‘Breeders’ Isn’t Bad Enough to Be Good

Movies should be judged relative to their genre. As an example, the recent Guillermo del Toro film, Crimson Peak, was marketed and subsequently judged as a horror film. Some reviewers have pointed out that it was more akin to a Gothic costume drama, and are upset that it’s being judged in relation to generic constraints that were forced upon it.

This is worth mentioning because the focus of this review, Breeders, has redeeming qualities despite its relative failure as a film, and these qualities are more respectable when viewed from a different angle.

The bad movie boom is a fairly recent phenomena. Films like The Room, Manos: The Hands of Fate, and Troll 2 can only be as notable as they are once their dissemination becomes effortless — enter the Internet. With an influx of wider-reaching and increasingly committed fanbases making their own communities and sharing films without the old hardships of having to hunt down obscure trash in video stores, cult films have entered the mainstream. They no longer live in the realm of trashy niche magazines and video store booths, they’re streaming on Netflix.

To watch Breeders is predicated on understanding that the film will be bad, but how bad will it be? And how entertaining? Happily enough, the answer to those questions is, respectively, pretty bad and mildly entertaining. It seems almost useless to bother with a plot synopsis, since there’s less of a story and more of a sequence of scenes in which women find some way to disrobe before being killed. Nevertheless, intrepid hunters of fodder for bad movie nights should pay attention.

New York City is being terrorized. Young virginal women show up dead, and a hilariously named female doctor, Gamble Pace (Teresa Yvon Farley), and detective Dale Andriotti (Lance Lewman) are on the case. As the audience embarks deeper into this journey, the horrifying-ly funny cause of the murders is unveiled. Without spoiling anything, let’s just say that it involves… goo.

No film that can be summarized like that could possibly be good, with the exception of the sublime giallo and Italo-horror pictures of the ’70s and ’80s, and Breeders is not in either category. The special effects are completely underwhelming, the story is nonexistent, and the acting isn’t very good, either. That said, it succeeds in being entertaining because of a smattering of hilariously ludicrous scenes. Case in point, the opening scene has a future dead girl walking down a “bad neighborhood” barefoot, for some unknown reason.

Breeders seems to operate on the assumption that viewers will be distracted from its shortcomings by the constant stream of bare breasts. At some point, the question becomes whether it was a porn film under the guise of trying to be serious, or an attempt at a serious film from a director too used to directing porn. It’s completely unclear, and could go either way. One thing is for sure, and that is that the film is unashamedly exploitative.

Unfortunately, it’s not particularly unique as far as bad movies are concerned. The Room and Troll 2 are utterly bizarre to the point where we question if they were actually made or just randomly generated, somehow, but Breeders is just rote. There’s nothing new or particularly wild about the film, just a long string of nude scenes and generic death scenes.

Ultimately, there’s just not too much you can say about Breeders. If you’re looking for a fun little bad movie to drink along with, it’s not the best choice, but not the worst either. What works in its favor is its’ short runtime of 77-minutes, the way in which the actors stumble over clumsily written lines, and the nonsensical finalé. However, it’s just not enough to make the experience worth it.

Director Tim Kincaid attained notoriety as the director of a string of gay porn films in the ’70s, and Breeders watches like an attempt to move past that without actually understanding what makes a good b-horror film or what makes a film good in general. The Blu-Ray from Olive Films is scant on extras — so scant that there are none, not even a subtitle track. At least the picture quality is excellent, in case you desire to watch Breeders in stunning high definition.