Offspring

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When a family finds themselves under attack and eventually kidnapped by a gang of cannibalistic children and taken back to mate with, the local police force and several friends of theirs who escaped must help rescue them before they become food for the group. This was quite an exciting and enjoyable effort with a ton of great features. Among the better elements with this one is the rather demented feeling on display here which is due to the sheer, utter brutality found with the cannibal tribe. Fleshed out to a greater degree than most other tribes of this kind, that allows for scenes like the first visit to their lair where we get to see their social structure as well as how they're going to go about on their plans as well as their overall appearance during the majority of the attacks in here really makes them quite shocking and chilling. That behavior is really helped out here with the fact that there's plenty of dark, thrilling scenes here that not only spell out the group's strange behavior but also manages to feature a lot of really disturbing and brutal attacks. This starts off with the absolutely fantastic opening attack on the couple in the house as the clan visibly and quite nicely goes after them throughout while the relentless attacks and stalking about the house leads to great action as chaos makes this incredibly fun which leads into the fun car attack outside to end this great scene. Likewise, the scenes in the woods as they're watching the group through the forest before the tense brawl and central abduction while other big scenes include the beach- walk ambush, a great encounter along one of the dirt-roads and finally the outstanding brawl in the tree-house for the finale which is great fun as well. The centerpiece of it all, though, is clearly the big encounter in the lair as a second sequence inside goes above and beyond by ramping up the gore with the eaten body-parts strewn all over the place and the beat-down of the friend, the encounters with the husband to try to get her out and the overall demented air about the scene which carries through from the rest of the film which makes this one so enjoyable. That attitude, along with the brutal and utterly bloody kills and the rampant nudity make this one so good that it holds off the few flaws in here. The biggest issue here is the sheer confusion regarding the tribe, as this one has no real purpose for them to there as the randomness of the attacks just seems so arbitrary and disorganized that there's more confusion rationalizing everything than there really should be. Even more confusing is their past history which seems to be non- definitive about how they came to be and where they came from, how they came to be cannibals and how they learned their weaponry tactics. The only other problem factor is the lame family drama in the first half which really hurts the overall pace in those scenes. Rated R: Extreme Graphic Violence, Full Nudity, Graphic Language, a Rape and children-in-jeopardy including threatening actions towards infants.

OFFSPRING is a Z-grade B-movie made entirely without merit or a reason to watch. It's an ultra-cheap slice of gore in which various uninteresting characters are menaced by a clan of Neanderthal-style cannibals who spend the movie cutting up bodies and devouring them. That's all there is to the film so anyone looking for depth, plot twists or an immersive viewing experience is likely to be disappointed. The film was of slight interest at the outset given that it's based on a book by noted author Jack Ketchum with the screenplay also written by him, but the poor execution wastes all that promise. The cast is also uninteresting, with only minor parts for Pollyanna McIntosh (EXAM) as the feral clan leader and poor old Art Hindle (who you may remember from the excellent 1978 version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) playing a guy investigating the murders. There's a lot of cheap gore but that's no reason to tune in either.

Not completely without it's merits, but most of them are buried below a sea of crap. I like Jack Ketchum, his stories do have an extra something. The script is let down by some poor acting and hilariously awkward moments that just don't fit. You can set up a character as a slimeball without such a heavy handed pervert/hitchhiker scene. The acting from the offspring/wild people is comic at best. One boy jumps into shot going "Hee hee hee", like some pantomime witch. The gore is done rather well, and there were nice parts, such as the first kill. It made a nice and chilling change to see a scene not played for jumps, but for the awkward silence. Perhaps worth a watch, as it is short.