Breeders

Director - Tim Kincaid (Robot Holocaust, Mutant Hunt)
Starring - Teresa Farley (Bad Girls Dormitory). Lance Lewman (Hit and Run, Riot on 42nd St.), and Frances Raines (Model Behavior, The Mutilator)
Release Date - 1986
Genre - Horror/Sci-Fi
Tagline - "Puny Earthlings, your women are now prey to the sexual invasion"
Format - BluRay (Personal Collection) (Screener)

Rating (out of 5):

     The local video store was a sacred place for me when I was growing up and became my temple when I found myself becoming obsessed with horror.  I rented so many of my favorite horror flicks from this store and it helped build the foundation for my horror obsession.  I rented as many movies as I could but I was unable to rent all the horror movies they had to offer before they closed their doors in 2005.  One of the films that I always wanted to rent but never did was the 1986 film Breeders.  I'm almost certain that the copy the store had was a bootleg and that made it even more appealing to me.  A few weeks ago my friends over at Olive Films announced that they would be releasing the film on blu.  This was my chance to finally see it so I reached out to them and they were kind enough to send a review copy my way.  

     The film follows a doctor and a detective that are investigating a series of rapes in the area.  The women tend to be virgins and the rapist leaves behind a sticky substance of unknown origin giving the doctor and detective very little to go on.  They soon get a break in the case when a red substance is determined to belong to an old type of brick that was used to build the cities sewers in a certain area of the city.  They head out to investigate and learn that the rapist is actually out of this world.

     When I was younger I remembered reading the back of the cheaply made VHS box and thought about how cheap and sleazy this film sounded.  I wanted to check it out so many times but something deep in my gut made me think it was not as entertaining as the synopsis made me believe.  In fact, one reason I didn't rent it is because I was almost certain that I caught the ending during USA's Up All Night.  It wasn't until recently that I discovered the film never actually aired on that show.  Breeders was just as cheesy and sleazy as I imagined but just did not go as well as I was expecting.  The acting in this one is just as good as you expect coming from a film where aliens rape virgins.  The cast over-act and deliver soap opera quality performances.  I caught myself laughing during several scenes because the cast looked like they had no idea what the fuck they were doing.  This was pretty funny and added some much needed humor to a stale script.  The story for this one has so much potential.  The film could have easily become one hell of a sleazy masterpiece but the film does not follow up with that angle.  Instead, we get a detective and a doctor searching for a rapist like it is a daytime drama after we get some solid scenes full of breasts and aliens.  The film felt like it wanted to turn a pretty campy sci-fi story into something more serious which resulted in a rather boring effort.  Finally, the film has several on screen kills full of fun practical effects.  The kills vary but they all entertain for the most part.  The practical effects for the kills are great as well and once again show us how awesome the 80s was in terms of gore.  With that being said, the creature was a bit of a let down.  It looks like a man wearing a modified motorcycle helmet and scales.  There was so much to go with in that regard and instead, opted for the cheapest route sacrificing what could have been a great creature.  Overall, Breeders is a film that has so much potential but fails to find it's footing.  The film has a great story and some solid kills but has a hard time trying to find what type of film it wants to be.  It is worth a shot but has no replay value.