FOOD OF THE GODS

   Film (1976). AIP. Prod and dir Bert I. Gordon, starring Marjoe Gortner, Pamela Franklin, Ralph Meeker, Ida Lupino. Screenplay Gordon, based on a "portion" of The Food of the Gods and How it Came to Earth (1904) by H.G. WELLS. 88 mins. Colour.

   Set on an island off the coast of British Columbia, FOTG tells of a miraculous foodstuff which oozes from the ground and causes gigantism in all infant creatures that eat it (GREAT AND SMALL). Animated wasps, plastic caterpillars and out-of-focus chickens (all huge)are wholly unconvincing, but the giant rats (ordinary rats shot in miniature sets) are marginally plausible - which is more than can be said for most of the actors and all of the script, though Meeker is effectively creepy as the wicked industrialist out to exploit the Food. Nothing of the Wells novel survives in this rat-drowning epic, which purports to be arevenge-of-Nature film - like so many from its ECOLOGY-conscious period.

   PN