Movie Info
Movie Name: Food of the Gods II
Studio: Rose & Ruby Productions
Genre(s): Horror/B-Movie
Release Date(s): May 19, 1989
MPAA Rating: R
Love this kid! I’d watch a whole movie with Bobby the swearing giant!
Dr. Neil Hamilton (Paul Coufos) is a research scientist on a mission to feed the hungry. When an associate named Dr. Kate Travis (Jackie Burroughs) contacts Hamilton to help her save a boy who has grown to massive size due to a drug, Hamilton finds himself forced to experiment on animals…against the requests of his girlfriend Alex Reed (Lisa Schrange) and her animal activist friends. When rats are exposed to the drug, horror ignites on the campus as the rats begin attacking.
Directed by Damian Lee, Food of the Gods II also goes by Gnaw! Food of the Gods II. A sequel to The Food of the Gods from 1976, the horror film was panned by critics.
You didn’t see this death coming a mile away…
The first thing that shocks me is that in an age of straight-to-video that Food of the Gods II came out in the theaters…plus, they advertised it. I remember seeing the commercials and deciding I had to see it! The original Food of the Gods was so cheesy and fun and I can remember picking up Food of the Gods II at our grocery store…and it really was a grocery store type of horror movie.
The story for the movie is horrible. The original movie was based on H.G. Wells 1904 novel, but other than adding a supersized kid, the movie had little do with it (apparently everyone was clamoring for a sequel to the 1976 film…thirteen years later). The horror is emphasized and the sci-fi nature of the story is downgraded. The movie uses a lot of horror tropes but at the same time manages not to be scary. It is more laughable.
A last desperate attempt to make this film “tantalizing”
It isn’t aided by the fact that almost every actor in the movie gives a very wooden performance. The best part of the movie has to be the giant kid Bobby played by Sean Mitchell who swears and curses (due to the effects of the drug). He makes you laugh whenever he’s on camera.
The visuals of the movie are awful. The movie uses a lot of giant rat models and scale size shots. If the script had been better, these would have been forgivable, but the script’s lunacy is just exposed by the bad special effects…including the random “food of the gods” hair growth scene which kills a man. A sex scene in the movie just seems like a desperate grab for an audience.
Food of the Gods II is so bad it is good. I could watch it over and over again and still laugh. It is a movie that really makes you question how something like this could be greenlit for production. I love a bad horror movie but Food of the Gods II is one of the worst…and that is why you should see it (can you hate a movie that goes by Gnaw! Food of the Gods II?)
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