Where to begin with this one? By just about every critical standard around, this is crap, getting down to almost Ed Wood levels of badness. Which of course is why it's great - it's a shame this movie is so hard to find these days; because it's a born cult classic.
Jesus-fixated farmwife Ida Lupino (poor, poor Ida - what hath the entertainment industry reduced you to?) and her doomed hubbie (some guy who looks like the Gortons' Fisherman) discover some slop that looks like ranch dressing bubbling up out of the ground. Initially, they think it's oil.
When this possibility is ruled out, not knowing what it is, they feed it to their chickens, and soon enough they have a barnful of giant chickens. An inspired and most definitely unique giant-chicken-assault scene is an early high point.
Ultimately, wasps and rats get into the stuff, with all the usual expected bad effects - they attack and kill unsuspecting entrepreneurs, hippies, rustics and others, while our hero Marjoe Goertener (the onetime evangelist, and subject of the unforgettable documentary MARJOE) rallies his bored-looking cast to shoot their way out of a rat siege.
As is typical for a lot of b-movies (Ed Wood, Herschell Gordon Lewis, et. al.), there is a great affection for the escapist and mythic possibilities of cinema on display here; I can point out the drive-in-flick cheesiness, but I should also note that this film (and stuff like it) is great, great fun, and director Bert Gordon's miniatures are well-crafted; perhaps a bit quaint (and suggestive of an innocence that might now qualify as anachronistic) in an era of technological effects. If you love movies, you owe it to yourself to not miss this one.
Jesus-fixated farmwife Ida Lupino (poor, poor Ida - what hath the entertainment industry reduced you to?) and her doomed hubbie (some guy who looks like the Gortons' Fisherman) discover some slop that looks like ranch dressing bubbling up out of the ground. Initially, they think it's oil.
When this possibility is ruled out, not knowing what it is, they feed it to their chickens, and soon enough they have a barnful of giant chickens. An inspired and most definitely unique giant-chicken-assault scene is an early high point.
Ultimately, wasps and rats get into the stuff, with all the usual expected bad effects - they attack and kill unsuspecting entrepreneurs, hippies, rustics and others, while our hero Marjoe Goertener (the onetime evangelist, and subject of the unforgettable documentary MARJOE) rallies his bored-looking cast to shoot their way out of a rat siege.
As is typical for a lot of b-movies (Ed Wood, Herschell Gordon Lewis, et. al.), there is a great affection for the escapist and mythic possibilities of cinema on display here; I can point out the drive-in-flick cheesiness, but I should also note that this film (and stuff like it) is great, great fun, and director Bert Gordon's miniatures are well-crafted; perhaps a bit quaint (and suggestive of an innocence that might now qualify as anachronistic) in an era of technological effects. If you love movies, you owe it to yourself to not miss this one.