Offspring

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.

The DVD box cover for "Offspring" brandishes 'brutal... gruesome... shocking'. I wonder if whomever at horror.com who wrote this actually watched the same movie as I have watched. Because this movie was anything but those three things. The story is about a clan of flesh-eating cave-dwelling savages whom prey upon people in Dead River, Maine. Right... This storyline was so fundamentally ridiculous that I gave up on the movie after 35 minutes and stopped it to watch something else. So the audience is to believe that in this day and age that flesh-eating savages still exist and roam the hillsides? And better yet, they are smart enough to use modern day tools and cover up their private parts because this is what their lack of exposure to society and mannerism has taught them. Right... The whole concept of the movie was ludicrous, and was delivered by the actors and actresses with no conviction, which just made it even more difficult to buy into the story and the world that director Andrew Van Den Houten was trying to sell with "Offspring". This movie will quietly go to die on the DVD shelf, never to see the light of day again. This was without a doubt one of the worst movies that I have stumbled upon.

I hate it when movies start good and only after few seconds they deteriorate in a very bad way. I liked how it started with the man at his door sees a naked girl standing faraway and throws something and leaves. That took my mind in a totally different direction than that the movie turned out to be later. Anyhow, it is only fair to say that there is one scene, only one scene in the movie that was reallllllllllly good. The scene when the blond girl eats the intestines of the husband and he is looking at his wife and kid and remembering how his day started. He is being eaten in a very savaged way and he is looking back at how beautiful his day started with his wife and beautiful baby girl. This was a very disturbing scene and one that horror fans usually appreciate and seek in horror movies.

How's this for a premise..cannibalistic cave-dwelling kids slaughtering locals of a Maine town! Their motives are to capture a baby(..it serves as a positive god to keep them from being cursed), and replenish themselves with human meat. This comes from the warped pen of Jack Ketcham who adapts the screenplay from his own novel. Canadian Cronenberg veteran Art Hindle is a boozing retired sheriff who is called upon by the local authorities to help them catch the little primal bastards after experiencing a grisly crime scene where blood and body parts lay splattered all over a kitchen. As written by Jack Ketcham, the savages, during the course of the movie, make strategic attacks on innocents, calling to our attention the horrifying possibility that such events could transpire in what is supposed to be a civilized nation. I will caution those wary viewers who find violence towards children(..whether they are as vicious as wild dogs or not)distressing, in "Offspring" it takes place..you must keep in mind, however, that adults are only defending themselves. I think scenarios involving a bloodthirsty pack of flesh-eating fiends will repulse a specific majority anyway, whether the threat consists of kids or not. Andrew van den Houton's movie doesn't overstay it's welcome, if that's a plus for those who might find the subject matter a bit unsettling. There are two older savages who run their brood, gathering up victims to store as cattle in their secret hideaway. The house invaded belongs to David and Amy Halbard(Andrew Elvis Miller & Amy Hargreaves). Claire Carey(Ahna Tessler)and her son Luke(Tommy Nelson)are friends of the Halbarts, escaping from a sorry, no-good husband/father, Stephen(Erick Kastel)who has left them in debt and contending joylessly with the IRS. The invaders lead a full-on assault, kidnapping Amy and mutilating David. Claire is able to retreat with Amy's baby daughter Melissa momentarily, following her son to a special hideout, a tree house nestled nicely in the woods, found by Luke earlier. As Claire gains the attention of the man-brute, her son and baby flee. This sets in motion the final 30 minutes as the pack torment Amy and Claire, wanting the location of Melissa, as George Chandler(Hindle)prepares to get even for the horrible brutal attacks on two policeman. This is quite a violent film, replete with animalistic cruelty by the predators towards their prey, and Ketcham's script does allow us to see how the civilized can become enraged when put through trauma(..as seen in one instance when Amy continually buries the face of a cannibal kid in a fire over and over). Maybe even worse than the killers, Stephen himself causes his wife much agony by manipulating the leader into severely assaulting Claire so that she would give up the baby!

I haven't read the novel this is adapted from, and it probably wouldn't make a difference, as I understand it is really adapted from two novels. I really don't like comparing books to movies anyway. Each should stand on their own as an art form. This is the kind of film that drives States mad when they pay filmmakers to move their productions to their States. I wonder if Michigan paid money to offset the costs of this cannibalistic treat, Canadian actor Art Hindle, plays George, an ex-cop who has previous experience with these cannibals. He leads the Sheriff's posse when they are tracking the cannibals after a murder. There is enough blood and gore to satisfy the most fanatic horror hound.

Fronted by the fame of Jack Ketchum "Offspring" does no favours for the man behind the idea. In a small lavishly situated in North-Eastern USA woodland area just next to the ocean, numerous series of morbid murders and disappearances have occurred in the span of the several generations. In the latest of them a young couple and their baby were brutally murdered and than dissected for meat by a group of roaming savage cavemen teenagers. But the carnage is only just begun, as apparently this is feeding season... Devoid of proper pacing or acting "Offspring" puts all its money on one card: visceral brutal gore (including fairly graphic disembowelling, burning people alive, baby-killing, brain-munchies and a very disturbing biting off of a *). The plot that crudely staples the movie together is a whisker away of falling on top of itself, mainly due to some inept back-story, where apparently the police know about these 'cave-men' for decades, but just didn't have the proper motivation (?) to do something about the issue. Irrespective of how many people, including children, go missing due to their activities. Any doubts regarding this wanton incompetence is cast aside by a statement, that the wild people roam freely across the border with Canada and there is no exchange of information between the two countries. This would however at least presume that however wild our rapturous cannibals may be, they still have a strong sense of self-preservation. Which unfortunately goes amiss at the start of this debacle, when they go on a killing spree and do not even bother to cover up their tracks, hence bringing about a hunt (however misguided it may turn out to be). Mingling in between this nonsense is a yuppie group of cardboard characterisations, which only benefit to the story is that they turn out to be useful for nondescript morbid murder and torture (although I fail to see why a women breastfeeding someone elses baby would result in her screaming in agony and despair, but well... I ain't a woman). Obviously filmed on a shoe-string budget and unfortunately the only thing that the creators were adept at was making proper disgusting and adequately gory special effects. Within the confines of the lack of money and filmmaking skills (strongly suggesting this was in all essence a student film) this pastes together to become quite an overdrawn, predictable and tiresome affair with substandard cinematography, lighting, sound, editing and acting (complemented by overflowing cheesy dialogue).

You're in the mood for a gory, and I mean GRUESOME film? Watch the clichéd-filled and grisly film: Offspring. Honestly, there's no other reason to watch it. A group of Nethanderals (literally) have survived the ages and love cannibalism. Mix that with today's time and a whole lot of blood with a family terrorized. I admit that this is my fault, that I haven't actually watched this movie for over a month. I generally will watch a movie and attempt to review it within a day or week of the viewing as it's still fresh in my memory. All I remember of this movie is that it was enormously gruesome, make that: unnecessarily grotesque, and it reminded me a lot of the equally unnecessary and blood-soaked film, Gnaw, but better due to acting and direction. One thing I can say about the movie with the time between viewing and reviewing, is that, apparently, it wasn't too memorable. I do remember horrible, horrible human beings – whether stuck in ages-ago time frames or today's time, that deserve the punishment they get. I wouldn't recommend it at all, despite the 2/5 stars awarded and it made it that far as it was a well made independent film. It's just an excuse to get gore on the screen with all-but zero attributes. Watch Eegah instead. The MST3k version, that is. At least you'll get a laugh out of the sort-of-same-plot.

Offspring 2/19/2010 This is the third book by horror author Jack Ketchum to be made into a movie, the others being "Red" and "The Girl Next Door". "Offspring" published in 1980 was his first novel and deemed very controversial for it grotesque violence. The movie was made last year from Ketchums's own script and directed by relatively new director Andrew van den Houten. The movie was obviously made on a very small budget and except for the violence and gore it really shows. Even though Ketchum is credited with writing the script, he should really stick to novels. The dialog is utterly comical, there is a paper thin plot and together with terrible acting it can be a chore to watch. This film can really only be endured by either hardcore horror fans or Ketchum Fans. This movie has clichés galore for every taste, the retired alcoholic cop, the small town police force, and the angry ex husband on a mission. Revealing past events in the form of old newspaper clippings is another one that is used in about 80% of all horror movies. The story, like the book, takes place in the coastal Maine town of Dead River (the ominously named town). The story of "Offspring" involves a clan of feral savage. Think of Deliverance meets P.O.'d Native Americans. The reason I chose to write about this particular movie is for its depiction of the clan. This film is similar to the book in that it doesn't shy away from anything. This is a balls-to-the-wall bloody horror spectacle. It has kids killing adults, dead babies, cannibalism and so much more. Our main characters are quite one dimensional, like cattle being led to the slaughter. But they are not annoying like a lot of horror movies. With a bigger budget a lot more talent this could be a decent flick. For example, although the story takes place in Maine, an up close scene with a police car in the foreground is obviously from Michigan (which is were the film was shot). However, I did like how they used sound to heighten the suspense and creepiness. The Clan members themselves which are mostly children, are well played. The actors really dug into these intensely psychotic roles. The violence and gore is also quite impressive and well done. Now that we know where all the money went, you can understand why the rest of the production is quite poor. Like I mentioned before if your not a hard core horror fanatic like myself I wouldn't bother with this one.