Movie Info:
Writer: Jack Ketchum
Director: Andrew van den Houten
Cast: Amy Hargreaves, Art Hindle, Tommy Nelson, Ahna Tessler, David Halbard, Erick Kastel, Taylor John Piedmonte
Rating: R
Studio: Lionsgate

Release Info:
DVD Release Date: October 6, 2009
Online Availability: Amazon for $17.99

I have never read any of Jack Ketchum’s books, but he seems to be highly recommended by the Master of Horror, Stephen King. I’ve heard quite a bit about how graphic, gruesome, yet well written the Ketchum novels are. When I learned that Offspring was written by Ketchum and adapted for the screen by him, I was surprised. I can see why Ketchum is a popular horror writer. However, the story’s interpretation to screen leaves much to be desired.

I have to put most of the fault of Offspring‘s failures on the director. The story is not what suffers. I found the story/plot to be downright creepy. If this scenario really happened I’d be quite frightened. The problem was in the execution, especially with the portrayal of the actual offspring. I found them to be oddly portrayed and almost, sickly laughable. I like my cannibals to be scary, not mumbling, awkward, and mindless. These cannibals act like a ridiculous, zombie-like species, except when they’re killed, they stay dead.

The actors for Offspring do an okay job for what they are offered. I didn’t have a problem with the non-cannibal actors. The cannibals wore the makeup and outfits of what I’d expect of savage, people eating, tribal folks. However, their actions, their language (or lack thereof) and their entire mindless, kill mentality turned me off. Movies are never as good as the books, I expect that, but it is the movie that suffers because of the direction these characters were taken in.

One of the most annoying aspects of the cannibals is their speech. They seem to not speak English. Their language is nothing I’ve ever recognized. However, they have an obsession with babies. The word for baby just happens to be ‘behbehs’ or some other mumbling similar to the word baby. These cannibals cannot understand a world of English, the English speaking characters don’t speak cannibal, but they both know the word baby? It is just a little too laughable for me.

Offspring Plot
A woman comes home to find savages in her house. They have taken her baby and end up killing her. The sheriff’s office discovers the gruesome scene and they call in George Peters, who has seen similar events before. It soon becomes apparent that a group of savages from Canada who are cannibals (perhaps the descendants of a man who was shipwrecked on an island off the coast) have traveled down the coast to a new hunting ground, in the Pacific Northwest U.S.

A woman who is getting divorced, Claire, and her young son, Luke, visit her friends’ coastal home. David and Amy have a brand new baby, Melissa. Luke explores the woods to the back of the house where he finds a fort high up in one of the trees. While he is out exploring, his mother finds out her violent ex-husband, Stephen Carey, is on his way to their place. Claire has a restraining order against him, but that doesn’t seem to stop him.

David calls the police to tell them about Stephen, but they are so busy they cannot send anyone out. They do agree to not forget about him, and will try to help after they figure out what to do about the cannibals. When cannibals start showing up at David and Amy’s house, the blood bath that follows is quite disgusting. However, the cannibals want more than to just kill. They want the baby, Melissa. With the cannibals destroying David and Amy, Claire tries to save the kids.

Storyline/Plot:
Replayability:
Acting:
Directing:

Audio/Visual:
I am not surprised to say that Offspring fails to offer a dazzling Blu-ray transfer. There are moments of acceptability, but those are not consistent enough to count for much of anything. This movie offers an 1080p/AVC transfer with an aspect ratio of 1.78:1. When things are bad you get bland colors, soft video features, basic blacks and objects are very one dimensional. There are a few, highly detailed shots, but like I mentioned those really don’t count for much because they are so basic. I can’t say that the quality mattered that much, though it would have been ironic to see such a bad movie have such a good transfer. Luckily in this case, they didn’t waste their time and money.

The audio is handled with a DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix. I can’t say I was too impressed with this either. The sound suffers from a lack of consistency. Things are either on level or it sounds awful. The dialogue is pretty easy to hear, but there are moments of muffled/muted sound effects and the music has a tendency to become annoying. As if that is not bad enough, things get worse when the cannibals start speaking their own language. To put it mildly, the grunting and screaming of foreign (made up) cannibal words and the annoying…”Bebeh!” grunts and chants just gave me a headache. There is only the English track available, though subtitles are included in English, English SDH, and Spanish.

Visual:
Audio:

Bonus Features:
As always, the worst movies get the most attention when it comes to special features. Offspring is really no different. The special features here are plentiful, but that doesn’t make them good. In fact, when you consider most people won’t be interested in seeing any of them after watching the movie, it’s questionable why they are here at all. Still, they are here, so on the off chance that you enjoy the movie you will have plenty to look at afterward.

The commentary is handled by the director, Andrew van den Houten, Jack Ketchum, and the director of photography, Bill Miller. The commentary is the best special feature in the bunch. In a way it’s funny to listen to this because it’s rather clear that they do not realize that this movie is as bad as it really is. Apparently, the sequel was adapted for film rather than the original, which seems interesting. They talk a lot about the locations in Michigan that they used for shooting and other technical and behind the scenes tidbits. Each man manages to be engaging in his own way. While the movie was not worth watching over again, if you can sit through it again and want to hear a decent commentary you might want to turn this one on for at least a few minutes.

“Progeny: The Birth of Offspring: This making of lasts for around 21 minutes, which makes it shorter than some, but in this case we’re not going to complain. The main players are all represented via interviews that mingle with footage of things that went on behind the scenes. There is a lot of seriousness. Apparently, the people working on this movie really thought that it would come across as scary. Who knew?

“First Stolen’s Bailout”: First Stolen is one of the main cannibals. You might not have known that because they didn’t really call out any names other than Bebeh! This is a three minute documentary about First Stolen. The way the story goes is that the actor was driving on a suspended license and got busted on the way to the set. The crew had to get him out so he could come to work.

Also included in the special features category are a series of webisodes, a photo gallery with a selection of various photos, a few minutes worth of micro videos, and the official trailer. Trailers for Saw V, Midnight Meat Train, My Bloody Valentine 3-D, The Descent, and The Haunting in Connecticut are also included.

Bonus Features:

Bottom Line:
The story for Offspring is actually kind of interesting, but the execution of the film and some of these characters make the movie annoying. While there are some good moments to the film, I found the overall product way too aggravating to want to own. My best advice is to rent Offspring first. If you like it, then you can pick up a copy of the DVD or Blu-Ray, but with films like this one, chances are, you’ll be happy you didn’t waste your money.

Overall Rating:

[tags]
Offspring, Blu Ray, Horror, Cannibal, Canada, Movie Review, DVD Review, Baby, Survival[/tags]