ALIENS COME HOME FOR THE HOLIDAYS
★☆☆☆☆ (Kill It With Fire)
Director: John Polonia, Mark Polonia
1998
A computerized dinner plate floating in the sky…tiny paper mâché aliens giggle as they tear cats apart….a mustachioed Polonia brother is the hero we’ve been waiting for… No, this is not Feeders but Feeders 2: Slay Bells, and as I’ve just alluded, there aren’t any surprises, and nothing in the sequel you didn’t see in the original. While Feeders can be both dull and amusing, the schtick is officially old here, and no surprise cameo from Santa is going to make up for that. The gory “special effects” that made the first movie interesting are absent, taking away all the laughs; when Fluffy the cat is murdered, someone throws around human hair with fake blood; when aliens snack on a man, blood foams from his mouth like every other victim. There’s a laziness to these kills, as if the filmmakers wanted to hurry and get this out to capitalize on the morbid interest in Feeders. I have a high tolerance for pain, but this isn’t a good-bad movie—Feeders 2: Slay Bells only wastes your time.
And don’t worry about not understanding this film if you haven’t seen Feeders. We’re treated to lots of flashback scenes from the first movie to get this one over the 70 minute mark.
I suppose if you’re someone who listens to “All I Want for Christmas is You” in July and injects eggnog in your veins, you’ll appreciate how much Christmas is jammed into Feeders 2: Slay Bells. We watch a family decorate the tree. We watch a woman slooowly wrap a package. We see the kids sitting in front of the TV, enjoying a Santa movie I’m positive the Polonia brothers didn’t get the licensing permission for. I’ll give the twin directors from Pennsylvania credit for avoiding that cliché of holiday anemia, when movies are marketed as Halloween or Christmas but have two decorations and no ambiance. In fact, we begin as Alan (Mark Polonia) puts ornaments on the tree with his wife Bernice and two adorable kids. He moans about how he needs to get paid to afford presents, but this sad crumb of character development never amounts to anything, much like his raging boss who shows up to scream and threaten Alan’s job and then disappears. The family goes to bed and Alan has a strange dream about aliens outside and he acts surprised by the appearance of their lights. The script often forgets how the last movie ended, so just let it go.
Meanwhile, little aliens run around and kill people and animals around the neighborhood. An older woman loses Fluffy before losing her own life. A priest finds a mysterious hole in his basement before dying, which got me excited for a minute because I thought the hole held a mystery. Ha ha, joke’s on me. We’re eventually left with Bernice and the children as the only potential victims, and this does up the tension a bit because Alan’s wife is the best part of the film.
The only joy I got out of Feeders 2: Slay Bells was watching Maria Davis (Bernice) try to remember her lines. Her monotone and emotionless performance is nothing short of magic, and when she’s on screen you can’t pay attention to anyone else. Tilda Swinton and Meryl Streep couldn’t do what she does. From the looks of Davis, I can tell she’s Mark Polonia’s sister or cousin, so it’s very uncomfortable when they run upstairs for a lover’s tryst after the kids go to bed. She’s gotta be his sister. She’s his sister, right?
Miss Wilkes did not get the licensing permission required to post this photo.
The bearded man in the red suit predictably shows up to help Alan battle the aliens and teach him the meaning of Christmas, and there’s a twist at the end meant to make you jump out of your seat. It barely elicits a yawn. The poor quality of Feeders 2: Slay Bells shouldn’t be surprising for a low-budget sequel filmed on VHS, but after witnessing the creativity that went into Feeders, it really is. The Polonia brothers set a very low bar and couldn’t reach it again—I guess lightning can’t strike twice. Much like the accidental fart that shows up on Closed Captioning, this holiday horror offering should never have happened. I’m going to pretend it didn’t.
GENRES: Apocalyptic, Funny, Monster/Creature
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