Every once and a while a DVD will cross my path and stun me with how deceiving it is. That's what happened when I first saw the artwork for North American's Mutants. I mean, take a look at that drooling, toothy alien creature as it hovers menacingly above Earth on the front of the box. How fricking cool does that look? Sadly, it's probably the coolest thing this has to offer, and the alien and its imminent attack on humankind has absolutely NOTHING to do with what's within. I'm not against embellishing your low-budget, shitty-ass product a little bit to try and get rentals but for f*ck's sake don't resort to conning people out of the five bucks they're going to pay to rent it - only the person behind the counter at the video store is going to feel their wrath and they don't deserve that.

Now that I've gotten that out of my system, let's actually talk about what you are going to get if you're unfortunate enough to actually watch this. Mutants opens up with special agent Gauge (Michael Ironside, obviously slumming) who has been called in to investigate the Just Rite Sugar Company. It seems that, in an effort to make tons of money, they've concocted a formula that, in the words of the company president, is guaranteed to make common sugar more addictive than cocaine and caffeine combined. The work of Russian scientist Sergei (Armando Leduc), it turns out our little additive has some nasty side effects as it turns regular people into infected mutants.

That's the basics of scripters Jodie Jones and Sam Sullivan's scattershot attempts to establish the story (and they even throw in some flashbacks to nudge it along) but the main focus is on heavy drinking security guard Griff (Louis Herthum) and his daughter Erin (Sharon Landry) who stumble upon Just Rite's devious plan while looking for their missing family member, and teen reporter, Ryan (Derrick Denicola) who has been kidnapped by our evil sugar pushers to become one of the next test subjects.

After a first half that really goes nowhere and produces minimal effort at establishing plot and characterizations, Mutants heads towards a finale that you couldn't really describe as either a horror film or an action movie, even if director Amir Valinia wants to try and make it both. It's basically just a hodgepodge of plot points as our reunited family tries to escape the factory, Ironside's character decides to reappear to try and stop Just Rite's plans, and there's a bunch of badly staged moments where our generic soldier-types gun down various infected townsfolk - who never really offer much threat as they're easily stopped by a couple of, not even precisely aimed, bullets. However, the film hits its nadir of ineptness when they trot out one horrible looking CGI explosion in the final moments.

Despite getting top-billing Ironside and Steven Bauer don't get a lot of screen time and prove that, as actors that have both appeared in over one-hundred movies, they're not overly picky about what they receive a paycheque for. Of the rest of the cast, Leduc is probably best known having appeared in hit television series "Prison Break" but he's also the worst thing here slapping on such a thick, completely unconvincing and cartoony Russian accent that you almost have to wonder if he knew he was in a shit movie. Herthum has a long resume of playing doctors, security guards, and policemen (even appearing in twenty-five episodes of Angela Lansbury's "Murder She Wrote") but, like co-stars Landry and Denicola, makes nary an impression. And Tony Senzamici's attempt to be badass as Commander Sykes is laughable at best.

After being sold on that aforementioned cover art and having my interested peaked at the appearance of veteran character actor Ironside (Total Recall, Visiting Hours), I have nothing but venom to spit at Mutants. It's incompetent drivel like this that sometimes makes it hard to keep a positive attitude about b-movies - and to think I still have a screener copy of Valinia's previous effort, the DMX-starring Carnivorous, to sit through. (Chris Hartley, 10/28/09)

Directed By: Amir Valinia.
Written By: Jodie Jones, Sam Sullivan.

Starring: Michael Ironside, Steven Bauer, Louis Herthum, Tony Senzamici.

Picture Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen.

Picture Quality: While the picture does show some graininess and there's a few compression issues but it's not too distracting and the transfer is clean with decent colour.

Extras: The screener disc I viewed only contained the trailer but the retail version will also have a behind-the-scenes featurette and still gallery.

Visit North American for more info.