HG Wells’ Food of the Gods
DVD Reviews | Oct 14th, 2007

Starring Marjoe Gortner, Pamela Franklin, Ralph Meeker, Jon Cypher, Ida Lupino
Written By: Bert I. Gordon
Directed By: Bert I. Gordon
Studio: MGM
Buy on Amazon.com link
I don’t really know what to say about Food of the Gods. Here’s a totally fascinating plot synopsis for you: Guys go to island. One guy gets offed by giant wasps. Other guy gets attacked by giant, barely mobile rubber rooster creature. Guy leaves. Guy comes back. Lots of people get attacked by giant rats.
Yep… that’s about it. Well, there’s also something about some greedy jerk trying to get the strange chemical that mutates animals into giants, but that just seemed like it was tacked on so the filmmakers could say that there actually was a plot.
It’s supposed to be a horror movie, but it’s just so goofy and ridiculous… and the effects! My goodness. The giant flying wasps were achieved not with props, but with badly-drawn animations. At least, that’s what the end result looks like. Maybe they actually were props, and the effects guys were just incredibly inept at combining them with the other film elements? Who knows. The point is, they look terrible. And as mentioned above, the giant-animal props used to interact with the humans looked like… well, giant, largely immobile rubber animal props. Ooh, scary! Actually, I think the most interesting part of the movie is the DVD cover. Who doesn’t love bad art depicting a scantily-clad woman getting her arm gnawed off by a giant rat with glowing red eyes? Yeesh.
And you know, a very dear friend of mine has some pet rats, and they’re some of the most adorable little buggers ever, so I guess I thought the giant evil rats looked more cute than menacing. Actually, even though they totally ate a bunch of live people, I felt sad every time one of them was shot. Of course, the acting in the movie was so bad that I was pretty much rooting for the rats to eat everyone and conquer the world, but that’s just me.
My recommendation: if you’re looking for a good horror movie, or even a decent horror movie, or a scary giant-animal flick of any sort, look elsewhere. If, however, you’re looking for something completely ridiculous and poorly made to watch at a drunken Halloween party, you might want to check this out. The giant-rooster attack had me in hysterics, and I was completely sober.
Features:
None. Absolutely none.
Audio:
Dolby Digital mono (English, Spanish, French)
Video:
1.78:1 widescreen
Subtitles:
English, Spanish
Favorite Scenes: The part where the dude got eaten by giant rats… while he was still in his car! Ahahaha. Take that, ya hoser.
Rating: PG
Running Time: 88 minutes
Extras Rating:
Overall Rating: