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From Resurrection Films and directed by acclaimed filmmaker Jason D. Morris (Weird As F@#k!, We Want to Believe, The Curious Case of the Murder That Wasn’t, Lights! Camera! Murder! Hollywood Horror Stories, Haunted Hollywood), The Space Rodent is an amusing comedy/horror which delightfully pays tribute to the creature horror genre and many classic tropes of cult cinema from the 80s and 90s.
And yes, I know what you’re thinking, this is the very same Jason D. Morris who is the producer of the hit TV show Haunted Objects which wowed the jury in our sister awards competition and film festival, the paranormal-themed Fortean Film Festival in its 2022 season, and picked up four Platinum Awards and an Audience Choice Award.
Praise for Haunted Objects was extremely high among the jury back in 2022, and television producer Tim Whittard (Cat Hunters: The Search for the Beast of Exmoor, Panthera Britannia Declassified/Big Cat Britain Declassified, Weird Britain, Unexplained Island, Expedition Sumatra: In Search of the Orang Pendek) said: “This is has strong flavors of the incredibly successful and legendary TV series Unsolved Mysteries, and Evan O’Hare as the host delivers a performance here that the late Robert Stack himself would be pleased with!”
Also commenting on Haunted Objects, renowned Kiwi filmstar and comedian Brian Sergent (Eagle vs Shark, Flight of the Conchords, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring, Braindead/Dead Alive, Meet the Feebles) said the show was “very interesting and thoroughly suited to this festival”.
With such high praise for his previous work, it goes without saying that expectations were extremely high among the team here when The Space Rodent landed in our inboxes with Jason D. Morris‘s name on it – and pleasingly it has not disappointed!
Immediately reminiscent of hit cult movie Critters, writer Robert Carrera has done a great job of assembling an engaging story with plenty of humour and detail, whilst also including a tonne of satisfying references to classic movies and television shows ranging from Ancient Aliens to Die Hard, The Crow, and The Goonies.
Our two male protagonists, Mac and Dean, played by Robert Carrera (The Curious Case of the Murder That Wasn’t) and David L. Minard (Inhumane, To Die Alone, Practical Uses for a Time Machine) are like a modern-day Bill and Ted, or Wayne and Garth, reimagined for the 2020s; and joining them are Leah Bernard and Shelby Broadnax (Midnight Maniac, Gone with the Dead) who portray Amanda and Skylar, giving us the main characters of the movie. The charismatic host of the afforementioned Haunted Objects, Evan O’Hare also makes a cameo appearance here about halfway through proceedings, and delivers an impressive performance as the sinister Sam.
The titular monster, otherwise referred to as a ‘bear rat’ is probably the most impressive comedy horror movie rodent-hybrid monster since Peter Jackson‘s stop-motion rat monkey from his cult movie Braindead/Dead Alive, with gore and special effects characterised by and befitting the shlock genre, and that look almost as if they too were created by a young Jackson in his mum’s basement with things borrowed from her kitchen.
https://movie-monster.fandom.com/wiki/Sumatran_Rat_Monkey
Although, where Jackson used stop-motion, Morris has opted for puppetry, and it’s actually refreshing to see an unapologetic use of puppets and cheap costume fur, which might be considered ridiculous to use in modern film in anything other than a comedy/horror – and as luck would have it, it really works here and the result is both effective and (in a bizarre way) rather charming; and again seeming to give yet another nostalgic nod to an era of cinema when filmmakers in this genre could not rely on CGI and software to do all the heavy lifting, and where the likes of Frank Oz and the late Jim Henson were considered totally indispensable.
The special effects here will be easily effective enough to suspend the disbelief of most viewers, and overall this is obviously not intended to be taken too seriously. Laughable, ridiculous and great fun, The Space Rodent will be enjoyed by many fans of 80s and 90s cult cinema, and also by fans of science fiction, fantasy films, comedy horrors and creature horror movies.
And as if all that wasn’t enough, the ending teases the exciting possibility of a sequel, and we here at the MegaFlix Movie Awards want to be the first in the queue to see it should Mac and Dean have any future adventures with The Space Rodent…
