poolandrews Review of Food of the Gods II

Food of the Gods II (1989)

A pretty good horror film, I kind of liked it.

[7/10 · 27 November 2004]

At a small American University, Professor Edmund Delhurst and his assistant Brett (Robert Kennedy) are performing experiments on rats to try and create a cure for both cancer and as a sort of hobby baldness. Animal rights activists Mark (Real Andrews), Alex (Lisa Schrage), Al (Stuart Hughes) and Angie (Karen Hines) break into Delhurst's lab and destroy his equipment and notes. Meanwhile fellow research scientist Neil Hamilton (Paul Coufos), who conducts his experiments on fruit and vegetables, is asked for help by one of his old teachers, Dr. Kate Treger (Jackie Burroughs). Kate has been trying to halt the growth pattern of a young boy named Bobby (Sean Mitchell) with a drug named 1-92. However, instead of reducing his height and growth the drug in fact actually increases it. She asks Hamilton for help, he agrees but tells Dr. Treger he needs samples to work with. So everything he asks for is sent over to his lab back on campus. Hamilton experiments long into the night and creates a serum that accelerates growth in tomato's, now he figures all he has to do is create an antidote. Hamilton's assistant Joshua (Frank Pellegrino) convinces him he must test any serum he develops on rats first, claiming that he's potentially gambling with Bobby's life, he agrees and some rats are taken from the biology department. Before he knows whats happening his girlfriend and animal rights activist Alex turns up at his lab, not wanting to get into an argument over the rats with Alex, Neil and Joshua hide the rats behind the giant tomato plant. The inevitable happens and the rats start to eat the giant tomato's through the bars on their cage. Later that night animal rights activists Mark, Al and Angie break into Hamilton's lab and in an accident all the infected rats escape. Before long there are loads of giant mutant rats running around the campus and feeding on the staff and students. Hamilton wants Dean White (David B.Nichols) to evacuate but is told that he doesn't want a scandal, and cannot cancel a party for the opening of a new Olympic standard swimming pool, which a lot of rich and influential people will be attending. Lieutenant Wetzel (Micheal Copeman) claims since it's private property that his hands are tied. As the bodies mount up Hamilton must find a way to locate and destroy the killer rats and save Bobby before it's too late. Directed by Damien Lee I liked this, even though the way it's filmed is very flat, the production design and photography screams made for T.V. It certainly kept me entertained me for an hour and twenty odd minutes. The script by Richard Bennett and E.Kim Brewster keeps moving at a fair pace and is entertaining enough. But I still don't understand why Hamilton develops a serum that increases growth when he needs to develop a serum for Bobby to reverse his growth. The gore effects look OK with various ripped off faces, limbless torsos, decapitated heads, bitten off arms and torn out backs, but the stand out scene is where one of Hamilton's fellow scientists tries to steal his growth serum and cuts his finger on a glass slide and becomes infected with the serum, he starts to bubble up and melt in a pretty gross looking scene that boasts good make up effects, just ignore the crew member you can see in the bottom left hand corner of the picture with a syringe pumping the white goo that comes out of his bubbling skin. The giant rat effects weren't as bad as some say, a mixture of normal rats and miniature surroundings plus basic puppets, their only seen in quick flashes and didn't look that bad to my eyes. The giant hand effect at the end looks terrible, though. There is only one scene of nudity. The simplistic music sounds at times like it was composed on a children's electric keyboard. Overall I quite liked it and think it's at least worth a watch.