Food of the Gods II (1989)

"It's their party... you can die if you want to."

Plot

Biologist Neil Hamilton succeeds in synthesising a growth hormone and uses it to create giant tomatoes in his university campus laboratory. However, a cage of rats is accidentally placed within reach of the plants and they soon devour the tomatoes, causing the rats to grow to the size of the dogs. When a group of animal rights activists break into the lab, they inadvertently free the rats which escape down into the tunnels beneath the campus. As they grow bigger, their appetite increases and they soon start satisfying their hunger on humans.

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Thirteen years after The Food of the Gods and its bog-awful special effects was unleashed upon the world, H.G. Wells would be turning over in his grave with his literary material being 'loosely adapted' for the screen once again. With no correlation to the previous film, Food of the Gods II is just another interpretation of his 1904 story and has seemingly just ‘sequelised’ itself to latch on to the bit of notoriety the original still retained. But who would want to make a sequel to a film heralded as one of the worst ever made? Expect lots of giant rats, not a lot of common sense and a whole heap of cheese. So bad it's good, or just bad? I can't quite decide.

I’m not quite sure what possessed someone to even contemplate doing a sequel but this Canadian-made production does all it can to prove that they were utter fools for doing so! Unlike the original which played it totally straight, Food of the Gods II does have a knowing campness to it. Be it through a dream sex sequence which ends with one participant suffering from a badly-timed case of gigantism, seeing a giant boy with a foul mouth enter the room and tell the good doctor where he can go forth and multiply, people being smacked with a giant fake hand or just via the daft rat puppets that are used for the attack sequences, the film clearly knows it’s not going to be taken seriously so why not run with it? Food of the Gods II could have gone a lot further with this tone but it just doesn’t do as much with it as it can. For every dose of absurdity and silliness, the film bogs itself down with some seriousness: in an early scene, a young infant is attacked and dragged off to feed the onslaught of rats. It’s grim stuff which clashes with the helpings of cheese on display.

There is a steady stream of bodies throughout Food of the Gods II. After all, these are giant rats and have a giant hunger to satisfy. As a result, the daft special effects take centre stage. You’ll see real rats crawling over miniature sets. Furry prop rat heads and puppets used in close-up attack sequences. Images of real rats scaled up in size and superimposed on the frame in others. There's plenty of forced perspective shots. If it was the 50s or 60s with Bert I. Gordon directing, this could be forgiven but in 1989? You would have hoped that special effects would have become better in the thirteen years since the original but the effects department here must have either been locked up inside a bunker or they intentionally used similar effects as a homage to the original. Perhaps I’m giving them a bit too much credit as although the special effects are atrocious, they do add a lot to the goofy charm. And I’ll also add that I’ll take the cheap-looking but physically-there old school puppet effects over CGI any day.

Where Food of the Gods II does get it right is with the gore. Though the rats look daft, the carnage they cause is anything but. Throats are ripped out, backs are torn apart and other body parts are chewed off. The camera lingers on the gratuitous damage that the rats do, though from a monster flick from the 1980s, I’d expect nothing else. Throw in a random melting as one character injects himself with the serum with gooey consequences and you’ve got a film which at least knew what its target audience wanted to see – check off the nudity too with Kimberly Dickson’s appearance in the aforementioned dream sequence too. This is arguably the only difference between the two films - the exploitation elements are of the more gratuitous 80s variety meaning more blatant and in your face. Had the original featured the same levels of sleaze and exploitation, you'd think that was the better film.

Cast-wise, you’ll not recognise anyone but even jobbing actors must have a hard time swallowing the fact that starring in a film like Food of the Gods II would be a good career choice. It's up to actor Frank Pellegrino to shoehorn in the film's title in one of his snippets of dialogue. And despite the ending, in which Bobby, the giant foul-mouthed boy responsible for the film's funniest line, manages to escape and get out there into the wide world, there has been no second sequel. There was thirteen years between the first two films so there's still time for Food of the Gods III... anyone? Anyone? No seriously, anyone?

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Final Verdict

Food of the Gods II is a trashy film: a poor cash-in sequel with a ridiculous premise that was already dated and eye-wateringly absurd back in 1976 – dragged back to life thirteen years later for no good, sane reason. However, due to the nature of its content and cheesy 80s approach, it’s arguably the better film. It’s not the greatest monster movie out there, heck it’s not even the best killer rat flick out there, but it’s entertaining for what it is and will pass the time away nicely with a few beers and friends around.

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Food of the Gods II Director(s): Damian Lee Writer(s): Richard Bennett (story), Mike Werb (screenplay) Actor(s): Paul Coufos, Lisa Schrage, Réal Andrews, Stuart Hughes, Karen Hines, Frank Pellegrino, Jackie Burroughs, Sean Mitchell Duration: 91 mins