating, but I did a dark green shit once. Too much information, I know. But the aliens in Feeders 2 are the spitting image of that green toilet trout.  Maybe they should have called this film Close Encounters of the Turd Kind. They're the worst looking aliens I've ever seen in a film. There's little consistency - sometimes they look like poo, other times like pipe cleaners stuck to a  ball of sage & onion stuffing. They sound annoying too, screeching for every moment they're onscreen. At first it's quite effective, but it soon grates. That this is the film's biggest problem is a stunner. I expected Feeders 2 to be unwatchable. But it's quite the opposite.


Everything is hypnotically bad, from the crappy aliens to the music and acting. That acting - maybe purposefully bad, but I doubt it - is like Napoleon Dynamite, all stilted deliveries and vacant stares. The children are actually better than the adults. 


The music is utterly fantastic, all elevator muzak recreations of 'Oh Christmas Tree', 'Jingle Bells' and 'Greensleeves'. Its rendition of Greensleeves sounds like an early mobile phone ringtone. I'll be hearing it for the rest of my life on the soundtrack to my wettest dreams. 

Just as it begins to droop at the halfway mark, Santa turns up and is attacked by the aliens. I physically did a LOL as an alien attached itself to an Elf's face. It's made even better by the fact that the Elf is so obviously just holding a doll to his face. It's a terrible movie, but I loved every moment of its surreal stupidity.

For what it is, Feeders 2 is quite impressive. Obviously it doesn't take itself too seriously (it's Santa Claus fighting aliens) so you've only yourself to blame if you watch it expecting something good. It's almost competent though, which I honestly hadn't expected. I actually preferred it to Peter Jackson's Bad Taste. Which is a symptom of my own Bad Taste I guess. Feeders 2 is a close encounter of the best kind.


1 comment:

  1. I could have dealt with the silliness, terrible acting and stupid story...but the constant flashbacks to the first film- ugh! What was the point of them, other than to make the movie a certain length?

    Furthermore, since the Polonia Brothers were so cheap then, one of them is the lead in both films. Which means that he dies in the flashback and then it just cuts to him in the present!

    Plus, these flashbacks don't shed light on the plot going on now.

    This was just the first time that I was burned by the Polonia Brothers, but it still stings the worst.

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