input: Who could possibly have wished for a sequel to Bert I. Gordon's legendary bad trash-film "Food of the Gods"? Nobody, of course, but director Damien Lee thought it was a good idea, anyway, and he put together a belated sequel that stands as one of the most redundant movies in horror history. "Gnaw" is a sequel in name only, as the setting moved to a typical late 80's location (a university campus) and also the cheap & cheesy gore effects perfectly illustrates the 80's. This script hangs together by cliches, awfully written dialogs and plot situations that are not so subtly stolen from other (and more successful) horror classics. Neil Hamilton is a goody two shoes scientist who performs growing-experiments on ordinary rodents in order to do a fellow scientist a favor. Due to some incredibly stupid animal rights activists, the huge and ravenous rats escape and devour pretty much everyone on campus. Following the good old tradition that Spielberg's "Jaws" started, there's an obnoxious Dean who refuses to admit the problem even though severely mutilated corpses are turning up everywhere. During a hysterically grotesque climax, the rats invade the opening ceremony of the campus' new sport complex! "Gnaw: Food of the Gods 2" is terribly bad and therefore a lot of fun to watch! The characters do and say unimaginably stupid stuff (like descending into the sewers unarmed while they KNOW it's infested with rats), the acting is atrocious and there's a genuinely bizarre sequence involving the hero having sex under the influence of growth-serum! I wonder what Freud's theory would be on that! There's a satisfying amount of gore and sleaze and it has to be said the music is surprisingly atmospheric. In case you just can't get enough of this junk, there are quite a lot of creature-features revolving on mutated rats, like the Italian schlock film "Rats: Night of Terror", the modest 70's cult film "Willard" and its lame sequel "Ben", the 2003 "Willard" remake starring Crispin Glover and the surprisingly good recent rat-movies by once-famous directors Tibor Ticaks ("Rats") and John Lafia ("The Rats"). Go nuts!

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pos/neg ans: negative

input: A model named Laura is working in South America when she is kidnapped from her hotel room by a gang and taken into the jungle. They demand a huge ransom for her release. Peter is hired to get her home safe and there is a bonus in it for him if he can bring back the money as well as the girl. Peter is taken to the jungle by helicopter with friend Jack. They try to give the kidnappers fake money in return for Laura but the plan goes horribly wrong and they have to bail out in the helicopter. The helicopter is shot and they also have to bail from that (not going well so far). Also roaming the jungles is a devil of sorts. In reality its just a naked black guy with weirdly big eyes and a breathing problem. He starts to kill a few of the kidnappers and Laura escapes only to be captured by some primitives. The rest of the film is a bit of a blur really.

Now I'm not a massive Jess Franco fan, in fact to date this is only the second film of his I have seen, but even I can tell that this really isn't one of his best efforts. The films drags along at a pretty slow pace without much at all happening. The whole thing could have been edited down quite easily into a 25 minute TV show. There are plenty of overly long shots of people walking through the jungle that could have just been lifted straight out.

Devil Hunter is poorly lit (Infact I don't think it was lit at all), badly dubbed, poorly acted and slow yet for some reason it didn't bore me. I think the main reason for this was some of the hilariously bad scenes in it. For example a scene where Laura is walking in the street was obviously shot in a real street as crowds of people stop to stare straight at the camera as its shooting. Another funny scene has one of the gang who has been killed, hung in a tree dripping blood as one of his friends stands directly under him screaming for what seems like minutes. Then for no reason at all the man in the trees head just falls of and hits the guy under him. It has to be seen to be believed. Then of course there is the actual devil. It is just some naked black guy who despite the fact he has massive eyes, he has very blurry vision.

The film was hooked up in part of the video nasty scare in the 80's here in the UK and was banned. Now why it was I have no idea. There is very little gore at all and it's hardly a shocking film. Minus the nudity I would have said that it could get away with a PG almost. The only thing I can think of is that it was never actually watched and was added to the original list because of word of mouth.

There is not much reason to watch this film really unless you are a massive Jess Franco fan. There is plenty of nudity to keep you from falling asleep and also some scenes that are so bad you can have a good laugh at them but other wise I would say just pay for a ticket to South America and get lost in a jungle. It would probably be more fun.

3/10

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pos/neg ans:
negative