User Reviews

Not completely without it's merits, but most of them are buried below a sea of crap. I like Jack Ketchum, his stories do have an extra something. The script is let down by some poor acting and hilariously awkward moments that just don't fit. You can set up a character as a slimeball without such a heavy handed pervert/hitchhiker scene. The acting from the offspring/wild people is comic at best. One boy jumps into shot going "Hee hee hee", like some pantomime witch. The gore is done rather well, and there were nice parts, such as the first kill. It made a nice and chilling change to see a scene not played for jumps, but for the awkward silence. Perhaps worth a watch, as it is short.

I was going to say that this film was lazy and incompetent independent film-making at its worst. I keep trying to make this point; low budgets needn't matter, and we don't mind the cheap special effects and the limited sets if the film is made with passion and conviction. It doesn't cost anything to get the plot right; just imagination and attention to detail. But that's exactly what this film seems to lack.

An update of the Scottish Sawney Beane legend and transplanting to Maine and the Canadian coast, it has some promising ideas and a couple of effective sequences, but it fails to establish them or develop them properly. What's with the lighthouse keeper? We get a glimpse of a newspaper clipping while the opening credits roll, and one of the characters makes a brief reference during the film, but this history deserved telling properly, even if only narrated by one of the characters, and could have added real mythic power to the plot. But it appears the film-makers just couldn't be bothered.

And then 76 minutes later, barely achieving the minimum respectable length for a feature film, it comes to an abrupt end, with several characters and plot lines unresolved. Please no, don't tell me you're leaving the door open for a sequel. (Adopt appropriate gravelly voice: Offspring 2 – the new generation!) In between, there's a load of confused stumbling around in night-time woods or on stretches of beach that look nothing like the earlier panoramic daytime shots we had of the coastline.

I was going to say all this, but then I glanced up at the technical information in this IMDb entry. 100 minutes, it says. A hundred! But my UK rented copy was only 76 minutes; both the sleeve and the DVD timer confirm it. That's a quarter of the film gone! No wonder the plot seems sketchy, and you can't follow what's happening.

It is entirely incomprehensible. It carries a UK 18 certificate, which is the most serious apart from the 18Rs that can only be bought from licensed sex shops, and I don't imagine they have anything in them that can't be seen for free on the internet. What on earth can the UK censors have found that required 24 minutes of cuts? If it really was originally 100 mins I frankly don't see what the point of releasing the film like this is. At the very least, this review stands as a warning to UK viewers; check the length. If it's the 76 minute version I saw, I'm certainly not recommending it.

Edit: Barely a couple of weeks after posting this, I read in my newspaper that "The Serbian Film" had received between four and five minutes of cuts at the hands of the UK censor, and that this made it the most cut UK film for sixteen years. If that's so, then I was wrong to blame the cut from 100 to 76 minutes on the censor. This makes it all the more baffling. Why would you voluntarily cut your own film to such a skimpy dog's dinner? In any case, it doesn't change my recommendation (or lack of it): just the attribution of blame.

This is probably how a film by Ed Wood would look nowadays, if he would have made his films at modern standards! Not that there are many technical mistakes, but it takes about 20 minutes to get used to the wooden-handed style of direction and poor acting. If you can stand through that so far, and don't mind very dumb policemen in a movie, the film actually delivers enough gory scenes which might be quite enjoyable for fans of the genre.

Funny was that the Japanese DVD had subtitles for the dialogs between the cannibals, I doubt that there are some in the original version.

Except the taboo of the involvement of children, this film based on Jack Ketchum's novel lacks the intensity of "The Girl Next Door" which I liked much better!

Apparently, some folk from Canada have decided to go all natural and became cannibals. Then, to everyone's dismay, they travelled down the deserted coast in the US. Food's aplenty there, where people like to live in isolated houses, have delicious babies and are surrounded by incompetent police.

That's about it. The movie is gruesome enough and the cannibals believable, if you ignore their origin story completely. I truly believe Pollyanna McIntosh was the reason why this movie didn't suck, as she plays the feral woman tribe leader. I mean, she was lovely even as a dirty violent almost inarticulate woman.

Even from the start, when the movie starts with newspaper clippings, weird music and special effected distribution names, the feeling is that the movie is bad. I blame the director for this. Quite a horror gem this could have been with just a little more attention to detail and a different cast.

The little boy was the only civilised person with a brain in the movie, the rest of the cannibal victims doing nothing but crying oh my god or holy s*** while they are eaten alive. If the premise of the movie was that people can sink to terrible lows, then why conclude that civilised westerners are not capable of directed violent behaviour when they are in trouble? Especially mothers with children, I mean I am afraid of those even in real life. That kind of thinking brought the movie down. That and the directing.

Bottom line: a good horror story (made after a book) with some gruesome graphics, but bad production values.

Jack Ketchum is one of the best current horror-novelists, Stephen King and Psycho novelist Robert Bloch among those screaming their praise for his gruesome and down-right disturbing stories (it's hard to find a single Ketchum book without a King quote plastered on the jacket somewhere). However, Ketchum film adaptations haven't lived up to their original text and most of them have been forgotten...despite all coming out within the last few years. With the release of Offspring, I found myself hoping Jack Ketchum film adaptations existed within some Bizzaro universe, where good books made bad movies and bad books made good movies. Offspring wasn't a particularly bad novel, but was definitely one of Ketchum's weaker efforts. A sequel to Off Season (which hasn't been filmed yet due to a rights issue), which was your typical generic cannibal movie in book form, Offspring followed a group of children cannibals terrorizing some cardboard cut-outs from Maine. If Ketchum's more enriching experiences couldn't be duplicated in film, maybe one of his more generic pieces would lend itself better to the medium of film. Unfortunately, my parallel universe fantasy was dead wrong and what we're left with is incrementally worse than any prior Ketchum adaptations.

It's easy to forget that film-making takes immense skill, work, experience and luck to produce anything of quality. It seems like every other month there's another critically acclaimed independent film from someone who had nothing but a dream and a few grand. Unfortunately, these are the very rare exception and the reason why The Blair Witch Project, Clerks, El Mariachi, and Paranormal Activity are so famous is precisely because they are the exception. For every low-budget, low-experience success, there are numerous failures. Offspring is a harsh reminder of this. Everything about it shouts out "student film" or some deviation on the word "amateur". It's rare to see something of this low quality on the rack in a video store, let alone with distribution from Sam Raimi's Ghost House Underground and the only reason for this surely must be the link to Ketchum.

The picture is cheap consumer digital video, fluctuating in and out of focus. The camera-work is utterly bland with no sense of purpose or reason, simply shooting from one seemingly random chosen angle. Editing is sporadic, sometimes going through the standard way to edit a sequence (conversations cut almost on cue to the three requisite angles: long shot, over the shoulder 1, over the shoulder 2), other times apparently unintentionally jumpy. The lighting is so evidently off studio lights, particularly in the cannibals cave dwelling which looks like a cheap studio set. The sound effects are of the variety downloaded off the Internet, including the monotonous cricket loop, the popping gun sound and cheap thwacking sounds for axe impact. These are all aspects of film that are not always apparent upon viewing, but do make a gargantuan difference in quality and effect. Offspring, because of all this and more, appears to be a cheap student exercise rather than a real, albeit low-budget, production.

There are more superficially obvious muck-ups among Offspring though. The acting is quite frankly horrendous. Whether floundering under lacklustre direction or just simply bad, the actors appear to be attempting to outdo each other in lack of emotion or personality. However, it reaches its apex when paired with the atrocious costuming of the cannibal children. Drabbed with loin cloths straight out of Tarzan Halloween costumes and with tacky Walmart wigs atop their heads, these have to be the some of the least menacing cannibals possible. It isn't until they begin giggling like Chucky had he been sucking on helium that they become the least menacing villains possible, dethroning the killer leprechaun from Leprechaun and the killer snowman from Jack Frost. They run, scream, and jump around with the overacting zeal of an ecstatic kid playing charades.

The biggest problem however, is the script itself, which sadly was written by Ketchum himself. Few would have any doubts about his ability as a novelist (even if some critics do find his material repugnant or without any substantial merit), but his first foray into screen writing is deeply flawed. He has essentially transcribed the glut of the scenes from the novel directly to the screen with little to no alteration. An endless battle over the course of a night with cannibals worked within the context of the novel as the written form allows us to explore the characters thoughts, feelings and experiences, making it something more than just endless fighting. Here, this isn't true; the scenes are, when taken out of the context of the novel, pointless and meandering. The characters are stripped of their character. The story is stripped of all its insight and intelligence, already quite limited. Film and writing are two different mediums and in this case what worked decently well in one doesn't work in the other. We don't know why, for instance, the Sheriff so willingly helps track down the cannibals (don't worry, this is essentially the first plot point). In the book, we learn through his thoughts that it's motivated by a previous encounter with them that scarred him deeply. Here, he just does it and we don't care, true of nearly every event. The despicable menacing ex from the book comes across as a mere d-bag, the three adult protagonists as boring and shallow yuppies who speak constant cheese dialogue.

Of course there are those who will propose that Offspring is primarily a bloody, gore-fest and that if the film succeeds in delivering the carnage, it's a success. All I can say is that if baby dolls smeared with blood in plastic bags and the sporadic blood spraying of an insecticide pump filling in for a severed vein, there isn't much here to recommend.

• Dylan, allhorrorfilms.com

Offspring 2/19/2010

This is the third book by horror author Jack Ketchum to be made into a movie, the others being "Red" and "The Girl Next Door". "Offspring" published in 1980 was his first novel and deemed very controversial for it grotesque violence. The movie was made last year from Ketchums's own script and directed by relatively new director Andrew van den Houten.

The movie was obviously made on a very small budget and except for the violence and gore it really shows. Even though Ketchum is credited with writing the script, he should really stick to novels. The dialog is utterly comical, there is a paper thin plot and together with terrible acting it can be a chore to watch. This film can really only be endured by either hardcore horror fans or Ketchum Fans. This movie has clichés galore for every taste, the retired alcoholic cop, the small town police force, and the angry ex husband on a mission. Revealing past events in the form of old newspaper clippings is another one that is used in about 80% of all horror movies. The story, like the book, takes place in the coastal Maine town of Dead River (the ominously named town).

The story of "Offspring" involves a clan of feral savage. Think of Deliverance meets P.O.'d Native Americans. The reason I chose to write about this particular movie is for its depiction of the clan. This film is similar to the book in that it doesn't shy away from anything. This is a balls-to-the-wall bloody horror spectacle. It has kids killing adults, dead babies, cannibalism and so much more. Our main characters are quite one dimensional, like cattle being led to the slaughter. But they are not annoying like a lot of horror movies. With a bigger budget a lot more talent this could be a decent flick. For example, although the story takes place in Maine, an up close scene with a police car in the foreground is obviously from Michigan (which is were the film was shot). However, I did like how they used sound to heighten the suspense and creepiness.

The Clan members themselves which are mostly children, are well played. The actors really dug into these intensely psychotic roles. The violence and gore is also quite impressive and well done. Now that we know where all the money went, you can understand why the rest of the production is quite poor. Like I mentioned before if your not a hard core horror fanatic like myself I wouldn't bother with this one.

This is about a primitive family of people that are cannibals and live like cavemen. It could have been a real steaming pile and that is what I expected, but it was really good! There is LOTS OF GORE so it that isn't what your in the mood for, then pass on this one. I was really impressed with the special effects and they had a great cast! These people actually knew how to act which is rare in horror films. The hero in this story is actually a young, preadolescent boy. The antagonist lead is played by a woman. Those 2 things alone make this unique enough to kept me interested throughout the film. I also love that they weren't afraid to make the children killers or to kill them. As a horror movie it DEFINITELY deserves better than a 5. I have seen some real crap in the horror genre that was rated a 5. I wish that people that don't like the genre at all would just QUIT VOTING!! It isn't fair to true fans.

This is actually a film I watched because I saw there was a third film in the series coming to the theater, so I wanted to make sure if there was any continuity, I would know about it. I didn't pay attention though and watched the sequel before checking this one out. The synopsis is a clan of cannibalistic inbred savages which plague the Northeast coastline is after an unsuspected family and their innocent baby girl.

During the opening credits, we are given newspapers of the headlines about the family in the synopsis. They've been doing this for over two hundred years. There's a throw away line of dialogue later in the film that it is thought to be a lighthouse keeper on an island started this family and they've been eating as well as kidnapping people to continue the line on.

We then shift to man who's up late working, David Halbard (Andrew Elvis Miller). He goes outside and sees a woman in the distance. She walks off into the woods. David then checks on his wife, Amy (Amy Hargreaves) and their daughter. It then shifts to a woman who is returning from a night out. She is mad to see the lights on in her house and is blaming the babysitter. She comes in to find a blood bath, before she is murdered herself. Her baby is also taken.

A couple of cops seek out George Chandler (Art Hindle). He's a retired police officer who was investigating this roaming family. They were hiding out in a cave so that is where they're going to check first. When they find that it is empty, he is under the belief that they disappeared because they crossed into Canada without knowing it and they're now back again.

The tribe is led by Woman (Pollyanna McIntosh) as well as a male. There are a bunch of children that are with them and the teen girl that David saw. Woman is mad that the baby died as they needed it for a ritual. They're then told to go out and get another baby, or they're going to be cursed.

The Halbards are having over some friends for the weekend. Claire Carey (Ahna Tessler) is there with her son Luke (Tommy Nelson). She tells Amy about what is going on with her husband, Stephen (Erick Kastel), and not to spoil, but it isn't good. He ends up calling and saying he's on his way, which puts everyone into a panic. We actually get a taste of him with a hitchhiker named Susan (Jana Veldheer).

This cannibal tribe uses a ploy with the teen girl they have covered in blood to gain entry and go for the baby. Luke and Claire help to get the child out of the house before they do, while David is murdered and Amy is taken hostage. With the cops nearby and Steven on his way, this will all come to a head in an interesting showdown.

Now I do have to admit, there are some aspects to the film that I really liked. When I saw that Jack Ketchum wrote the novel as well as the screenplay, I was intrigued. I saw the film The Girl Next Door that was based on one of his stories while in college and it really messed with me, so I was intrigued to see what this was about. I do have to say, this isn't as hardcore, but we do get some good elements here.

One of which is the tribe of cannibals. I could actually see something like this happening, especially if you have as thick of wilderness like you do in Maine. I also like the idea that they could be hidden by going up to Canada, being that another country. It can be an issue with sharing information across state lines, not to mention this is a whole different country so I can see it. I have a feeling he borrowed this idea from a story in Scotland which was also a loose basis for The Hills Have Eyes about a man who was kidnapping people and created a 'family' that would do similar things we see in both iterations.

Of course, Ketchum likes to explore the darkness of humanity. Here we have Steve who is a scumbag. They have him go a bit over the top in that, but it doesn't hurt the film. There's an interesting scene with him in a cave with the cannibals, where he actually offers his wife to them. It is a bit too on the nose of comparing who is the real savage here, Steven or them. He does seem to be getting off on watching what they do his wife as well.

To move next to the pacing of the film, I would say that it does well at just getting into it. We are given the background information to the events during the credits, which I really like, and then we get introductions to both sides. It doesn't really waste any time from there and it really moves at a good pace. I would say that it builds tension, a lot of which is through trying to keep the baby from them. I do have a slight issue, thinking that the baby would probably cry more in some of the scenes. I do like how it ends as well.

The acting I thought was fine. It was interesting to see Hargreaves in this as she also in a television show I watch, Homeland. She has a much different role in this film and I thought she did well. Hindle I thought was fine as the retired cop who wants to solve what is going on here. Not sure I would totally buy everything he did, but it is a film so I can suspend some disbelief. Kastel was a bit over the top. He does establish himself as a villain which is what they needed. Miller was also fine, Nelson was pretty solid as the son and Tessler as his mother. McIntosh probably has the best performance I would say and the rest of her cannibal tribe was good. There are cameos by director Andrew van den Houten and Ketchum as well.

As for the effects of the film, I was actually expecting a bit more. This film was much more subdued in that aspect which was surprising. What we do get were practical, which did look good and I had no issues there. The effects in both of the houses after the attacks were quite amazing if I'm honest as well. They did quite a bit off screen though, which I'm fine with if you cannot make it look as real as you want. The cinematography was fine for me also.

The last thing to cover would be the soundtrack of the film, which didn't really stand out to me. There's a main theme for the film that they use throughout that definitely has an eerie sound to it. That would definitely be a song that I would listen to on a regular basis when writing.

Now with that said, this film is one that I thought had an interesting premise. It also has some interesting aspects that it is looking at, but I will admit, they're a bit too on the nose for me. The pacing of the film is good, it doesn't waste any time and moves through at a solid pace. The acting is fine, no one really stood out aside from McIntosh. She has just a great look for this role as well. Effects were something I was expecting more from, but what we got was good. The main theme for the film is an odd one, but I really liked it. The rest of the score fit the scenes for what was needed. I don't think this is a great film, but I did enjoy it. I would say that this film is above average for me.

I hate it when movies start good and only after few seconds they deteriorate in a very bad way. I liked how it started with the man at his door sees a naked girl standing faraway and throws something and leaves. That took my mind in a totally different direction than that the movie turned out to be later.

Anyhow, it is only fair to say that there is one scene, only one scene in the movie that was reallllllllllly good. The scene when the blond girl eats the intestines of the husband and he is looking at his wife and kid and remembering how his day started. He is being eaten in a very savaged way and he is looking back at how beautiful his day started with his wife and beautiful baby girl. This was a very disturbing scene and one that horror fans usually appreciate and seek in horror movies.

I hope Ketchum's book is better than this laughable cinematic yarn about a tribe of cannibals living in the Northeast woods. Periodically, the clan descends on a small town in Maine to grab a bite, if you get my drift. The plot focuses on two women and their children, one of whom is a boy who does his darnedest to stay alive and rescue his mom, and her friend and the friend's baby. Unfortunately, the director either didn't know how to work with the kid or the kid wasn't up to the job. I suspect the former. A minor subplot has the dastardly, out of control husband of the friend driving up to confront his wife about their pending divorce. He of course proves far more dangerous than the cannibals. There's one familiar face in the cast, Art Hindle, a veteran Canadian actor who plays the town sheriff. Otherwise, this is your typical generic cast. The actors playing the cannibals are so bad, it hurts. You wanna see cannibals living in the backwoods, watch WRONG TURN. Those were some scary cannibals! Skip this low-budget mess. If you want to see a Ketchum story handled with more finesse and flair, check out Lucky McKee's THE WOMAN, made a couple of years after OFFSPRING and which may be viewed as a loose followup to it.

Don't expect too much from this Jack Ketchum adaptation about a Sawyer Bean-type cannibal clan living in caves on the coastline of Maine as you've seen it all before and in better movies. The only interesting thing here is that this is based on a sequel novel to Ketchum's OFF SEASON and characters refer back to the events from that story, even though it hasn't been made into a film. On the plus side, if they do ever make OFF SEASON into a movie, you'll know what happens when it ends. The cannibals here are pretty laughable and won't be giving Papa Jupiter and his clan any sleepless nights. They biggest offense are the cannibal kids who look surprisingly clean for having grown up in caves. In an earlier review, I bemoaned Edward Lee getting the shaft with lousy filmmakers adapting his work in HEADER. Ketchum's has seen three decent adaptations of his work before this (THE LOST, THE GIRL NEXT DOOR, RED), so I guess it is only time that someone ineptly tackled his work. It is doubly confusing as director Andrew van den Houten produced the superior GIRL adaptation and Ketchum is the screenwriter here. Better luck next time I guess. Look for Jack in a quick cameo as a EMS guy.

The DVD box cover for "Offspring" brandishes 'brutal... gruesome... shocking'. I wonder if whomever at horror.com who wrote this actually watched the same movie as I have watched. Because this movie was anything but those three things.

The story is about a clan of flesh-eating cave-dwelling savages whom prey upon people in Dead River, Maine.

Right... This storyline was so fundamentally ridiculous that I gave up on the movie after 35 minutes and stopped it to watch something else. So the audience is to believe that in this day and age that flesh-eating savages still exist and roam the hillsides? And better yet, they are smart enough to use modern day tools and cover up their private parts because this is what their lack of exposure to society and mannerism has taught them. Right...

The whole concept of the movie was ludicrous, and was delivered by the actors and actresses with no conviction, which just made it even more difficult to buy into the story and the world that director Andrew Van Den Houten was trying to sell with "Offspring".

This movie will quietly go to die on the DVD shelf, never to see the light of day again. This was without a doubt one of the worst movies that I have stumbled upon.

I appreciate that this rather launches us directly into the plot without any significant exposition. Sure, we get images of newspaper clippings and such beneath the opening credits, but whether one attends to these or not they have no major impact on the viewing experience. Some background of the narrative is revealed naturally through dialogue, but nothing here feels any less than natural as the picture splits time between the "tribe" living off the land, law enforcement investigating them, and a handful of innocent people who unwittingly get stuck in the middle of it all. Violence, blood, and gore aside, the film maintains a relatively subdued tone, an approach which in my mind makes every unseemly aspect all the more disturbing. And make no mistake, there's plenty of nasty business afoot, all of which looks superb despite otherwise modest production values that would seem to belie a relatively low budget. This may not appeal to all comers, but I for one think 'Offspring' is fantastic.

Clocking in at 78 minutes, it's punchy and brutal without any need for embellishment. There's a point to be made that without significant narrative, the movie just becomes blood and cruelty for the sake of blood and cruelty, and that's not incorrect. For such wanton grisliness, especially emphatic violence against women, it does lose some appeal; there's only so much barbarity one can stomach without underlying rhyme or reason. Still, that this manages to be genuinely horrifying, well made, and engaging despite such sadism is rahter impressive. The special effects and sound effects are great, as are the costume design and hair and makeup work. The cast give terrific performances I think, including Ahna Tessler and Amy Hargreaves as two of the hapless innocents, Art Hindle as the lead investigator, and all those portraying the cannibals. Hats off to young Tommy Nelson, only 12 years old at the time but impressing in his depiction of the boy Luke. Pollyanna McIntosh, above all, is outstanding as "the woman," demonstrating an intense ferociousness that in and of itself is notably disturbing.

Andrew van den Houten's direction is excellent in realizing Jack Ketchum's screenplay, adapting his own novel. The extremity of the scene writing and narrative is as gnarly and frankly awe-inspiring as it is mindful and complete, resulting in a dazzling, macabre tableau of crimson and viscera that's at once repulsive and engrossing. It's not unreasonable to say that 'Offspring' lacks particular polish, or finesse, yet nor does it require any - this is exactly what it wants and needs to be to be effective, grotesque, and satisfying for fans of such grim horror. Usually this isn't the type of flick I'd go in for, yet there's just enough minimal story to complement the ugliness that it becomes marginally more palatable than it otherwise would be. There's a necessary content warning here for all the strong violence, including against women and children, and some nudity. Yet provided such harshness is no obstacle in and of itself to one's viewership, I think 'Offspring' is a marvelously arresting slice of genre cinema, a quick jab to the throat that gets one's attention. Well done!

After reading several positive reviews of this film I tracked it down because I thought it sounded interesting. It wasn't, it was dumb.

There's a tiny town somewhere in America where a gang of cannibals are living in a cave on the beach. These cannibals all have clothes made of animal skin like cavemen, despite living close enough to civilisation to steal some clothes from a washing line every now and then. Also if you're making clothes out of animals why not eat them instead of people and if you're having to resort to cannibalism it might not be such a good idea stealing babies and making your group larger, stupid idiots. Anyway these guys talk in some stupid growly language and have names for each other like eartheater and other dumb crap like that. When they talk their growl language you get really rubbish looking subtitles come up on screen. All their dialogue is embarrassing tripe designed to make you cringe.

The cannibals attack a house full of inadequate actors. One of which has their evil ex husband on the way to the house, who within ten seconds of meeting this character you know he's gonna side with the bad guys at some point. Oh and by the way if you don't burst out laughing as one of the stig kids comes through the window of the house and cackles like a little witch as the camera zooms towards it's face then you've just missed out on the only joy this film has to offer.

There are scenes of torture which are neither scary or harrowing just stupid due to the fact they're so over the top. The gore in this film is so crude, with bits of leg here and a rubber torso there. The fact it's done in such a straight way makes it even stupider because the whole thing just becomes laughable. The longer the film goes on the dumber it gets. It's just one ineffective scare or anticlimax after another. My partner got so bored she started doing a puzzle. I braved it through to the end and wished I hadn't.

This offspring should have been drowned at birth.

I watched "Offspring" after finding out the movie "The Woman" was its sequel. "The Woman" was a very good movie, so I suspected that "Offspring," being its progenitor, would be better. It was not. It's biggest flaw is the film quality. It clearly had a lower budget which shows up in the audio, visual, editing, and even acting quality. They were all lacking.

"Offspring" is about a feral family that were descendants of a man who'd gotten lost in the woods over a century ago. The family consisted of a matriarch (Pollyanna McIntosh), two men, a young woman, five kids, and a baby. They live in a cave somewhere in the woods of Maine and they had just slaughtered two women and a baby when the movie began. No, it's not for the faint hearted. This movie is gory.

The matriarch wanted another baby to replace the baby they killed. Through subtitles we understand their simple language that was probably something they invented.

Meanwhile, the local police were on to the barbaric family, they only needed to find them.

The movie would get bloodier before it concluded. The violence is superfluous I'll admit. I think I was less bothered by it because I'd already seen "The Woman" and the level of gore in that. "Offspring" has an animal appeal to it because it is almost like "Lord of the Flies" if the boys were to have stayed undiscovered on that island for generations. It's not a life I'd remotely want for myself, but it is fascinating like the wild animal kingdom is fascinating.

OFFSPRING is a Z-grade B-movie made entirely without merit or a reason to watch. It's an ultra-cheap slice of gore in which various uninteresting characters are menaced by a clan of Neanderthal-style cannibals who spend the movie cutting up bodies and devouring them.

That's all there is to the film so anyone looking for depth, plot twists or an immersive viewing experience is likely to be disappointed. The film was of slight interest at the outset given that it's based on a book by noted author Jack Ketchum with the screenplay also written by him, but the poor execution wastes all that promise.

The cast is also uninteresting, with only minor parts for Pollyanna McIntosh (EXAM) as the feral clan leader and poor old Art Hindle (who you may remember from the excellent 1978 version of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS) playing a guy investigating the murders. There's a lot of cheap gore but that's no reason to tune in either.

Offspring first? What about Off Season? Well, I've read on the Offspring message board that the reason why Offspring was chosen for film before Off Season is because of some rights issue. There were probably a couple skirts who were not being paid as much as the hard-working durable men, so they made a fuss. Eh, whatever.

But enough of that garbage, let me tell you a little something about Offspring, the latest Jack Ketchum work brought to celluloid. Well, it wasn't much. Actually it's as average as average gets.

The flick revolves around the.....what's the word...ya know, children, er, no....products....ehhh. Offspring revolves around the...leftover brood (that works!) from Off Season and these rabid savages aren't done hassling the surrounding community. This go around the young savages have this idea that a regular baby will help them somehow. So that's the target while they bite, chomp and stab everyone they can. I really didn't see the logic there since they had their own baby, but I think they mentioned something about that theirs was cursed or haunted. I don't really remember as I was focusing more on the the ridiculous acting by the savages. Roooaaaarr!! So yep, it's basically a fight for your life type flick. Which is fine by me.

My issue isn't with the story. It's with just how plain old uninspiring it all felt. When it comes down to awesome horror writers, Mr. Ketchum is the man. He writes some awesome stuff. But almost all of his flicks have been severely lacking, with Red being the best. And this is no different. The acting is really just so damn noticeable. It's just flat-out amateur. It's not awful in the sense that you hate the movie because of it, but it is at times cringe worthy.

And what's most strange about this film is that Ketchum wrote the screenplay. And by God, I can't tell if it's just the amateur acting that makes the writing seem poor, or it's the writing itself. The more I think about Offspring the more I'm thinking the actors aren't to blame. Sure they stunk, but I hate to say it but Ketchum's screenplay writing isn't up to snuff. I also throw a lot of the blame on the director as well.

Even though I say the movie isn't anything special, cause it ain't, but it's not totally a mess either. There's some pretty brutal violence on display. And there's even some nudity to boot. I'm also a fan (sucker) of the wilderness type setting, and this has a cave setting, a beach setting, forest setting.....so it looks nice.

But for all the child violence scenes that gives you that quick moment of joy, there's that scene of chit-chat that makes you roll your eyes. The flick is as average as it gets, but at the same time it's still a Jack Ketchum movie, and that's reason enough to watch it.

I would suggest you read the book. The acting wasn't horrible. Except for the Neanderthals. All their grunting and screaming got old. In the very beginning there's a naked girl and I thought, this can't be bad. I was wrong. It's as if they went looking for the ugliest naked girl they could find. There's also some kind of weird pederast sex going on with an old guy that just lays in the dirt making noises. Also, weirdly, Neanderthals shave their faces, legs and vaginas. Then there's the strange sadist caveman rape scene which includes the caveman biting off the girl's labia. The problem with the movie is that it doesn't really explain any of this any better than I did. The he only redeeming quality of this movie was titties. And even they weren't that great. If none of this deters you from seeing this film, they also kill a couple babies in it. But if you're into that kind of thing...

You're in the mood for a gory, and I mean GRUESOME film? Watch the clichéd-filled and grisly film: Offspring. Honestly, there's no other reason to watch it.

A group of Nethanderals (literally) have survived the ages and love cannibalism. Mix that with today's time and a whole lot of blood with a family terrorized.

I admit that this is my fault, that I haven't actually watched this movie for over a month. I generally will watch a movie and attempt to review it within a day or week of the viewing as it's still fresh in my memory. All I remember of this movie is that it was enormously gruesome, make that: unnecessarily grotesque, and it reminded me a lot of the equally unnecessary and blood-soaked film, Gnaw, but better due to acting and direction.

One thing I can say about the movie with the time between viewing and reviewing, is that, apparently, it wasn't too memorable. I do remember horrible, horrible human beings – whether stuck in ages-ago time frames or today's time, that deserve the punishment they get.

I wouldn't recommend it at all, despite the 2/5 stars awarded and it made it that far as it was a well made independent film. It's just an excuse to get gore on the screen with all-but zero attributes. Watch Eegah instead. The MST3k version, that is. At least you'll get a laugh out of the sort-of-same-plot.