Feeders 2: Slay Bells

I recently watched Feeders 2: Slay Bells (1998) on Tubi. The storyline follows an alien invasion on Christmas Eve, where Santa and his elves step in to save the day. But if they can't stop the extraterrestrials... is there any hope for humanity?

This picture is directed by and stars John and Mark Polonia-who also collaborated on Camp Murder-and also features Maria Davis (Jurassic Prey), Courtney Polonia (Nightcrawlers), and Anthony Polonia (War Raiders).

This is one of those movies that feels like it was made on a $50 budget. The aliens look like spray-painted styrofoam, and kids in art class could probably do better. The acting and storytelling are extremely amateurish, but that's part of the charm-many of the characters' reactions are unintentionally hilarious. The kills are terrible, and this might be the worst depiction of Santa you'll ever see.

In conclusion, Feeders 2: Slay Bells is a film you watch when you're in the mood for something so bad it's good. I'd give it a 4/10.

The Good News: only 68 minutes long.

The Bad News: its 68 minutes of Polonia video tripe.

These guys should be taken as true encouragement to Indie film producers. If they can sell this offal, then you CAN succeed. Take heart.

The DVD release contains commentaries where the actors/writers/director/cameraman (there appears to only be 4 people involved in total) admits that they spent no money whatsoever. So in light of that, it IS impressive that they could talk anyone into releasing it on DVD. Or maybe they won a lottery and paid someone to do it.

This film reminded me of another low budget homemade type film called "Things"; however, this one may of had a coherent plot (Things absolutely did not) it still manages to be worse than that film which had to really bum out the makers of "Things" as they were literally trying to make the most horrible film in existence. I would have been more kind to this thing, but they did something I find inexcusable in a sequel and that is a good portion of this film uses the footage from the first film. Hell, it even did a few scenes from the first more than once! A recap of the previous film is sometimes necessary, as the old Friday the 13th films did this, but they lasted less than five minutes and were done and over because they would occur at the beginning of the film. This one is chugging along and all of a sudden we are back to the guy recapping his story, only this time it is like a 10 to 15 minute rundown!

The story (aside from the recap) has a family about to enjoy Christmas. Well, enjoy may be to strong a word as the mom and dad are just there to endure it. Aliens called feeders are on their way though and even though anyone killed by an alien you can grab in one hand and smash dead to the ground deserves it. The husband goes to work where his boss verbally abuses the husband to the point of lunacy as we cut to scenes of children playing with rolls of paper and boxes and stuff you see in home movies only you are seeing it used in an actual movie to pass the time. The things kill, but the effects suck as the gore not enough to cover up the crap that is feeders!

The cast is bland, my guess is that it consists of the Polonia brothers family and friends. I am guessing that even though they did not have much in the way of budget, they could not make an adult film as the two brothers did not know anyone attractive enough to headline one of those. The mother looks like something out of the late 70's or early 80's as does the father. They tack on a couple of scenes to pad the film such as a priest and a woman and her cat, but for the most part the film is padded with the previous film.

The film is pretty much a home brew and I would say it is quite a bad one as even "Things" where they were trying to be as bad as possible isn't as bad as this. People who say Manos: The Hands of Fate is the worst film, definitely have not delved into the depths of bad cinema, because that film is better than this one too. There are really no saving graces to the film other than the film is coherent to a degree, but that is not exactly high praise as there have been way better incoherent films than this. I will not go so far as to say it is the worst film I've ever seen though, so it has that going for it.

Holy... They made this one even cheaper than the first! I'm not kidding here. This time the barely mobile aliens look like papier mache over lightbulbs! The acting is just as bad, the story just as lame. Worst part: there are flashbacks from feeders! Thanks to Mike, Kevin and Bill this is watchable. Still utterly horrible, but still funny as hell thanks to rifftrax.

Now, I never saw the original- aside from the flashback segment that rehashes footage from the original- but from what I gather, this is a D-grade, straight-to-video release that is all sorts of cheese.

Basically, a family is about to settle down for the night on Christmas Eve, when they are attacked by a bunch of small aliens who have an insatiable taste for blood.

After killing and consuming the neighbours, they start to hone in on the family, which is the family of one of the characters from the original film (or so I gather, at least).

All before they knock Santa out of the sky, as he was passing over their house.

Despite the behest of his family, the man risks his life to "save Santa".

Which is a little odd, as he is back in fighting shape as soon as he gets into the house.

Leave it to Santa to save the day...

Terrible acting aside (other than the kids, bless their souls), the aliens are hilariously bad puppets.

Actually, they are kind of cool when their limbs are being animated...but their faces are just so so bad.

If you can manage to ignore everything that sucks about this film (which is most of it, to be fair)...it does has a sort of charm to it.

Almost as if it was made by one family as a project over Christmas, or something.

I'm not goiong to lie...if you can sell yourself that lie, it's much more palatable than knowing people went through considerable effort to make this "vision" a reality.

You'd think they had no budget at all, if it weren't for the fact they are rocking some fledgling cgi graphics up in there with UFO.

All-in-all it's pretty much a bad film all-around.

But worth a watch if you are looking for some pure 90's straight-to-vhs Christmas horror cheese.

2 out of 10.