MUTANT (1984)
Despite the VHS cover art (pictured below), this is not a riff on Alien. In fact, there is no bipedal monster at all. Mutant deals with the threat of "infection zombies," so it has more in common with The Crazies than, say, The Being. I admit, I was totally cool with watching a streamlined version of The Being, but I ended up enjoying this flick more than I thought I would. Way more. Wings Hauser (!) and Lee Montgomery star as brothers vacationing in the middle of nowhere. Car trouble forces them to stay in a bed-and-breakfast, but it isn't long before Lil' Bro (Montgomery) goes missing. Wings - I'm simply calling him Wings - teams with the sheriff and a darling schoolteacher to find out what's happening in a town that could be described as too quiet. Where is everyone? And where is the local plant dumping toxic sludge? Eventually, we run into zombies, although they are not traditional Romero zombies.
I love it when a movie kills off characters that would be considered safe in any other situation. Of course, I don't want to reveal who gets the axe on the off-chance that you haven't seen Mutant. Which brings me to my next point...see Mutant! The exposition gives you just enough information to intrigue you without burdening the pace. The nuts and bolts of the script are screwed in tight (there has to be a better way to say that). You're naturally in the protagonist's corner. Because he's Wings Hauser. Sadly, there is an unequivocal lack of gore. It's okay. Mutant might be the only zombie flick that doesn't need guts n' grue to satiate the viewer. It certainly doesn't go out of its way to earn its R rating. I'm recommending it anyway. I had a blast with it, and I'm pretty sure it's available to stream. Random trivia! Director John "Bud" Cardos is also responsible for The Dark and Kingdom of the Spiders. Eh, two out of three ain't bad.
PS-Wings Hauser passed away the day after I wrote this review.
R.I.P.
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