MUTANT 1982: MORPHING INTO TEDIUM

As Easter Sunday night TV was so mind-numbingly safe and utterly dire I have resorted to You Tube and an old Roger Corman Sci-Fi production called MUTANT, which I've never seen.

Released in 1982, it has to be the biggest pile of derivative tripe I've ever had the dubious pleasure of watching. Mixing ALIEN, Star Wars, The Thing from Another World, some 2001 Space Odyssey score and clumsy sex with the finesse of a Kenwood Chef, it slides along dreadfully like something that has missed the bin and oozes down the wall towards the floor.

The acting is awful, the effects are laughable and the Mutant itself is as scary as a bowl of Reddy Brek. Its only redeeming feature is allowing you to shout at the screen when you spot the brazen rip-offs of costumes and effects from Hollywood's Sci-Fi successes from previous decades.

We see their brand of Stormtrooper and Tuskan Raiders [pictured], ALIEN computer text reflection and many many more laundered parts.

I understand that MUTANT was also known as Forbidden World and Subject 20. It doesn't matter what its called, it's still dross. So much so, I have turned it off three-quarters of the way through! Any more and I may have mutated myself.

Am I being unduly harsh?

Addendum:

Surprisingly, another interesting aspect of this flick particularly for video collectors like me are the various VHS covers for it. Here's a selection highlighting the different covers and names it tormented its hapless viewers with across the world back in the lawless Eighties:

and one for Arto in Finland!

POSTSCRIPT:

I mentioned to Arto that I might have seen this image before. Well here it is, not quite the same at all! Its Gandalf and Balrog by the Brothers Hildebrandt from a book I had as a teenager.