We’ve added a slew of new reviews this afternoon for Ghost House Underground’s now released Blu-ray/DVD set that comes courtesy of Lionsgate Home Entertainment. While beyond the break you’ll find John Marrone’s thoughts on Jack Ketchum’s Offspring, click any of the follow titles to read reviews for the other films, including Tex’s alternate look at the latest Ketchum adaptation: The Thaw, The Children, Offspring and Seventh Moon.
OFFSPRING

* A few minor spoilers

Jack Ketchum adaptations have been something of quality to turn to within the horror genre as of late. The Lost, The Girl Next Door, even Red – all stand on their own as examples on how to properly translate the American horror novel to film. In each of them, enough of the back story was transferable to the screen in order to ensure a complete enough telling, keeping fiction novel aficionados appeased with accuracy, all the while drenching the filmgoer in ample amounts of fluid story, remorse, and Ketchum caliber terror. This time around, Andrew van den Houten’s Offsrping manages to stand as a brutal and bloody shocker for the gore sub genre, but it fades a bit out of focus for those foreknowledged from reading the novel.

In short, Offsrping is the story of a retired cop George Peters (played by Art Hindle), who is drawn in to help investigate a series of murders that look much like the atrocities that occurred nearby just 11 years ago. With the assistance of his expertise, the police attempt to track down and stop this cannibalistic, murderous clan of wild human beings, before this disaster can play itself out again (as depicted in this story’s predecessor: the novel Off Season). All the while, Amy (Amy Hargreaves) and David Halbard (Andrew Elvis Miller), along with their friends Claire (Ahna Tessler), Steven (Erick Kastel), and their son Luke (Tommy Nelson) are swept up into a battle for survival as their families and lives are literally torn apart by this rogue, uncivilized tribe.

Where Offsrping kicks horror ass is through its gore and violence department. Your story of cannibals attacking and brutalizing a small rural community is reflected in splashing bright red blood and graphic violence, including multiple taboo-breaking infant and preteen deaths. There are limbless corpses, severed legs and arms, victims disemboweled and eaten alive, brutal hatchet wounds, a child burned to death face first in a campfire, a dead infant in a plastic bag of piss and shit, eyes gouged, a point blank gunshot to a kid’s head, stabbed and gouged eyeballs, bright red arterial spurtage and spray, deep knife cuts, a brief medical examination (enacted by Ketchum himself) reminiscent of an autopsy moment from The Thing, living heads chopped in half with an axe so the bled-out brain can be sucked on for delicious juice… and an absolutely riveting scene where the head of the tribe kills one of the cops with a kitchen knife through the back of his head, just before she bites off a piece of the dying victims blood drenched face and drops him to the ground for death. Special FX lead Anthony Pepe knocked this one out of the gore ballpark, assisting in the deliverance of several jaw dropping scenes that will rumble in the pit of your horror loving gut.

What is confusing to many readers and viewers is how a book’s “sequel” got released without ever doing the first story in this saga, Off Season. That’s the slight train wreck of a situation that sort of limits Offsrping into expressing itself, story wise, as it does. The rights to Off Season were purchased by someone else, and they have done absolutely nothing with it. With the rights having been sat on for such a long time, it was decided that Offsrping should go into production as a stand-alone story, and here you have it.

Screenplay wise, it’s well written – the story flows well and takes you for an effortless ride. But even though it was written for the screen by Jack Ketchum himself, a lot of background information that gave Offsrping its legs was either left out or blown over so quickly so as to be unnoticeable, given the limited amount of time there is to work with between credits. Lost in translation is “why” they are stealing infants. Not because they bring power, as described in subtitles by Woman herself – but moreso to continue the lineage of the clan, and raise them as their own. Characters First and Second Stolen lose their meaning and their depth with this omission – taken years ago, they too are prisoners and victims of their family’s murder and abduction. There are montages of newspaper articles during the opening credits referencing this, but none of it amounts to enough of a back story as to give the clan’s young their history – thus reducing your care for whether they live or die, suffer or not.

Also dropped is George’s (the main character’s) link to the first novel, and the reason behind why he wakes up and answers the door from a dead sleep with a pistol in his grip. His wife Mary died 11 years ago – brutally murdered and eaten by this clan some time back. That’s why the police call upon his “expertise”. If you’ve read the novel, you comprehend this – but if you haven’t, the depth of what develops is weak or beyond your understanding, and leads the unprivileged viewer into a story with blurry and undefined characters.

Other semi-negative factors that are just plain hard to ignore are the costumes and the supportive acting – including the woman chosen to play Claire. Second Stolen’s hair just looks like a bad wig – long blonde with streaks of brown striped in – it just looks prosthetic. Some of the background characters (especially the cop cohorts) just sort of droll out their lines flatly, or look out of place – but none so noticeably as Ahna Tessler, who just butchers the role of Claire – a main character and semi-hero of the story. She just looks out of place, and performs her lines as if she almost isn’t really into what she is doing. Its awkward – she doesn’t look remotely like her son Luke – its terrible to say but she just stands out like a sore thumb. As a fan of the story, and Claire’s character within, Tessler just took you out of character and felt the black sheep of the cast. * With the “main” characters ousted surprisingly quick, you’re left with what began as supporting roles taking the lead – and after Amy and David leave the set, its hard to care about what happens to anyone but the kid.

But nobody here is looking for an Oscar caliber film – we’re horror fans – we’re comfortable being far from that category. Usually we just ask for a notable sensation of terror, and not to be insulted. You can be ensured that Offsrping does take a 90 minute route through some very dark and terrible territory, as for every shortcoming in its production there are certainly areas where this film excels. Director Andrew van den Houten’s sophomoric horror directorial effort (the first being Headspace) does certainly capture his audience during sequences of flight or fright. The scene where the clan enters the house, and also where they chase Steven in his car up the road, were raw, rapid shot, and engagingly well shot – and as a result, there is a visceral quality to Offsrping that will find its way into your stomach – either through gore or atrocities.

Much respect goes to Pollyanna McIntosh as Woman, who comes across one tough, badass bitch you would NOT want to mess with. She saves this film with her gritty performance, commanding a powerful presence opposite our struggling victims grasp at survival. Cow, a captive and mentally retarded sex slave, is portrayed freakishly by Ed Nelson – perhaps the weirdest of all the entities in this story. Every shot of him inspires some sort of guttural chuckle, and yes fans of the novel – he does get milked. Luke, the child, is done solid, sensitively, and accurate by young Tommy Nelson, and Erick Kastel’s dramatic and on-edge acting brings alive our anti-hero Steven with equal energy and irritation, pulling up the bootstraps with what would otherwise be slightly sagging in the supportive department.

Final analysis: Some of this year’s best gore. Solid lead acting. Mediocre adaptation. Scattered poor supportive acting and costumes. Pick your tastes, there’s your rewards. Andrew van den Houten’s adaptation of Offsrping is not the soundest of Jack Ketchum’s books brought to the screen, here and about scattered with flaw – but for every drawback there is something above-par, making this a mixed bag of visceral horror and production near misses, topped with a mountain of intestines glistening with the gore of dead children. For each moment you’ll point out something that falls short as inaccurate or inappropriate, you’ll be shocked into near numb forgetfulness with visions of extremely graphic cannibalistic violence that will befall all characters in this film from 6 months to sixty years of age. It’s a no holds barred fight for survival for family and friends, Jack Ketchum style – ensuring you an above average DVD release horror experience, rough and awkward around the edges, but nauseatingly beautiful in the gore department. Fans of the novel may be turned off by the holes left in the plot, and with the portrayal of certain characters, but the average viewer walking in is in for a violent-ass bloodbath of cannibalistic proportions destined for the shelves of the hungriest of gore hounds.

5/10 Skulls