Directed by Tim Kincaid
Expectations: Moderate. The poster looks awesome.
On the general scale:
On the B-Movie scale:
If I had noticed that this was a Wizard Video release prior to sitting down with it, I might have tempered my moderate expectations a bit. The only release of theirs I’ve reviewed so far was the god-awful trashfest Dreamaniac, so after the opening titles I had flashbacks to the boring mess that was that film. Thankfully, Breeders isn’t quite as bad, but it’s nowhere close to good either.
In what is probably the most impoverished story yet in our horrific October, an alien is under the city raping virgins. That’s literally it. There’s a doctor and a cop trying to figure out what is going on but they don’t have a fucking clue and neither does writer/director Tim Kincaid. After doing some research, I learned that Mr. Kincaid, in addition to directing a couple of science fiction B-Movies, is primarily a homosexual porn director. You never would have guessed it from the footage taken in Breeders though, as it features hands down some of the most gratuitous female nudity of all time. Whenever nudity comes around in any film, I always find myself questioning it and wondering if it is necessary or gratuitous. The debate only raged for about a second on this film, as it is clearly exploitative. Does every girl in the city strip nude when they arrive home? They do in this movie! The film ends with all the nude women writhing in an alien pool of white goo (symbolism?) for about the last five minutes of screen time. No shit.
The film does have a few bright spots thanks to some fun and rather gory effects work. The alien transformation I mentioned in the previous paragraph is one of the best moments of the film, as a dude just starts screaming, falls to the ground and rips open his shirt. His chest bubbles and pulsates convincingly and realistically, as if some extra terrestrial creature has burrowed in and will burst out at any moment. They choose the high road and nothing ends bursting out, instead having his chest slowly open into multiple sores squirting blood. The guy starts to pull away his melting skin as the camera cuts away. Shortly after, a bug-eyed alien shoots out its tentacles and rapes the nude swimsuit model screaming directly into the camera. Every one of these rape scenes features an extended shot of the actress screaming directly into the camera. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen another film with this many screaming shots. It’s annoying, but also pretty funny after the second or third time when you start expecting and waiting for it.
Make no mistake. Breeders is an absolutely abysmal film in terms of technique, but to simply write it off at that is missing the point though. It’s clear what the intentions of the filmmakers were here, to make a fun film filled with full-frontal and all kinds of alien shit. Kincaid succeeds masterfully in this department and delivers exactly that, so if that sounds good to you, don’t hesitate to check it out. Just don’t expect moral depth or character arcs and you’ll have a good time.
Come back tomorrow as we continue the weekend countdown to Halloween with the little known directorial début of Evil Dead 2 co-writer Scott Spiegel, Intruder!