I always wished that I was old enough to have lived through all the Atomic Age horror and sci-fi films, so that I could have spent my Saturday afternoons seeing creatures morphed with animals, insects, or other beings thanks to radiation or nuclear powers, terrorizing people and cities on the screen while I nervously ate my bag of fifteen-cent popcorn and nickel soda pop.
Thankfully, I am not the only one who has a love for these Golden Age horror-fests, because it is only with such a deep appreciation for those movies could someone have made Inhumanwich!, a film in which an astronaut is accidentally merged with his Sloppy Joe sandwich while in space, and crashes back to earth…hungry for flesh….as he slowly moves like a saucy Jabba the Hutt over the town, eating people and leaving their bones behind.
The movie is one of the funniest films I’ve watched in a long while. It is exactly like what I imagine a Mystery Science Theatre 3000 movie would be like if instead of watching a movie, those characters were making their own. The comedy is great, with a lot of winks to the audience and definitely made with a good knowledge of classic sci-fi/horror films like Them! or The War of the Worlds, or even more modern fare like my favorite Joe Dante film, Matinee!, featuring the movie-within-a-movie, Mant!
I’m so used to reviewing dark, sleazy horror and gore films that when something like this comes along, it is like a breath of fresh air. Inhumanwich! has all the elements of a horror or sci-fi from the 50s, but unlike those movies, which were mostly made as serious and have only aged so poorly that we can’t help laugh at them, Inhumanwich! keeps you laughing with it. While everyone in the film was great – a caliber above what you’d normally find in such low budget filmmaking, I would smack myself if I didn’t point out my favorite character, General Graham (Jake Robinson), who had me rolling throughout the entire film.
This is the first film I’ve seen from director David Cornelius, but after this outing, I’m definitely looking forward to more. The film is witty and wacky, and kept me laughing the entire time. With a fun, twisted take on an old sci-fi trope coupled with some great site-gags and one liners, Inhumanwich! is the most fun I’ve had with a movie so far this year, and truly one of the best indie horror/comedy films out there.
