Feeders 2: Slay Bells (1998 Video) User Reviews

Santa was run over by a Polonia

[tim_sparks · 3/10 · 16 December 2003]

You've seen Feeders and you think to yourself, what a wonderful world. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire, a sequel-urge is nipping at your nose.

Well this ain't no winter wonderland, Jack. This is a coal burning furnace spitting the fiery flames of futility at your dismayed visage.

Yes, Feeders 2 is a sequel in every sense of the word. The Feeders are back, and this time Santa joins the fray. A nice little asynchronous segment featuring a character from the first Feeders is thrown in, apparently to stun and confuse the audience. Then it gets worse. Once the nerve endings gain sensation again, there is nothing but pain.

The best scene is where a guy goes into his basement, then into his basement's basement, then apparently into his basement's basement's sub basement to get killed by a Feeder.

And at one point someone thinks a Feeder is a toy.

Well that's a no-brainer, they look that fake.

Gone is the delirious Ed-Wood-Meets-Larry-Flint fun of the original feeders, and as a retread, this film gets a flat tire. Where Feeders fed, even though this movie is led to the same watering hole, it poops instead of feeds. You can lead a dead sequel out to pasture but you can't make it drink from the fountain of its own futility. No sir, you take that unpleasant pull off the tap of tepidness by your lonesome if you see this film.

Where is the fun? In the sub-sub-basement. Where is the acting? The only acting in this film is the fast-acting damage inducing effects of seeing the acting of the the tortuous kids, kids that would make you take your own life if they were your kids. If they were someone else's kids that you only saw once in your life, you might take your life just to show your support that the parents should take their own lives.

If you see this movie, don't take your own life. Hasn't the movie done enough? Just vomit, shake it off, and seek therapy.

Feeders 2 picks up where Feeders left off, at the top of the urinal bowl. Then it plunges right in and you flush away 90 minutes of your life.

A sequel too far

[Leofwine_draca · 2/10 · 12 November 2018]

While I thought that the original camcorder sci-fi epic FEEDERS had a little merit, this Christmas-themed sequel, SLAY BELLS, is a step too far. The setting is now a small town, where the flesh-hungry aliens show up and Santa has to prevent another massacre. It sounds fun but it really isn't; it's cheap beyond belief, with a few snippets of gore and lots of quite terrible acting.

Lazer Wielding Santa Battles Aliens To Save Probed Family On Christmas.

[meddlecore · 2/10 · 19 December 2021]

Now, I never saw the original- aside from the flashback segment that rehashes footage from the original- but from what I gather, this is a D-grade, straight-to-video release that is all sorts of cheese.

Basically, a family is about to settle down for the night on Christmas Eve, when they are attacked by a bunch of small aliens who have an insatiable taste for blood.

After killing and consuming the neighbours, they start to hone in on the family, which is the family of one of the characters from the original film (or so I gather, at least).

All before they knock Santa out of the sky, as he was passing over their house.

Despite the behest of his family, the man risks his life to "save Santa".

Which is a little odd, as he is back in fighting shape as soon as he gets into the house.

Leave it to Santa to save the day...

Terrible acting aside (other than the kids, bless their souls), the aliens are hilariously bad puppets.

Actually, they are kind of cool when their limbs are being animated...but their faces are just so so bad.

If you can manage to ignore everything that sucks about this film (which is most of it, to be fair)...it does has a sort of charm to it.

Almost as if it was made by one family as a project over Christmas, or something.

I'm not goiong to lie...if you can sell yourself that lie, it's much more palatable than knowing people went through considerable effort to make this "vision" a reality.

You'd think they had no budget at all, if it weren't for the fact they are rocking some fledgling cgi graphics up in there with UFO.

All-in-all it's pretty much a bad film all-around.

But worth a watch if you are looking for some pure 90's straight-to-vhs Christmas horror cheese.

2 out of 10.

Santa Conquers the Feeders

[Dirkmaster · 1/10 · 16 March 2005]

The Good News: only 68 minutes long.

The Bad News: its 68 minutes of Polonia video tripe.

These guys should be taken as true encouragement to Indie film producers. If they can sell this offal, then you CAN succeed. Take heart.

The DVD release contains commentaries where the actors/writers/director/cameraman (there appears to only be 4 people involved in total) admits that they spent no money whatsoever. So in light of that, it IS impressive that they could talk anyone into releasing it on DVD. Or maybe they won a lottery and paid someone to do it.

An utter masterpiece

[themanwiththegoldengun19 · 1/10 · 16 April 2004]

I had the priviledge of seeing this film at a local film festival in Cincinatti. This film is like no other on Earth. It is completely breathtaking in its utter awe and beauty.

When you see the little aliens for the first time, you will be amazed by the magnificent special effects. I have heard rumors that $150,000,000 went into designing the aliens alone.

The acting is nothing short of supreme. Breathtaking performances define this film. You will be moved to tears by the hilarious comedy scenes and the horrible tragedies the characters face. Truly, this is acting worthy of Shakespeare himself.

Then there is the musical score. Your ears will jump with joy when you hear the music. The sound is absolutely Oscar-worthy.

There's no other way to put it. Feeders 2: Slay Bells is sure to be remembered as one of the finest films of the 20th century.

1 for the original, 10 for rifftrax.

[mhorg2018 · 1/10 · 27 December 2019]

Holy... They made this one even cheaper than the first! I'm not kidding here. This time the barely mobile aliens look like papier mache over lightbulbs! The acting is just as bad, the story just as lame. Worst part: there are flashbacks from feeders! Thanks to Mike, Kevin and Bill this is watchable. Still utterly horrible, but still funny as hell thanks to rifftrax.

A Christmas present for the naughtiest of the naughty.

[lastliberal · 1/10 · 21 December 2007]

The first thing I had to do after watching this was to re-rate Beerfest. I had to up its rating to make room for this, the absolute worst movie I have ever seen. To be completely honest, my first reaction after watching this was to immediately take it outside, run over it with my car, put it through the chipper, and burn the chips. However, I paused long enough to realize that this film and the companion Feeders on the same DVD would quite possible serve a purpose that was in the National Interest.

I contacted the CIA and told them that they could stop worrying about water-boarding and all those other torture methods that were getting them in trouble. I had the perfect solution to their problems. They just needed to get this film to Guantanamo and all their secret locations. I am certain that their prisoners would be screaming to talk after watching it just twice. I am waiting to hear back before I destroy it.

The "aliens" in this film are the most ridiculous things I have ever seen. They look like they are made of papier-mâché, and their arms and legs are like stick people. The dialog is painful and there is no acting at all. But, the worst offense of all -

Santa with a plastic ray-gun!

Bah Humbug!

I hate it when a sizable portion of a sequel is footage from the previous film.

[Aaron1375 · 1/10 · 15 July 2020]

This film reminded me of another low budget homemade type film called "Things"; however, this one may of had a coherent plot (Things absolutely did not) it still manages to be worse than that film which had to really bum out the makers of "Things" as they were literally trying to make the most horrible film in existence. I would have been more kind to this thing, but they did something I find inexcusable in a sequel and that is a good portion of this film uses the footage from the first film. Hell, it even did a few scenes from the first more than once! A recap of the previous film is sometimes necessary, as the old Friday the 13th films did this, but they lasted less than five minutes and were done and over because they would occur at the beginning of the film. This one is chugging along and all of a sudden we are back to the guy recapping his story, only this time it is like a 10 to 15 minute rundown!

The story (aside from the recap) has a family about to enjoy Christmas. Well, enjoy may be to strong a word as the mom and dad are just there to endure it. Aliens called feeders are on their way though and even though anyone killed by an alien you can grab in one hand and smash dead to the ground deserves it. The husband goes to work where his boss verbally abuses the husband to the point of lunacy as we cut to scenes of children playing with rolls of paper and boxes and stuff you see in home movies only you are seeing it used in an actual movie to pass the time. The things kill, but the effects suck as the gore not enough to cover up the crap that is feeders!

The cast is bland, my guess is that it consists of the Polonia brothers family and friends. I am guessing that even though they did not have much in the way of budget, they could not make an adult film as the two brothers did not know anyone attractive enough to headline one of those. The mother looks like something out of the late 70's or early 80's as does the father. They tack on a couple of scenes to pad the film such as a priest and a woman and her cat, but for the most part the film is padded with the previous film.

The film is pretty much a home brew and I would say it is quite a bad one as even "Things" where they were trying to be as bad as possible isn't as bad as this. People who say Manos: The Hands of Fate is the worst film, definitely have not delved into the depths of bad cinema, because that film is better than this one too. There are really no saving graces to the film other than the film is coherent to a degree, but that is not exactly high praise as there have been way better incoherent films than this. I will not go so far as to say it is the worst film I've ever seen though, so it has that going for it.

Hahahhahah

[BandSAboutMovies · 3/10 · 19 December 2022]

I have let all of you down by not having a Pollonia Brothers holiday movie on the site until now, so here we go. Alan (Mark Polonia) has a horrible job that gives him big hours and small pay and he might not be able to get gifts for his kids, but maybe if he helps Santa defeat the Feeders, which are literally hand puppet monsters, perhaps everything will work out.

Directed by John, written by him and Mark and just around an hour, this also has a cat in it that is really made of construction paper and I don't know, there's something about things being lo fi and shot on video that makes me incredibly forgiving. The real gift? There are two more Feeders movies and have the same aliens that look like they were made by children and have glowing red eyes which I love. I mean, they also haunt me, but I love them.

Christmas Joy

[michle53 · 10/10 · 19 February 2024]

I absolutely love this movie. There is nothing about it that doesn't fill me with a sense of elation. I don't know what it is. The house in Wellsboro all decked out for Christmas. Maria Davis working with all the members of her own family. Mark Polonia being completely convincing as an insurance claims adjustor with a somewhat psychotic boss. The perky, murderous little aliens running around a small town in Pennsylvania and eating people. The poor neighbor lady who sees her cat Fluffy murdered, before she herself is killed. All of it is marvelous and hilarious. I sometimes keep this movie playing in my headphones when I'm working, just to stay in a good mood.

The Editor Could've Slayed About 1/3 of The Movie

[Humdinger69 · 6/10 · 5 October 2018]

Inferior to the first offering but still a moderately entertaining SOV flick while its on. The deaths aren't as funny (though I doubt anything could top the originals iconic hospital scene), the aliens don't seem to do as much in general, and there are too many dragged-out scenes where we are shown a whole bunch of nothing. But just when you think the movie's about to derail into complete boredom, it always redeems itself with a nice alien shot, some amusing acting and dialogue, or some other entertaining stupidity.

The pint-sized aliens essentially have sticks for appendages, and their hands are stubs, yet somehow they are still able to twist doorknobs and drag a full-grown man across the floor. As with the first movie, the growling sound does start to get a bit grating after the 100th time it's used.

All the SOV staples are still there: horrible acting, horrible dialogue, horrible CGI, horrible gore, paper mache creature FX and random flatulence. The entertainment is also still there, it's just not on the level of the first. So, in short, decent but disappointing.

A highly enjoyable sequel that's an improvement over the original

[kannibalcorpsegrinder · 7/10 · 21 October 2022]

Preparing for the holiday season, a family man trying to get through the day finds himself and his family in danger when a race of aliens continues their invasion of Earth, forcing him to have to discover their plans and stop them before they overtake the world for their own feeding ground.

This one turned out to be a pretty solid sequel. One of the better elements of this one is the enjoyable atmosphere created by mixing the cheesy tone of the original with a Christmas aesthetic. Making the new entry a holiday-set effort that focuses on the family's holiday plans while being forced to turn it all upside down for the exploits of the invasion taking place is a pretty fun move allowing for the same cheesy alien effects and gore to mesh quite well within the wintery setting even before the outlandish concept of Santa and the elves comes into play. This does occur quite late in the film which requires a bit of waiting around to get to that point but it's not nearly as noticeable as it could've been and allows for some fun getting this section of the film spelled out until then. As well, the film works remarkably well outside of these factors with the use of a more widespread sense of the invasion taking place in the community. With a bigger focus on rampaging through the area attacking more victims and taking place in the homes of more people, which are all more suspenseful than expected, this feels more structured and genuine-feeling as the exploits taken here provide for a fun time. This still suffers from the same issues as before with the low-budget being plainly obvious not just with the creatures' puppetry-based creation being obvious but also the cheesy gore and bloodshed alongside the low-rent computer graphics that make this feel decidedly cheap. It's not as bad as it could've been but still lowers this one quite a lot.

Rated R: Violence and Language.