Warriors of Terra

Warriors of Terra is the name of a group of young eco-activists who have invaded, and freed the caged critters from, the research facilities of twelve of those large, evil companies that mistreat animals in the service of developing drugs that will make the stockholders (and the immoral CEOs, always beautifully decked out in navy blue suits in these movies) richer than we can hope to imagine. The film is several cuts above average for a low-budget effort. It should satisfy undemanding horror geeks and some of the rest of us who were misled by the title into watching it.

Edward Furlong gets top billing. After Pecker, American History X, and Animal Factory, I thought Furlong was a star, but perhaps not. If the list of films he’s done in the past few years represents quality work, then I’m out of touch, since I haven’t heard of any of them. He doesn’t look good; the sweet bird of youth has flown.

[Mild spoilers]

Think Alien and then replace the female bug with a female human with ebola DNA patched into her cells. Result? She’s faster than the eye can follow. The more she is injured, the more she needs to eat and like Ebola, she likes to eat flesh – the flesh of B-movie actors. Replace the crew in Alien with the Warriors of Terra stuck in the basement of a big building, and then sit back and try to guess who makes it out alive. One of the warriors, Andrea Liu, we’ll be looking for in future films. In this one, being of Asian extraction, she is named “Jade,” in case we hadn’t noticed.

The movie uses sound well. Quiet, understated techno backgound. Rather than graphic killing and feeding, we get a blackout and sound of crunching as each victim meets his/her fate.

The film is unrated, but sadly, only for language and a little gore. Since some of the gore moved, something I don’t remember seeing before, I suppose it’s CGI.

No commentary, which you’ve really got to have to get through some of these things.