Scientist Meredith Weaver (Anna Zizzo) catches her hubby Jim Matthews (David Rommel) having an affair so she does what anyone would do in that situation… she infects him with her latest experiment that results in severe, uncurbable mutation.
Meredith’s problem soon becomes everyone’s dilemma as her douche of a husband gains the ability to send forth monstrous versions of his various and sundry body parts to do the ol’ murder biz on anyone they choose… and given Jim’s ever increasing desire to eat live meat, that body count is going to rise quickly!
Tom Berna’s Colony Mutation is like an early Cronenberg flick minus the Canadian tax breaks… but lack of funds did nothing to reduce this feature’s imagination!
David Rommel is fantastic as our sleazy, horny, main character, and he really sells both the character’s smarminess as well as his ramping psychosis… not to mention how he relishes in his body’s new found ability to fuck up everyone’s day with it’s phallic, crawling pieces!
Those aforementioned effects are pretty damn bangin’ in my not-so-humble opinion… low tech, suitably bizarre, and downright Lovecraftian these lethal limbs never fail to delight when they are on screen!
Honestly, Colony Mutation would be absolutely perfect on a bill with Greg Lamberson’s Slime City and Frank Henenlotter’s Basket Case.
Special features assembled by Visual Vengeance for this Blu-ray release include an audio commentary featuring Tom Berna (which unfortunately features long stretches where the director doesn’t speak)… thankfully he’s much more talkative in a duo of interviews (one recent, one archival).
Other interviews present include chats with Actor David Rommel and Composer Patrick Nettesheim… which are followed by two separate differing versions of Colony Mutation; one the 1998 VHS version of the film (with it’s original title sequence and effects intact), and a 2013 DVD version that features differing effects in some sequences and yet another title sequence (this version also contains a lively audio commentary courtesy of Weng’s Chop Magazine‘s Tony Strauss).
Rounding out the extras we have the Colony Mutation’s complete script, an image gallery, and two trailers for the film.
The package also includes a faux-retro sticker sheet, a reversible sleeve, and a folded mini-poster!
Surreal, at times depraved, and totally one-of-a-kind, Colony Mutation is lo-fi horror filmmaking at it’s most ambitious!
