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Interstellar Cat Food Conspiracy, Mayhem, And Intrigue

Robert I. Hedges | 12/08/2005

(3 out of 5 stars)

"This is a film that only Ted V. Mikels could make; I only wish that John Carradine could have been around to participate. For those of you who have not seen the original, the Lotus Cat Food Company makes cat food from people. This film not only furthers that plotline, but takes it a step further and also inserts a plot about an intergalactic space war between the cat people and the dog people. At this point I must issue a stern warning: do not under any circumstances attempt any activity such as eating or drinking, or Heaven forbid, running on a treadmill (like I was) during the first five minutes of this film! I am just glad that I didn't wind up in traction. The CGI special effects, makeup, and costumes of the cat and dog people are far and away the most inept in film history. Ed Wood could not do worse. I am completely serious. The introduction of this movie is absolutely breathtaking in its badness. But, and I must emphasize this, it's bad in a good way.

The film has a fairly scattered plot (read: "hard to follow"), with numerous subplots in which an alien goes grocery shopping, the alien ship faxes demands to the White House for Lotus Cat Food, Ted Mikels makes a hilarious cameo as a professor bicycling through the Nevada desert in shorts and a tam-o-shanter, etc. Really, there is something for everyone here.

I don't like gore films, but this is gore at it's least plausible and most campy. The film is a funny, cheap laugh, and is great for people who enjoy laughably poor movies. There is a fascinating commentary track with Ted (learn more about his tam!) as well as two behind the scenes features, although the outtakes are less entertaining than you might expect.

This one is hard to grade, but I settled on three stars as a compromise. It is very economically made (OK, it's cheap...) and poorly acted; on the other hand, it scores very highly on the schlock-meter. Depending on your reason for watching this will be a hit or a miss: if you want real scares or gore (or a well made movie) look elsewhere; if you want to laugh at a campy horror feature, this can't be beat.
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