Plot
Four men out in the woods hunting deer
have to fight for their lives as a horde of carnivorous aliens are unleashed
when a meteor crashes into a lake.
Review
I'm in a difficult position when it comes to reviewing
low budget horror films like this. On one hand I applaud the fact that films
like this are still being made, independent of big studios dictating every
single move. There's a certain charm to them because they're usually made by
fans for fans or at least contain some degree of love for the genre
somewhere in the crew, be it the writers, special effects guys or
cinematographers. And if it wasn't for guys cutting their teeth in films
like this, then there wouldn't be anyone to "progress" to making bigger
budget films. Peter Jackson is the best example of this. However on the flip side, these films are usually so devoid of
any budgets that they look like guys making a home movie. From a technical
standing, the
films are poor, either with dodgy lighting, muffled sound and with the look
and feel of a twenty-year old VHS which has been repeatedly recorded over
and the tracking has gone making the film all fuzzy.
Night Feeders is one such example. It's got a good heart but is so
abysmally made that it's hard to see over the faults.
I'm not usually a fan of films where it's clear the
director has called in a few favours from his mates to work for free.
However in this case, the casting of the four men is near perfect. They look
and talk like your generic redneck hunters with shotguns, especially the larger-than-life guy who
sounds a bit simple when he opens his mouth. They're not the best actors in
the world but you can tell they're giving everything they've got. And it
works because they're not pretty teenagers with pearly-white teeth and
perfectly-styled hair. They're unshaven, rugged guys with bad teeth and
scruffy hair. Take note Hollywood - they are believable characters. We don't
give a second thought to them tooling up and barricading themselves inside a
farm house whereas we would if it were a scrawny cheerleader and her jock
boyfriend. It's this connection that manages to keep the heart of the film
going as long as it can. Unfortunately that's about a long as it takes the
aliens to show up.
The aliens look awful in all honesty. They're kept in the dark as long as
possible but it's inevitable that they will be needed to appear in the open
at some point. And as soon as they do, you'll probably pause the film and
start laughing uncontrollably. You wouldn't be scared of these dweebs one
bit. I would have preferred to see a guy in a cheap fancy dress costume
running around the woods ripping people up but I guess the lure of CGI is
too much for some people. If you want to see how to create effective aliens,
then watch Evil Aliens - buckets of blood and guts and the aliens are
guys in suits for most of the time. CGI is quick and nasty and the proof is
here for all to see. Any attempts at creating atmosphere or tension are just
thrown away as soon as the cartoon aliens show up looking they wandered in
off the drawing board of Futurama. At least the aliens get well fed
throughout the film and there's lots of blood spilt.
Verdict
Night Feeders is hard to
recommend simply because it's so cheaply made. I really wanted to like it and
really want to show my support for low budget horror filmmaking. The
director has got some good ideas and I love the realistic characters. Give
them a bit of cash and some decent production values and let's see what they
can. The potential is there so let's just pretend Night Feeders is a
promo film!
