I take a lot of pride in the fact that I can fully appreciate a psychotronic movie, as I had occasion to see many of them at the now out of business Backtrack Video and Records in Seattle Washington. I also feel very lucky to own a VHS of this movie, of which I will never part with. I put MUTILATIONS in the same category as WINTERBEAST, another film that regularly gets trashed by, shall we say in a polite way, those who just don't get it. They don't get the fact that independent films back then could actually be above their heads, regarding the craftsmanship it takes to make a movie that is so funny at times that it couldn't have been anything but planned. That's not to say that the film is all campy, however. There are many scenes that are well crafted fright scenes. And anyone who takes the laborious time and effort to create stop-motion effects deserves a lot of credit, since very few movies employed those techniques back then. If a camp Oscar was ever a possibility, the guy who played the teacher would win hands down. So a big salute to the people who made this film, which stands out as one of the best in its genre. And thank god MST2000 hasn't gotten hold of it, because they would again deserve to be shot for souring a whole generation of would be fans who, rather than using their independent brains, just go along with what they see on the brainwashing TV set. But that's a whole different subject. I regularly search for films they they "comment" on, which, by the way, they edit to fit their verbose, non-intellectual humor. I know, because I've seen many of the uncut, unedited films in all their campy glory. Video Watchdog missed a huge opportunity to "out" that bunch, since they often do side by side comparisons of alternate versions of movies. The only "cheese" in my vocabulary is that which I eat, and anyone who uses that term automatically goes into the uninformed, unintelligent, generation of "watchers" who can't go beyond what they merely see.
Review of Mutilations
