|
 Cuppla
years back, the oddly-named Canuck filmmaker Conall Pendergast
grabbed a camera and ran amuck on his local campus, throwin’ buckets of
guts everywhere and terrorizing the faculty. The result?
Flesh Freaks, a
rock ‘em sock ‘em no-budget zombie epic that piled on lotsa laughs and
gallons of grue. Tagged at the end of said flick was a trailer for a
mutant-powered splatter flick called, charmingly, “Kill Them and Eat
Them”, which pretty much guaranteed that no chick would EVER
see it, but every dude WITHOUT a chick surely would.
And hey, here it is. The plot of this ‘un is SO screwy, so fuckin’
loony, that I fear my brain may unravel just trying to get it down on
paper, but what the hell. See, there’s THE COMPANY, and THE
COMPANY knows all, sees all, right? Most of the time, sure. Not
this time, tho. The CO.’s prized mad scientist (every company
has one!), Dr Gore (!), has gone renegade, building himself a
make-shift genetics lab in somebody’s suburban basement. Along with some
twitchy loudmouth guy, he traps homeless people and shoots ‘em fulla some
kinda formula that turns them into “mutants”, which means they have claws
that look like burnt roast beef, and giant heads that are some kinda
unholy cross ‘tween
Brak and that
hare-lip kid in Creepers. They’re called “Skeletoids”,
I think.
These mutants serve no purpose except to trap unsuspecting souls wandering
around the facility and rip their faces off. Oh, and sometimes they go to
the grocery store to buy tortilla chips. Anyway, two “COMPANY” men
eventually track Dr Gore down and try killing off his mutant army
(there’s like, 5 of ‘em) with blowdryers wrapped in duct tape. There’s a
biker chick locked in a closet, too. Oh, and the loudmouth guy gets turned
into a blue mutant, and has a
War of
the Gargantuas style battle with a green goo-mutant. I don’t wanna
give the ending away, but it involves Cuisinarts.
 All
along the way to the bloody (well, maybe not bloody, but certainly,
uh, WET) climax, the various characters explain the action-so-far,
in an attempt to make some kinda sense out of this hodge-podge of bad
science and possible political allegory, but, you know, FORGET IT,
Jack. There are no heads nor tails here, just guys in weirdo monster masks
running wild. And that’s ok, I mean, they don’t all have to be
think-pieces, but it does make for a head-scratching 80 minutes. Aside
from the confusing plot, however, there is plenty o’ fun to be had with
the misadventures of bumbling corporate hacks (who conduct business from
an abandoned mens’ room), the bug-eyed mad doctor’s assistant (“Glands?
What do you think this is, the 1930’s?”), the great and terrible Dr
Gore (who has a semi-Hitler mustache, and talks like Johnny Cash),
and, of course, the toothsome mutants.
Aside from the usual smash-cuts and blood-on-the-walls cheat-shots
inherent in ultra-low budge flicks, “KT&ET” is a pretty unique
looking film. Utilizing LOTS of ultra-close-ups and SWIRLY cameras,
it keeps a manic, cartoonish pace throughout it’s running time, and scenes
are sutured together with brief animation bits. Side-stepping the usual
headbanger clang, Pendergast also shows off a tasteful ear for
soundtrack music, and occasionally, it works brilliantly, like in the
scene where the COMPANY men chase down a mutie in the woods as
junky 60’s jazz clatters away drunkenly in the background.
Ultimately, the thorny, nonsensical plot hobbles “Kill Them”, as
this is the kinda movie that really doesn’t benefit from talky
explanations, but it it’s still got plenty goin’ for it. If yer a
backwoods splatter fan, check it out. It’s funny and sick, just the way
you like it. Ya freak.
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