Greetings from the edge!
This week, we’ll be setting our sights some “Wascally” alien rabbit-monsters in Cute Little Buggers. A British horror-comedy about alien invaders trying to impregnate Earth women with bunny shaped “Penetration Units”… yup, we’re in for something a little different on the Edge today, kiddies. Starring Caroline Munro as Mystic Mary… CAROLINE MUNRO?!?! This’ll mark her, what, fourth appearance on the Edge? At this point, I can’t tell if I’m inadvertently stalking her or if she’s just in a LOT of baaaad movies. Also, you have to love a movie that slaps a cameo in the top spot on the end credits. Stay classy guys! Of course, with alien rape bunnies as the main antagonists in this film, that ship has probably sailed already.
We kick off this film with a scene more in keeping with a Friday the 13th movie with some drunk ( 30 year old ) teenagers around a campfire. Seemingly, the only American in the film ( or judging by the accent, someone who once met an American in a pub ) is being lured into the woods to investigate something falling from the sky with the promise of boobs by his girlfriend. In short order, the now topless girl is dragged into the dark and the bunnies have impaled our faux American on a fallen tree.
This cuts directly to a musical montage of the village of Deddington preparing for the annual fete ( that’s festival for us ‘Muricans ) with shots of delicious cakes, games, entertainment, and a quick overview of the villagers we’ll soon be meeting. We’re also introduced to our two Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy rejected aliens sitting in orbit who will be providing the majority of our “Comic Relief.” Soon Melchior Haslam, played by Kristofer Dayne, shows up in a cab and sets the whole village atwitter as the returning prodigal son. After a brief scene with a local gangster threatening Mel’s Father, we learn that father and son have been estranged for years and Mel has returned to inform his father of his mother’s death.
Soon Mel meets up with Rose Williams, played by Lydie Misiek, his childhood sweetheart, and this brings him into conflict with her new fiance, Charles Caplan, played by Samar Sarila. Don’t worry though, Mel and Rose are having awkward mechanical sex less than ten minutes later, so I guess it wasn’t that much of an obstacle… so “yay,” I suppose?
From there, it’s all played out lounge singers, crazy villagers, incompetent aliens, and lots and lots of boobs. Oh, and pee… yes, my friends, the alien bunny’s weakness is human urine, which becomes even more ludicrous when the characters seemingly forget everybody pees and they go and retrieve the collected urine of a crazy hermit to use on our rabbity rapists. Don’t worry thoug,h we’re still in store for a veritable fountain of piss jokes. This seem even more unnecessary when it becomes obvious the bunnies can be killed with guns, swords, knives, whips, tree branches, cricket bats, and, on more than one occasion, bare hands.
Now comes the time in the review when I discuss the films special effects, and while Cute Little Buggers manages to beat out Tsunambee and Alien: Reign of Man, I’ve seen much more impressive effects in Youtube videos. Between CGI rabbits that look like they came from a “Barbie” game made in the early 90’s (if the bunnies exploded like blood filled pinatas when “Barbie” gave them a pat) and alien costumes that may well be made of Dr. Who cast offs, I’m less than impressed. The most complicated effect in the film is an alien birthing scene which is pretty squicky, and more than a little fetishy. So there’s that….
What Cute Little Buggers does gives us is gallons and gallons of fake gore, mainly of the CGI variety but with enough good old-fashioned red corn syrup to satisfy most. Decapitations, limbs flying hither and thither, a rabbit literally jumps half-way up a man’s ass and dies and bodily fluids of all varieties are liberally spread over all… help me!
Cute Little Buggers falls short on both the Comedy and the Horror fronts and, while the ridiculous premise seems like it might be good for a few laughs, it just doesn’t manage to pull it off often enough to make it worth your while. I wish I could recommend it as a fun movie to watch with your friends and some frosty adult beverages for a little do it yourself riffing. However, with rape rabbits, eviscerating alien births, and at least one scene of a man peeing directly on his friend’s face, you might not have those friends for long. If you want a good comedy/horror with enough gore to satisfy even the most jaded try, Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn. You can’t go wrong with Bruce Campbell and you’ll finally get all those inside jokes your horror fan friends keep making.
Nerdy Speculation Corner: Warning, may contain both spoilers and dangerous amounts of geekery!
Okay, soooo after watching Cute Little Buggers I did a little research ( my poor, poor browser history will never be the same ) and with all the tentacles, alien birth, and well, playing with pee, I can’t help but think this movie may well have been made to scratch someone’s very particular fetish itch. Could England be looking to break Japan’s stranglehold on the “Weird possibly Sexual Shit” in movies market? Or more likely, does one of the writers really need to get a girl/boy friend… possibly both if it keeps me from having to sit through “Cute Little Buggers 2: The buggerers and the buggered.”
Join us next week for more horror goodness as we make our way towards all hallows eve here on the Edge. I can’t promise scares to chill the blood, but bad CGI, gratuitous nudity, paper thin plots, and acting that would embarrass even the drunkest Richard Burton are all on the horizon here on the Edge!
Cute Little Buggers arrives on VOD November 7.
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