Director: Bert I. Gordon
Year: 1976
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Nature-Run-Amok
Plot:
Taking a trip out to the countryside, a group of friends tries to get help for one of the group when they’re attacked by a massive creature and wind up at a farmhouse in the middle of the woods that’s plagued by a series of monstrous, killer animals created from a bizarre chemical spill nearby.
Review:
Overall, this was an okay if somewhat problematic genre effort. The main positive to be had with this one comes from the setup here that allows it to wind through the kind of intriguing setup that it does. The whole idea of the way the group winds up at the house through their trip out into the woods, where they get attacked by giant bees, and try to find help at a farm that turns out to house the giant creatures hunting them, manages to be a solid starting point, which gets this going rather well. This not only generates a strong central pace where it gets immediately into the action with the group encountering the creatures quickly and trying to find a way to save themselves at the farm, but it also sets up the main bits of investigative work about what’s happened to them when they realize the strange oil spill nearby is what’s causing the animals to grow large and vicious. This provides pretty much everything necessary for this kind of film to work effectively and efficiently, and becomes a strong starting point.
This is also rather fun when it deals with the creature attacks in general, as those are pretty fun. Regardless of how one feels about the creation of the effects using obvious stunt doubles in animal costumes to try to paint the size disparity with the giant animals interacting with the characters, they allow this one to generate some rather fun encounters with the different farm animals shown to be attacking and interacting with the surviving group. The initial encounter with the giant bee attacking the one member in the woods to set everything up is a fun touch, much like the gigantic chickens inside their coop, which features several close calls. The rat attacks pull this off the best, from their encounter in the underground tunnel, an ambush at their abandoned camper, and the full-length confrontations in the finale, where the rats chase them around the island, making for a strong slew of scenes that keep the action strong throughout by playing up the relentless horde idea of the creatures. These all come together to provide this with a lot to like.
There are some issues that hold this one down. The biggest issue here is the inherently cheesy tone that comes from the effects that are far too old for something like this to come off effectively. There are more than enough scenes of outright silly and somewhat shoddy effects using the fake animal heads interacting with the humans in their scenes together, but countering that with other scenes placing real-life animals in miniature sets and trying to pass it off as if the creatures and the humans are in the same location, it all becomes rather hard to take it all seriously, with the full-color effects giving away the process quite frequently. Moreover, the ability to see the damage and impact of the violence committed against them when the bullet wounds are visible is a tough watch for more sensitive individuals who are unsure of how it was accomplished. Combined with the generally lackluster final apocalyptic coda that goes on a bit longer than it should, these all come together to be the main drawbacks against it.
Overview: ***/5
A solid and likable if slightly troubling genre effort, there’s enough to like here that it remains quite enjoyable, although the flaws here are enough to lower it overall. Those with an appreciation for this style of genre effort or who are fans of the creative crew will have the most to like here, while most others out there might want to heed caution with this one.
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