FINAL GIRL explores the slasher flicks of the '70s and '80s...and all the other horror movies I feel like talking about, too. This is life on the EDGE, so beware yon spoilers!

Sep 8, 2008

Film Club: The Food of the Gods

Dear Diary,

I know, I know, I KNOW! Please don't get all "up in my grill", LOL, but I've done it again. I went and jumped in whole hog (does that make sense? LOL) before I knew what I was getting myself into and now I'm sitting here nursing a cup of coffee and a broken heart!!!1!! I should know better and you're probably rolling your eyes and being all "I told you so" because we can count the number of times this has happened to me on 24859 hands. But how does that saying go? Better to have loved and lost than something something something, right? Right! But let me tell you about my night and what happened. Oh, and I need to write down that "easy layered tomato dip" from the back of the Wheat Thins box before I forget! Note to self: right write it down, it looks deelish although I should stay away from so much cream cheese LOL.

Anyway. Okay, so, I remember the first time I heard about Food of the Gods (1976) and I got sooo excited! I think I was at a party or something, or maybe somebody said something? Anyway (again, LOL), but seriously, I was like "Giant animals running amok? Ida Lupino? Marjoe fucking Gortner?" I think I'm in love!", like I was crushing soooo hard. Then I saw FotG in the store and I read the DVD case and I was crushing even harder, so I was like, why don't we move in together?

See? I know what you're thinking. Why do I go so fast? Why not wait it out with a rental or a Netflix or something, why am I just, like, automatically pledging myself forever and making a move-in commitment right off the bat when it so rarely works out? Does nothing ever go right for me? I feel so Cathy, LOL!

So last night, things were going so boss that I was all, okay, yes! This movie is so definitely the one, because let me tell you, FotG was really turning on the charm.

See, there was this island where Mr and Mrs Skinner found this porridge-fall in the woods, right? And they were such stupid country folk that they thought it was oil, despite the fact that the stuff looks nothing like oil. Then they figured out it wasn't oil, and so they figured "Well, since it's not oil, we're not going to get rich off it. Might as well feed it to the chickens!" which is pretty dumb, right diary? I mean, there are lots of things in the world that aren't oil, but that doesn't make those things appropriate to feed to chickens, LOL!

This magic porridge is The Food of the Gods, yo. When youngsters eat it, it makes them big. And I do mean BIG! Like I said, at this point in the evening, FotG was pulling out all the stops to get me to fall in love. Marjoe fucking Gortner was this football player who visited the island and straight off he battles a giant rooster (he wins by the way).

His friend is attacked by a bunch of big wasps that are totally plastic models and I was all, "Yessssssss!"

Some big rats attack Mr Skinner when he's on his way home and the scene alternates between regular rats on a model VW and giant fake rats on a regular VW and I was all, "Rock on!"


Food of the Gods was all "Oh yeah, this is my friend Ida Lupino- watch her get bitten by some huge maggots" and I was, like, "Okay, I am SO GLAD we moved in together, FotG. You get a t-shirt with my picture on it, and I'll get a t-shirt with your picture on it, and then we'll wear them when we go on dates, and then we'll get married!"

I know it seems extra-fast to be talking marriage when I'd only known Food for about 25 minutes, but come on! It was totally sweet and it understood me like no one's ever understood me before. We really connected, you know? Like when there was another wasp attack, only this time it featured the worst special effects I've ever seen in any movie in the history of ever! Like, these were totally wasps made out of cellophane or something- they were totes see-through- and then they disappeared in puffs of black smoke when they got shot. I was so happy I wanted to get a cellophane wasp tattooed on my face- that's how in love I was. And I meant it!


But then...I don't know, diary. Something changed. Food of the Gods was all "It's time for the humans to fight back!" which is okay, I mean, I'm a human and I don't want to get stung to death by giant wasps, even if they are see-through, LOL! But what happened was, rats started getting hurt...like, real rats, getting...I don't know, shot and drowned and stuff and it was REALLY UPSETTING. I couldn't even look! Seriously, I had to turn away during all the fight scenes, because I knew that when Marjoe fucking Gortner busted out a shotgun, rats were really going to to get blasted and it just wasn't cool.

I swear, it was like Food of the Gods had turned into Ted Bundy or something! Like, how can someone so charming and attractive turn out to be so eeeevil? I felt duped, and I was like, "I don't even know who you are anymore, FotG," and I mean I really said that. You should be proud of me, diary! I said, why not shoot fake rats? And Food was like "I dunno", like it couldn't even come up with an excuse. So I said, maybe we shouldn't live together anymore, and then Food was like "Wait wait wait, what about this?" and then Ida Lupino had a fight to the death with a giant fake rat and they die together like this:

I swear, I almost caved in! But I held strong and I said no! You can't just do one little (admittedly awesome) thing and expect me to forget all the bad things you did...I think you should go now. Diary, it was like I was living in that Whitney Houston song that goes "It's not right, but it's okay, I'm gonna make it anyway" it was so cool. I felt great about it, even though I felt bad about it because I really wanted things to work between me and Food of the Gods and I'm trying not to be depressed about it because I really felt like we were a perfect match- and most of the time, we were. If FotG hadn't turned out to be a homicidal maniac, I'd totally be getting that cellophane wasp tattoo right this second. But alas, alack, it is not to be. I know in the end it's not my fault, but right now that's a small comfort. Next time, I won't jump in so fast! I know, you're all, like, "Yeah, right!" LOL. Oh, and before I forget:

8 oz cream cheese spread
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 small tomatoes, chopped
1/3 cup green onions (*note: maybe substitute regular onions?)
1/4 cup shredded mozzarella cheese
some WHEAT THINS

MIX cream cheese and garlic
SPREAD onto plate
TOP with onions, tomatoes, cheese
SERVE as dip with CRACKERS

Hugz-n-stuff,

FG

________________________________

Film Club Coolies, y'all!

Comedy Double Standards
Freddy in Space
Full Moon Reviews
Evil on Two Legs
Zombie Cupcake
Acheter et entretenir sa tronconneuse (c'est French, ca!)
namtab
Club Silencio
Bloody Good Horror
Horror Film Magazine
Friend Mouse Speaks
StinkyLulu
Gorillanaut
Celeberrimous
Awesomeness For Awesome's Sake
I Am Spartickes
My New Plaid Pants (finally!)

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh no! Did they really kill the rats? I kept telling myself it was all special effects. Really good special effects. Which should have tipped me off.

Sigh.

Anonymous said...

Jay from The Horror Section here. I wasn’t able to track down a copy of Food Of The Gods. Drat! Those screengrabs make it look the most awesome movie in the world, Stacie!

If anyone is interested though, here are some other rodent-themed movie reviews from my RAT WEEK back in June. Check ‘em out if you like.

Of Unknown Origin
http://thehorrorsection.blogspot.com/2008/06/lap-dog-of-devil.html

Deadly Eyes
http://thehorrorsection.blogspot.com/2008/06/giant-rats-attack-toronto.html

Mulberry Street
http://thehorrorsection.blogspot.com/2008/06/mulberry-st.html

Neil Sarver said...

I wrote Food of the Gods post a while back and certainly have nothing new to say about, despite it being a seminal piece of my cinematic life.

Anonymous said...

Don't fret, FOtG, you can crash at my place for a while. No, no, Stacie's cool, it's just..well, you know how this shit goes. Let's grab a beer and talk.

Anonymous said...

I saw Food of the Gods when I was a little kid, and I was so traumatized by the relentless butchering of actual rats that I ran crying to my mother's arms.

I'm an older, stronger, braver man now, but I will never watch the movie again.

Ross Horsley said...

I had a similar bad experience with this one when I was younger. Seeing it as the Film Club choice almost made me give it another chance (in case I'd been mistaken about all the actual rat cruelty) but now I'm glad I stayed away!

I seem to remember there's a fair bit of Actual Spider-Squashing in Kingdom of the Spiders but - oh, the internal conflict - that one's just too irresistible!

Jason Adams said...

My life's ambition is to make movies about killer spiders so I can smoosh and squash and murder as many real spiders as possible. I want to hire a thousand teamsters and force them to stomp on them. I want to fill a swimming pool with spiders and set it on fire.

So goes my hatred of spiders. I have nothing against their destruction for my entertainment. Rats, on the other hand, are NYC's wildlife, so I felt like I was seeing my friends die in FotG. Not the subway kitties, no!

spartickes said...

Admittedly the lady bacteriologist was fucking useless, but she was also kind of cute in that mid-70's way she had about her, and she was ready to throw down with Marjoe.

spartickes said...

Sorry for the double comment but I couldn't stand it, his names not just Marjoe, I can't leave it like that so consider this the addendum to my last comment: Fucking Gortner

rob! said...

Dear Bert I Gordon,

Previously you only tortured audiences, but killing animals for your movie? FUCK YOU!

No, sincerely--fuck off,
rob!

Anonymous said...

I feel you, dawg. I had a whole review written up and it just sounded like I was all ASPCA, so I scrapped. It is hard to express how so much of this movie is awesome and how killing the rats drained every last ounce of fun out of it.

Yeah, with effects this bad, why not just kill fake rats? Would've been so much cooler.

Natazzz said...

Thought this movie was awesome...definitely one of the best the filmclub has seen, simply because it was so unbelievebly bad.

No time to go and on about why it was so bad and/or awesome though, as life has been interfering with my blogging time lately. Maybe next time.

Anonymous said...

Well the rats weren't shot with a gun but were still traumatized and no doubt killed and it certainly wouldn't be acceptable today. I was a teenager when this flick came out and don't remember any outcry about the rats. There just wasn't the mindset that there is now. Plus it was made to turn a quick buck with little thought to how it would be perceived thirty years later. I always though the rat deaths were what was keeping it off of dvd until recently. There's a good chance whoever was responsible for the dvd release hadn't seen the film too. But at least it wasn't chopped up like the "Tom & Jerry" cartoons or other flicks which contain humor or situations that are no longer tolerated. I may be wrong but didn't they kill a snake in SSSSS? Couldn't do that now. Or that creepy naked kid dancing scene in THE POSSESSION OF JOEL DELANEY. Still, if FOTG bothered you, stay away from CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST,WILD BEASTS and THE HUNCHBACK OF THE RUE MORGUE.

Jon said...

Yeah, watching those rats being traumatized as they're actually shot (with what looks like a paintball or pellet gun) kinda turned my stomach, too, and not in the nice, perfectly wholesome way that watching zombies eat brains turns my stomach. But I still had a blast writing about FOTG. And Stacie I think the diary format of your post is downright hilarious.

Anonymous said...

This blog is great, I love your selection of Horror film posters. Keep on doing what you're doing.

JSP said...

oh yes! this movie couldn't be worse. lovely! lovely! :>

SikeChick said...

Yikes! I saw this movie many times when I was a kid, but never knew they killed actual rats in the filming. All the cheesy pleasure is gone for me now. I just can't get behind that sort of thing.