Mutant, also known as Night Shadows and a few other things, is a 1984 horror film starring a guy named Wings Hauser. What an awesome name by the way. We need more people named ridiculous things. How about Jet Panzer? That sounds pretty action like. Anyway I saw this film recently and thought I would fill you in as it seems this movie isn't talked about too often.
The movie is about two brothers named Josh (Wings) and Mike who are on vacation, spending time with each other for the first time in eight years. They decide to go somewhere and start driving recklessly, which invokes the wrath of a group of rednecks in a truck that runs them off the road. So sadly they have to go to redneck town in order to get their car fixed. The first thing they do is find a dead body, and Mike wants to report it. They go to a bar asking around for the police where they run into the rednecks from before who start a bar brawl. In this fight they are nearly killed by these maniacs when a Sheriff finally stops them. Mike informs the Sheriff of the dead guy, but when they go to find him, some other bum is laying where he was. Then Mike and Josh stay at a local Bed and Breakfast where Mike is attacked from under his bed by someone emitting a lot of smoke.
When Josh wakes up bright and early at the crack of noon to get his car fixed so he can leave this crazy town where he was nearly killed twice in the duration of a night, he discovers Mike is gone. So he goes into town and the only place open is a bar. Here he discovers that many people in town are getting sick. This leads to an "investigation" where we learn that people in town are turning into mutant zombie things and attacking people.
They seem to bleed yellow acid stuff from openings in their hands and they are made from toxic waste. All this leads to a few people in town running from these creatures. Much of them are townsfolk who attack them in one long stand off moment at the end of the film.
I feel I have spoiled too much already, especially for a movie that has likely not been seen too many times. So let's tell you what I think of it. The movie is pretty slow paced, even though things seem to happen often early on. It is however, largely just talking. This isn't a problem for me but I could see someone giving up on this movie easily. It really has the feel of a 50's horror film where people talk about vague science and investigate until a big finale of sorts. If I had watched it some other time I may not have enjoyed it a whole lot, but I was kind of in the mood for that sort of thing so I was lucky.
There is virtually no violence to speak of, and no ladies or dudes get nekkid in it so you can't really look forward to that. The thing with this movie is that throughout it I felt it had some charm I couldn't put my finger on. This is the kind of movie you show to a seven year old to scare them because it doesn't have much R rated content, but that doesn't mean it is stupid or anything. Nothing in the movie is truly good or bad, it just happens to be okay. The most stellar thing about it is the soundtrack by Richard Band which is very appropriate and fun throughout. I don't know why but the whole thing was just kind of fun. If you are looking for a bad movie you can laugh at, this isn't it. If you are looking for a great scary movie, this isn't it either. But if you are just looking for something half decent that you haven't seen and are bored... here you go.
Just a quick note here. When I did my Dolemite review, (My least viewed review.) I mentioned that I plan on reviewing all the movies in the Dolemite Experience Box. I still plan on doing that, but I will do movies like this in between as well.
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