The Food of the Gods 1976 MGM Home Video   Buy It Now

The idea of giant monsters attacking for most conjures up images of Godzilla or perhaps Mothra; Japan’s essential cinema when it comes to mutated behemoths. But, nature gone wild, the result of mankind and his mistakes isn’t something that’s new or simply a Japanese thing. While Japan may have very well taken the stance on the sins of atomic warfare, Hollywood did the same with drive-in classics like Them, 20 Million Miles to Earth, and plenty of other films, but not all Hollywood invasions are enjoyable.

H.G Wells would probably be rolling over in his grave if he could see what Hollywood has done to his stories, and very rarely do you find a faithful adaptation of his works, and The Food of the Gods is probably the one that would have him raising form the dead to seek revenge. The movie is very up front in the beginning that it is a film that is about nature getting its revenge. Moran (Marjoe Gortner) a football player has come to a small island with two teammates to do a little hunting, but disaster strikes when one of them is found dead and later an autopsy reveals that he has been stung by wasps.

Something doesn’t site right with Morgan and he returns to the island again hoping that Mrs. Skinner (Ida Lupino) a woman he met previously might be able to shed more light on the subject. Jack Bensington (Ralph Meeker) and his assistant Lorna Scott (Pamela Franklin) have also come to the island seeking the miraculous growth formula that Mrs. Skinner has claimed is a “gift from god.” However, the stange substance has caused the animals to grow to a monstrous size, and if giant wasps and chickens weren’t enough, the giant rats that are now on the island are out for blood; human blood.

The Food of the Gods is the type of movie that has Mystery Science Theater 3000 written all over it. I have some respect for bad science fiction and bad horror, but The Food of the Gods is beyond bad, it’s beyond horrible, and it proves once again that movies about giant rodents just don’t work. Now small rats, like in Willard, that’s fine, but when they get to enormous proportions like here, the movie quickly becomes a foul atrocity, the kind that can win awards for being so bad (which The Food of the Gods did) and perhaps only a drunken stupor might make the movie enjoyable.

But why not leave the island you might be wondering? Well, there is just one ferry that brings visitors from the mainland over, and coincidentally enough, it won’t be returning for quite some time leaving our victims stranded and with only one option; survival. You can see why after they are attacked by giant, translucent wasps, the result of an extremely bad post production overlay, Morgan is faced at one point with a menacing giant rubber chicken head, and then there are the rats. The rodents are just turned loose on models to do their thing, whatever that might be, and once again added in during post production. When necessary, there are the fake rats, heads only, that “attack” Morgan and everyone else, usually resulting in hilarity and some poorly done neon blood. And to complicate matters, there’s also the pregnant woman and her boyfriend who have become trapped as well.

The Food of the Gods however is anything but a cautionary tale. As far as the tainted “food”, which sometimes looks like milk, other times resembles a melted milkshake, we never really do get a true explanation of where it came from or what it might be. Instead the film replies on bad effects that and poor dialog delivered by equally poor actors. Think of the movies as being something of Night of the Living Dead, instead of zombies we have rats, intermixed with another equally bad “monster” movie, Kingdom of the Spiders. The difference however is that The Food of the Gods lacks all of the cult classic status that Night of the Living Dead has, and isn’t quite as cheesy as what Kingdom of the Spiders is, but at least with that film, you know full well that it isn’t going to be a masterpiece and there is some room for tolerance. The movie also leaves itself open for a sequel which wasn’t filmed until a decade later. I assume that the there was hope that the public had forgotten about the first one.

There aren’t any bonus features found on the DVD, but is that really a surprise? With some bad movies, the cast accepts that they are just that and they may have even earned themselves a cult status, meaning that no matter how atrocious it may be, it is still worth coming back and perhaps doing some interviews or providing commentary. I can understand why no one who was a part of the movie would have any interest in coming back again to rewatch the movie, talk about it, or anything else, and as far as some be3hind-the-scness effects material, it would only result in more bad viewing material.

The Food of the Gods is anything but a masterpiece, and when it comes to adaptations of H.G. Wells, it is by the far worst. I’d almost rather sit through the latest incarnation of War of the Worlds, but I did say almost. At least The Food of the Gods provides some very unintentional comedy, but as far as redeeming cinema, it is anything but that, and to call it camp would be an insult to those films that truly do fall into that category.

-mike-