directed by andrew van den houten
modernciné
Like, wow, man. Like, I hadn’t even planned on watching this movie, but as I was about to start viewing The Woman, which I had contemplated doing for quite some time, I suddenly discovered it’s a sequel to this one, of which I had previously been unaware. And! Yikes. Allow me to take a moment here to offer an aside: Offspring novelist (and screenwriter) “Jack Ketchum” is a very, very effective purveyor of terribly unsettling material, and is in fact the author of the rare novel I did not finish because I found it too emotionally disruptive (The Girl Next Door). Nothing that occurs in this film is all that unprecedented in our filmic experience, but it is profoundly disturbing nonetheless. Ideals such as “fairness” and “justice” have no place in Ketchumland, and sometimes the action provokes a sense of outrage. It may, in some minds, border on the obscene. Anyway, this movie is about a clan of cannibals living a prehistoric tribal existence and preying on unsuspecting suburbanites. It also harbors a subplot of extreme marital discord and disharmony. Abandon all hope.
why did i watch this movie?
Turns out I had no choice, if I wanted to view The Woman properly.
should you watch this movie?
I usually enjoy material that lends itself to an inquiry into what it means to be human, and how that meaning may be modulated. That probably sounds like a good time to you as well.
highlight and low point
The audacity of the premise and execution of same doesn’t have many parallels. Here and there the envelope-pushing seems as though it could be merely for its own sake and probably unnecessary … but I must reiterate that it’s from the pen of Jack Ketchum.
SPACE RATS From Outer Space 