Mutant Blast review: The latest film from the house of Troma has arrived, and it’s an beautifully batty as you would hope.
Troma Entertainment, Inc.
Troma is now 45 years old, and what a wonderful 45 years it has been. Mostly known for The Toxic Avenger and kickstarting James Gunn’s career, Troma has consistently offered up cheap, nasty, offensive cinema with plenty of gore, laughs, practical effects, and most of all passion. If you’re looking to get into Troma, they’ve uploaded a lot of their own back catalogue to YouTube. Mutant Blast continues the studio’s off the wall ideas, while also giving cinema-goers a rare dose of insane fun that any normal studio, script, or creative team would be too conservative to try.
Starting as it means to go one, Mutant Blast sees a very muscular gentleman known as TS-347 (Joaquim Guerreiro) broken out of some kind of prison by Maria (Maria Leite). During their escape, it becomes apparent that there is a zombie outbreak in its early stages. Sorry, that shouldn’t be zombies, as the film bleeps out the majority of uses of the word ‘zombie’ in a neat little comedic twist. Meanwhile, Pedro (Pedro Barao Dias) awakens from a house party with a penis drawn on his face and the whole of the human race seemingly having disappeared. Pedro and Maria bump into each other, but the military cell pursuing Maria launch a nuclear bomb, which begins to mutate the survivors.
The plot moves quickly, and the comic touches continually cause much laughter. Not only is ‘zombie’ bleeped out, but we have the passage of time cards that become as specific as ‘1 Minute and 26 seconds later.’ Where the film truly shines is in its surrealist approach. Pedro’s hand mutates into a rat, Maria gains an ear on her neck, and they meet up with another band of mutants, one of which just happens to be a human-sized lobster in a suit, because…why the hell not?
There are plenty of other surprises in store, and sometimes it explodes in hilariously horrific moments of gore. Sometimes the practical effects are brilliant, and sometimes they are laughably bad. That’s not a criticism, however, as even when things are less than convincing, at least they’re funny.
Troma Entertainment, Inc.
The film also does a surprising amount with its characters. The relationship between Maria and Pedro is unexpectedly sweet and well portrayed by the leads. They bounce lines off one another and also keep their performances very straight. They acknowledge the absurdity of what is going on, but never once do they try and ham it up for laughs. Their lack of mugging to the camera means we can also commit to the bonkers characters that begin to show up.
Mutant Blast is an absolute blast from beginning to end. It takes everything that makes Troma great, but never uses its budget as an excuse to not try its best. Up there with The Toxic Avenger, Cannibal the Musical, and Poultrygeist: Night of the Chicken Dead, Mutant Blast may very well become one of Troma’s cult classics, and is also one of their more accessible titles for those who wish to avoid more controversial material.
Mutant Blast was reviewed at Arrow Video Frightfest 2019.
