It's not exactly intellectual and you can tell there wasn't a STAR WARS-level budget to be thrown around, but this backwoods blue-collar monster movie is a pleasant surprise on many levels and shapes up as one of the best of its kind. Four hunters pick a very bad time and place for a weekend camping trip. Little do they know their secluded patch of North Carolina woods is crawling with carnivorous alien humanoids that just escaped from a crashed meteor. The four-foot-tall, green creatures look like classic bulbous-headed UFO aliens but with huge sharp teeth and voracious appetites for human flesh. They hate bright light and only attack when it's dark. Can the bubbas band together and stay alive until morning? The characters are impressively portrayed as real guys who may not be rocket scientists but do have loyalty and determination on their side. There's a tendency in low-budget horror to depict Southerners as hateful, trigger-happy inbreds who can't tie their own shoelaces or spell their own names, so it's refreshing to see a movie of this kind that credits good-ol'-boy types with human intelligence, integrity and even bravery. Even the forest ranger is only doing his job, checking things out and asking to see hunting licenses, instead of indulging in typical cheap movie unprovoked harrassment stuff. The best character is big fat Donnie, who keeps wishing his redneck buddies were there. Donnie is a likable and believable guy, and I fully expected him to be the first to die because (A) he's overweight and (B) he's over 20 years old. But NIGHT FEEDERS doesn't play it the same old Hollywood way when it comes to characters and their actions, and I am pleased to report that Donnie gets to do plenty of first-class monster whuppin'. He emerges as one of the genre's most unlikely and believably human heroes since Carl Kolchak. You'll have to be ready to forgive some cheesy computer animation at the beginning when the meteor splashes down, but unconvincing computer animation was everywhere (including many projects with a lot more budget than this one had). Happily, the aliens are impressively presented and the gore effects are excellent and plentiful, as arms and legs are bitten off, bodies are eviscerated and all sorts of bloody mayhem is seen. The only really dumb part is when precious daylight is wasted on burying the mangled remains of the victims-- time that would have been much better spent trying to reach help. Other than that, the cast's laid-back style of acting and reactions to their predicament is realistic enough throughout to make NIGHT FEEDERS well worth a watch. It probably won't win any awards, but it was obviously made with the intention of really scaring and entertaining its audience instead of just going through the same old motions. Yay Donnie!
