Watched as part of an upcoming podcast (no clues) I hadnt heard of ‘Colony Mutation’ prior to watching this, and I chose to go in as blind as possible…Im not 100% certain what I just watched, but I like to think in a spiritual (and erotic!) way…I know EXACTLY what the director was going through when he made this.

The plot follows Jim, a…fairly nasty piece of work, and thats the kind way to put it! Jim is a scientist working at a facility experimenting with RNA and DNA mutations. his wife meredith is specifically working on mutating RNA into a parasite that has the ability to regenerate the hosts lost tissues and even drive the host when its no longer concious. Its a promising piece of work into regenerating lost limbs, but has a way to go.

Anyway; Jims cheating on Meredith with his secretary? Lab assistant? junior researcher? Who knows, the film doesnt make it clear. But what it DOES make clear is that Jim is basically being a bit parasitic himself, going with his secretary just long enough to dump Meredith and go with her…and then move on from her when he gets bored.

Well, Meredith cottons onto this when she finds out Jim has been charging the couples account for ‘Holiday inn’ rooms that have no explanation OTHER than Jims an Ass hat. Meredtih confronts Jim, only for him to blatently lie to her. When he pushes her one too many times, she grabs a vial of mysterious fluid and throws it in Jims face…Only, that wasnt just ANY mysterious fluid! it was a live culture of the parasite!

And within 20 minutes Jims wolfing down raw packs of bacon, raping and murdering women and has seemingly developed a parasitic killer penis. and…thats kind of the rest of the movie. Jim meeting up with strangers and then letting the parasite murder them and feast on their flesh, while the secretary becomes increasingly frustrated that Jim wont commit to her and is being way more evasive.

At first I thought this film was trying to be an imitation of elements of J.R Bookwalters ‘Ozone’, then around the 2nd act I began to wonder if this was some kind of exploitation comment on the AIDs epidemic or on the proliferation of STDs as a form of control. and by the final act I was convinced this was heavily influenced by the works of Frank Hennenlotter…But as the credits rolled, I had to admit, I had NO idea what the intention of this movie was actually.

With it being shot on 8mm with no synch sound, the entire film had to be redubbed from the ground up, sometimes the actors can be bothered to move their mouths, but sometimes the dub that runs over the footage isnt even close to whats happening on screen. Complicating matters further, the version I watched (via Tubi) appears to be a ‘star wars special edition’ type affair from Visual Vengence.

It appears they’ve cropped the film into ‘widescreen’ added a load of ‘bad film’ filters, colour corrected everything into murkey brown or barely visible dark blue. They’ve remade the opening and closing credits with CG and they’ve created some new CG effects for the final act, and all of this looks and feels AWFUL. It makes the movie even HARDER to watch coherently because some of its been so drastically colour corrected that is basially just a block colour screen with occasional eye balls. I dont know whether my enjoyment of this film would be heightened had it been presented in its original aspect ratio, and with all the colour grading and CG reverted back…But I KNOW it didnt help it here.

The script is quite slow and plodding, there are sparks of good moments here and there across the runtime, but the film has a really bad habit of making our characters go for extended walks, have dream seqeunces that dont really go anywhere or do anything. And in the 2nd act in particular, the film gets locked into a bit of a loop of Jim hunting down women and homeless people on dates to murder and feed to the parasite, but then it doesnt really even show you the murders or parasite stuff…So we (as the audience) basically spend 40 minutes watching a guy go on a load of first dates with women, he offers to take them home, he’ll release a parasite, the woman will scream, and then it’ll hard cut to Jim on the phone the next day to his secretary, trying to arrange a dinner date between them and her sister.

The act structuring is a little melty too, the first act is SUPER short, but the transition between the 1st and 2nd acts is painfully long and padded with all sorts of random conversations. Then, as mentioned, the 2nd act locks into the ‘first date/kill/call secretary’ loop…before finally about 20 minutes off the end we crash into a 3rd act that feels like a poor mans ‘Brain Damage’ where things get a little more humerous? But that quickly gives way to an extended final fight that ends abruptly and felt dissatisfying.

Oh also; the film has about 8 minutes of titles and credits…which, given the films barely an hour and 15 to begin with…is a bit much.

I think this film struggles to find the right tone to attack with. I feel like it wants to be seen as an outright horror, it has moments where it wants to explore comedy, but seems reluctant to do that, theres a sci-fi element that isnt really explored much. and the drama element is probably the only thing thats genuinely stuck to across the whole runtime, and it falls flat by the half way point.

The characters arnt particularly interesting, Jim is the only character that really GETS a character and it takes 2 acts to really start to get going…So again thats a bit of a busted flush.

I do have to give some credit to the direction, while it may not be a pretty film, theres absolutely a layer of creativity running throughout this thing. Its not quite a professional end product. But I will say this is a film that DOES seem to be TRYING. especially in the final act as the parasite becomes a more ‘physical’ being, I think the effects work, and the way they mask the parasite are effective and do offset the budget limitations somewhat. Is it perfect? absolutely not. But again; I’d rather a film maker that tries and fails, than one that just shoves slop out the door every 12-15 months.

That being said, other than the creative techniques put out by the director, the cine itself is mixed to poor. shots barely have a focal point, 90% of the shots feel like it was just a case of ‘pop the camera down, check its vaguely in focus, Go!’ which…is not the best way to make a movie, the colour correction does the film absolutely no favours, crushing all the colour out rendering half the film sepia and the other half looking like 1920s ‘tinted’ film. theres a significant lack of B-roll here, noticable by its sheer absence. Alongside at least a few moments of janky editing, where footage slows down, tears or reverses briefly before cutting to the next scene…I have to assume this is done by accident because it only impact 2-3 points in the film for no longer than a second and a half each time.

But the whole thing really could have benefitted from a couple more pass throughs on the edit. I think at sub an hour it would have felt smoother, 45 minutes would probably be its optimum run time. But I get it. You cant sell a short, but you can sell a feature…I do wonder sometimes though if hurting your film to get it out to audiences does any kind of favours to both the film or its creator.

Performance wise, its a game of two halves…LITERALLY, the 8mm visuals showcase poor performances, a lot of neutral faces, even in extreme situations. noone really emotes properly and physicality on screen is through the floor. its a very drab set of scenes on display.

The dub makes the whole thing feel more quirky, but it never quite reaches the delirious nature of ‘Things’ settling instead for deliveries that are WAY too mild mannered, to the point that they feel out of place with the physical actions on screen, only to then occasionally deliver one of the weirdest line deliveries i’ve seen in a good while, out of the blue, with no reasoning for it seemingly. I will say this, it may not be the most vivid script in the world, but my GOD this is weirdly put together…Fascinating from an editing perspective honestly.

And the soundtrack? at times it sounds like early 90s lofi midi, at times it sounds like a 1:1 rip of the ‘Things’ Soundtrack. THAT is the kind of area we’re in ladies and gentlemen. its clunky, ill fitting, it synchs with whats happening on screen maybe 25% of the time.

Colony Mutation is an underwhelming, but surreal at times piece that I feel a bit conflicted on. I dont think its particularly well made, but there are moments here that just scream ‘bad movie’ gold. I didnt come away hating this one. But I dont think i’d actively choose to watch it again. If your a fan, gods speed. But I dont think this one was for me.

source https://letterboxd.com/tytdreviews/film/colony-mutation/