Breeders (1997)

The Isle of Man masquerades as Boston, and the likes of Oliver Tobias and Samantha Womack (then Janus) masquerade as Americans in this ‘sort of’ remake of the Tim Kincaid smut n’ slime fest of the same name from 1986. Squarely aimed at the US direct to video market, I remember British Breeders' attempts to pass itself off as an American production were immediately undercut by the opening titles’ acknowledgement of ‘the Isle of Man film commission’….and that is even before we get to the put-on American accents. As per the Kincaid movie, the film centers around an alien abducting and brainwashing women for breeding purposes, only this time all the action is played out at a girl’s school in …ahem… ‘Boston’.

If I’m recalling this correctly (keeping in mind its been nearly twenty years since I’ve seen it) the film does in part at least recreate the ‘sperm bath’ sequence that everyone remembers from the 1986 film, and adds a couple of original touches of its own. There is a leather clad ‘Space Girl’ (Kadamba Simmons) running about the place, who appears to have a psychic connection to the creature, a subplot that isn’t lifted from the Kincaid film. British Breeders is also distinguished by its fixation on women’s bottoms, with derrière not only emphasized in the obligatory shower scene, but also in more humdrum moments. A trait that I recall becoming a source of unintentional hilarity after a while. I guess someone behind the camera was bringing a fetish of theirs to work with them.

On a sadder note, the film is also tragically notable for the fact that one of its stars Kadamba Simmons, was murdered by an ex-boyfriend shortly after the film was made. A turn of events that renders scenes of ‘Space Girl’ cowering in the shadows and being terrorized by a fictional monster, uncomfortable viewing at times.



Director Paul Matthews made an earlier British monster movie ‘Grim’ (1995) which bypassed British distribution during the video era, and was belatedly released here on DVD in 2004. His Breeders did however make it onto the VHS shelves of Blockbuster in the UK, and presumably on the basis of Janus’ name, and the fact that it had a cool looking monster on the cover, persuaded a few of us to rent it out back then. Even if we were kicking ourselves for doing so by the time it came to post Breeders back through Blockbuster’s ‘hole in the wall’ returns slot the next day. Actually, I may well have talked myself into wanting to watch this one again, and since the film frequently shows up in the 50p section of CEX, I guess it wouldn’t be too costly a re-visit.

BTW: searching for films called ‘Breeders’ on amazon.uk can bring you into contact with such  strange looking adult titles as ‘Ass Breeder 3’ (wonder if you have to watch parts 1 and 2 in order to understand the plot of that one) and ‘Puppy Breeder’ (who knew gay dwarfs dressed as dogs was a ‘thing’). Compared to those, the idea of an alien impregnating women and making them bathe in its sperm suddenly seems quite vanilla.