Weasels Rip My Flesh

USA • 1979 • 67m •

• Directed by: Nathan Schiff. • Starring: John Smihula, Fred Borges, Fred Dabby, Jody Kadish, Steven Kriete, Edward Schiff, Jon Grossman, Marie Louise Lomba, Karen Khazzam, Carol Cancro, Tina Hawn, Linda Herrmann..

Returning from the planet Venus, an errant NASA spacecraft crashes into the ocean, spilling its radioactive cargo. Enveloped by a radioactive mass, a rabid weasel is transformed into a gigantic killer mutant. Prowling the countryside, the huge weasel kills and devours victims. The creature is captured by a disturbed scientist who plans to use its regenerative blood to amass an army of similar monsters, enabling him to conquer the Earth.

Review:

So, you're thinking of watching Weasels Rip My Flesh, are you? Well, ask yourself this - how much pain can you take, bucko? 'Cause this ain't no ordinary film, no sir. Y'ever see one of those "outsider" art shows - the paintings with the cheap materials, crude figures, no perspective, and weirdly distorted sense of space creating an effect only slightly better than what's posted on grandma's refrigerator, and the highest praise you can muster is to commend the artists on their determination in the face of their obvious lack of talent or training? This is the cinematic equivalent.

Normally, this would be the point where I would give a little recap of the plot, but that's not really possible, as there isn't much of one. There's lots of nice, loooong shots of trees and brush, interspersed with scenes involving characters doing senseless things and then dying or otherwise dropping out of the film entirely. But, basically, a weasel is exposed to radioactive slime from Venus (don't ask), and goes around killing people. Then two Agents show up and fight with an utterly non-scientific-looking Mad Scientist in the least-laboratory-looking laboratory set I've ever seen in my life. The Mad uses weasel blood to change Agent Sidekick into a gray carrot-creature, the monsters fight, Agent Mustache fights the Mad, many people lose many limbs, the special effects department opens another can of Chef Boyardee, then we get the Lamest Shock Ending of All Time, and roll credits.

Of course, I'm leaving out the drunk college girls killed by a weasel-rabies-infected madman (which occurs before the weasel itself is mutated - huh?), the gripping rocket-to-Venus sequence, the two guys who dissect a severed weasel-limb in their kitchen, with tragic results, the unknown woman on a table in the not-lab, the bike-riding kids, and who knows what else, but none of those scenes really amount to anything, anyway.

If that's not enough to put you off your feed, check out the imaginative, yet ultimately pathetic, use of props. Hypodermic needles are stored in beer steins, pasta tongs (or maybe a hair clip?) serve as the Venus probe's robot arm, and my favorite - the duct-tape covered shoebox with "DANGER RADIOACTIVE MATERIALS" (or some such - I'm not going back to search the disc now) crudely magic-markered on the lid. Really gives you that high-tech NASA feel.

On the plus side... Hmmm. OK, there's a crashing-rocket's-eye-view shot that's kinda interesting, but only because it's hard to figure how they did it at their bottom-feeder level of production. The thick Long Island and Jersey accents of some of the actors are occasionally diverting. And, we get not one, but three Ron Jeremy look-a-likes in the cast! OK, one's kinda more Gabe Kaplan, but still, it should count for something.

Review by stmichaeldet from the Internet Movie Database.

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