Studio: Lionsgate
Director: Andrew van den Houten
Writer: Jack Ketchum
Producer: Robert Tonino, William M. Miller
Stars: Art Hindle, Ahna Tessler, Amy Hargreaves, Andrew Elvis Miller, Tommy Nelson, Holter Graham, Taylor John Piedmonte, Pollyanna McIntosh, Erick Kastel
Review Score:
Summary:
A centuries-old clan of inbred cannibals attacks an unsuspecting family and their friends in rural New England.
Review:
I only became aware of director Andrew van den Houten’s 2009 thriller “Offspring” after first becoming fascinated with Lucky McKee’s 2011 film “The Woman” (review here). While I don’t recall it being common knowledge at the time, McKee crafted “The Woman” as a follow-up focusing on Pollyanna McIntosh’s feral character, who made her filmic debut in “Offspring.”
I didn’t have a burning incentive to backtrack until it was announced that McIntosh’s 2019 directorial debut “Darlin’” (review here) would feature her titular cannibal a third time. This seemed as good of an opportunity as any to experience this loose trilogy from the beginning.
Except I’ve since discovered that “Offspring” isn’t actually the start of the saga either. Acclaimed novelist Jack Ketchum based “Offspring’s” screenplay on his same-named 1991 book which, as it turns out, is a sequel to his 1981 novel “Off Season.”
There’s a limit to how many blanks I’m willing to fill in before watching one movie. Apparently that limit encompasses two pseudo-prequels, but does not include devoting time to a novel too. What with the way this line keeps extending, I’ll probably eventually learn “Off Season” has its own precursor as well. Besides, if “Off Season’s” substance is as slim as “Offspring’s,” I can’t imagine I’m missing anything essential.
“Off Season” would seemingly only serve to explain why Art Hindle’s “Offspring” character, a retired cop named George, is called in to consult on a gruesome home invasion. George almost immediately exclaims that the culprits are a cave-dwelling clan of inbred cannibals descended from a lighthouse keeper who went missing in the 1800s. This would be a surprisingly specific, crazy conclusion to come to without the additional information that he’s encountered this scenario before.
Consisting of ‘The Woman,’ a man, several children, and a few other ferals, the cannibal clan sets their sights on the infant daughter of a rural couple living near the woods. The clan has a history of kidnapping babies that they raise as their own, but they want this child for another purpose. A family friend happens to be visiting with her eight-year-old son, and her abusive ex-husband is en route as well. This provides the feral freaks with a full house of targets ripe for ripping apart with teeth, tools, and bare hands, unless local police can close in on the cannibals first.
Although it’s definitely dog-eared by its plainly low-budget origins, I wouldn’t necessarily say “Offspring” qualifies as a “bad” movie. Yet I still can’t recommend it because it barely qualifies as a story. An illusion of cursory character development exists. Really though, the thin narrative is nothing more than a setup for slaughter as “Offspring” becomes a canvas for creating a nihilistic horror show of savage brutality and cannibalistic carnage.
Running only 74 minutes to begin with, “Offspring” spends an oddly inordinate amount of time on sequences that aren’t central to the paltry plot. In particular, ex-husband Stephen sees several scenes devoted exclusively to establishing his villainy, even when he isn’t onscreen. Stephen’s wife and her friend have a detailed discussion about Stephen’s mismanaged money, embezzlement, unpaid loans, forged documents, collateral foreclosures, IRS audit, alcoholism, physical abuse, child neglect, suspiciously missing boss, and his own nine-month disappearance before we even meet the man. Stephen then gets a full five-minute scene where he picks up an attractive hitchhiker, sleazily demeans her, gropes her breast, then boots her out of his car while slugging vodka with a sneer.
Stephen only needs one-tenth of that attention while technical details could use infinitely more. Exacerbated by frequently soft focus, camera blocking sometimes makes little sense. In one example, the camera points straight ahead while a cannibal twice bends completely out of frame to pick up a body on the ground. It’s a handheld shot, yet the operator strangely never tilts to follow the action, instead opting to stay centered on trees blurred in the background.
Comical costuming significantly lessens the cannibal clan’s fright factor. Instead of being believably mottled with mange, lice, and grime, the feral kids wear bouffant wigs that look like Dolly Parton stuck her finger in an electrical outlet. As with the uneven editing, acting, and cinematography, it’s difficult to discern what the production had in mind regarding how it intended to appear.
“Offspring” is a messy movie, both figuratively and literally. The figurative has to do with the sloppy staging and storytelling briefly mentioned above. The literal involves buckets of blood, bones, and viscera liberally decorating each milieu of vicious violence. Gorehounds hungry for the visual thrills of spilled guts and wet dismemberments will have their grindhouse-inspired dreams come true at regular intervals. Respites from the bleak butchery are fewer and farther between.
“Offspring” ends up too underfed to leave a valuable impression. If not for the interest inspired as a Jack Ketchum adaptation, or as the first onscreen appearance of Pollyanna McIntosh’s recurring character, “Offspring” would probably be otherwise dismissed as an unimportant entry in the killer country cannibal subgenre by now.
Review Score: 45
It is moderately compelling in the moment, but it has a hard time holding up to even cursory scrutiny as far as believable “found footage” concepts go.