I must admit as well as a slight fetish for found footage movies (even though they usually disappoint) I also love a creature feature, any mutated animal killing people, weresheep anything like that and I’m on it. I was browsing horror films and came across this one, the cover looks good (don’t they all!) so I thought I’d give it a go.
“Some of the CGI was pretty bad, that’s not to say there wasn’t any good effects as the practical ones were mostly decent.”
Budget – $2.5 million (estimated)
Runtime – 87 min
Director – Benni Diez
Writer – Adam Aresty
Stars – Matt O’Leary, Jessica Cook, Lance Henriksen
Trivia – The opening sequence with Matt O’Leary and Jessica Cook driving to the mansion wasn’t in the script. Moreover, Cook and O’Leary had to be flown back to Germany for the filming of this additional scene.
Trivia – Writer Adam Aresty came up with the idea for the story while working as a caterer at an outdoor party with a severe wasp infestation problem.
The story starts off with Paul (Matt O’Leary) and his boss Julia (Jessica Cook) in a van on their way to a party to do some catering, although it is suspicious how a catering company can run with only two people. Paul clearly has feelings for Julia sexually and romantically but she’s too stuck up with a better than you attitude, at least to start with so it’s easy to see where that’s going.
Once at the massive old creepy house they begin to set up the catering for the posh family, during this time Paul meets a couple of oddballs the son of the old woman who owns the place and a musician. He smokes a joint and generally gets to know the pair before the dinner begins but he is constantly pestered by a strangely big wasp.
I found the two main characters pretty likable even if their acting was on the dodgy side
It turns out the old woman has a spectacular garden that she gets from using illegally imported plant fertilizer. This seeps into the ground and anyone who knows monster movies knows this is very bad, it ends up creating seven foot tall wasps. These wasps attack the upper class snobs at the dinner party who mostly die in some pretty cool ways.
It’s then up to Paul, Julia and Mayor Caruthers (Lance Henriksen) to try and save the day. As you’d expect this leads to the usual chases, sneaking past, close calls and fights with the giant killer wasps. There’s not much else to add to the plot apart from the fact that it does leave things open for a sequel.
Good to see Lance Henriksen he also plays a reasonably likable character
The Good
Whilst I didn’t really enjoy a lot of this film the concept is pretty decent, it’s simple enough like most monster movies and who wouldn’t be afraid of a seven foot wasp beast flying at your face and trying to munch on you. The thing this did quite well was the deaths with a lot of entertaining and reasonably gory kills.
Also the main characters were not annoying which is quite hard to do, sure Julia was a little stuck up at the beginning but as the film runs her and Paul are a pretty likable duo. As was Mayor Caruthers and the weirdo son of the rich woman who’s mansion this is taking place in.
The film was much better when using practical effects than it was when using CGI
The Bad
There’s quite a few things the pacing of the film was off plus I like a good death to start these sort of films off with. The concept was pretty good as I said but the film didn’t really work, they decided to have some sort of weird half wasp, half man beast in it who had a small wasp thing on his shoulder seemingly controlling him. Could have been good but turned out rubbish almost as if they only did it to give the sfx guys something to do.
Talking of sfx some of the CGI was pretty bad, that’s not to say there wasn’t any good effects as the practical ones were mostly decent. Along with the acting not being great it made for disappointing viewing.
I’d recommend giving this one a miss, it was a monster movie that should have been much better. The comedy elements weren’t funny and although there were some good deaths they didn’t make up for the film lacking in many areas that make a good creature feature.
Overall Score
Acid Horrors 