What I'm Watching: The Mildew from Planet Xonader

That is one heck of a title, innit?  It lets you know right off the bat what you are in for, and Mildew does not disappoint on that count.

The plot revolves around a 1984 military research facility that has developed a mold bioweapon, and naturally, things go wildly out of control.  As they do!

Now, "Mildew" is actually a repurposed movie from 2012, called Mold!.  The makers of this version somehow got the rights to it, and added some new footage.  I've not seen the first one, and I don't fully know what all is new with this one, but in case anyone comes along and goes, "Heeey, this sounds familiar!" now you know why.

Anyways, this movie is glorious, gory, gooey cheese.

I knew this was exactly the sort of movie I look for when there was a disgusting melting head within the first minute or so.  "Yes good, I have chosen well!"  And it just gets more and more gory from there.

After the begooining, we focus on the setup of this research facility, get background on the mold, and meet the characters.  And they are all amazingly broad characters that are over the top, and almost every guy has a just as amazing 80s Tom Selleck moustache.  Some are real, some are fake, and that makes it even better.

It really doesn't take long for things to go wrong at all, as the spores infect a coke-doing politician, who dies violently, and things just get worse from there.  Both for our characters, and for the gorefest.

The plot is simple, with some added flavour of an evil businessman machination seeking to wipe out the people in the building, and an outsider named (Much to his chagrin) Toxic, who works for a rival corporation that wants the mold for itself, and to destroy the competition.  It is a little bit of the best gorefest mixed with The Thing, but set in the desert instead of an Antarctic research base.  They don't quite go full paranoia like the Carpenter classic, but they do play briefly with "Who is infected?" type moments.

Every time I thought the gore couldn't get any gooier or any bloodier, another moment would come along to prove me just how wrong I was.  The opening head melt was just a warning shot in a fantastic ever-increasing game of topping themselves.  We have face melting, face explosions, things bursting out of stomachs, hacking people to bits, melting eyeballs...it is truly wonderful to behold.

Is this the most well written movie ever, oh gosh no!  But it is a hell of a lot of fun, filled with wacky characters who die in the most horrible ways, and more than a few very quotable lines.  It has a very unique, if low budget aesthetic, bathed in green and red, and while the sets are clearly someone's breakroom, it works great for this sort of movie.

If you love classic 80s straight to video gorefests, The Mildew from Planet Xonader is a must see.  It is a bit too slick to really be an 80s homage, and clearly made today, but it was grown out of that same sensibility, and again, is just a LOT of gooey fun.  This is the kind of movie we love to find here at Trisk.