‘It’s time to prey’
Breeders aka Deadly Instincts is a 1997 British horror film about an alien that emerges from a meteorite on a college campus to mate with humans.
Written and directed by Paul Matthews (Berserker: Hell’s Warrior; Grim), the movie stars Todd Jensen, Samantha Womack (aka Samantha Janus), Oliver Tobias and Kadamba Simmons. It is a very loose remake of the 1986 American film of the same name.
Reviews:
” …it’s deathly dull. The shower scenes and explosions seem to be a desperate attempt to wake people up. Maybe this would have been a good Outer Limits episode- at maybe 45 minutes. But at an hour and 34 minutes, it drags, drags, drags.” The Bad Movie Report
“Truly, outside of Samantha Janus’ lower half, there’s not a lot to recommend in this one […] the actors struggled mightily with just about everything, part of this being… I’m guessing… that the majority of them were British trying in vain to fake American accents, and the pacing was too erratic and when it wasn’t erratic it was just slow.” Film Critics United
“Paul Matthews is the man who wrote and directed the film, and I can only imagine how much fun it is to be inside his mind. The plot is ridiculous, the characterisations are awful, the special effects are ropey (but enjoyably so) and the acting is woeful from everyone involved.” For It Is Man’s Number
“Even with all the derivativeness and storytelling deficiencies (and mediocre sound effects and bad music), most unforgivable of all is the pacing, which allows for far too much time to pass in between sequences of suspense. In the end, Breeders is more offensively boring than anything else.” Gone with the Twins
“I found myself wondering when they were going to explain the creature’s origin and then bam they just dump all the info at once at about the forty-five-minute mark. Build-up- what’s that?!? This one is generic and it is bad, but the suit design and silly story keep it from being terrible.” Mondo Bizarro
“We get a lot of unnecessary scenes involving our couple, some gratuitous nudity, and, very occasionally, a look at the alien–he’s not as impressive as he is on the cover of the movie. None of this really adds up or makes much sense, but it all leads to an ending that is as disjointed and bizarrely entertaining as the rest of the movie.” Quick Horror Movie Reviews
“Starts off okay, in a bad sort of way, but quickly clones Aliens and loses in every aspect of comparison. On its own, this is a mostly drab outing with too many sluggish scenes.” Splatter Critic
“To give Matthews’ version of Breeders some credit, at least he went for the traditional man in a rubber suit instead of relying on CGI like so many b-films of today; as a result, unlike so many b-films of today, the monster looks pretty OK—sometimes even effectively mean and nasty. Regrettably, little else in the film is either effective or nasty…” A Wasted Life
Choice dialogue:
Moore: “Drink, drugs, I’ve seen it all before. But alien monsters? That’s a new one.”
Blu-ray release:
Dark Force Entertainment is releasing Breeders on Blu-ray on May 26, 2020. Buy from Amazon.com
In the meantime, the movie is available on Amazon Prime in the USA and UK and presumably other territories.
Cast and characters:
Todd Jensen … Ashley
Samantha Womack … Louise (as Samantha Janus)
Oliver Tobias … Moore
Kadamba Simmons … Space Girl
Nigel Harrison … Horace
Clifton Lloyd Bryan … Alien (as Clifton Lloyd-Bryan)
Melanie Walters … Roper
Katy Lawrence … Myra
Richard Harrington … Jack
Robert Gwyn Davin … Staines
Geraint Morgan … Poole
Graham Anderson … Taylor
John Danks … Police Sergeant
Amanda Prothero-Thomas … Styles
David Artus … Talbot
Filming locations:
Douglas, Isle of Man
King Williams College, Isle of Man
Technical details:
97 minutes
Aspect ratio: 4:3
Alternate titles:
Grim II was the pre-production title, the movie was was shot as Rampage
