Horror Movie Review: Colony Mutation (1995)

It’s a big ask for anyone to put up with the terrible quality of the visuals and sounds of Colony Mutation. Also known as just Colony or Colony of the Dark. It looks awful, grainy and dark while the sound is distorted and often not synced to the actor’s mouths. Quite badly at times too. It’s a real problem and seriously detracts from what is a campy, sci-fi with a decent premise.

Jim Matthews (David Rommel) is a sales representative for a genetic engineering company where his wife, Meredith (Anne Zizzo) also works. He’s a normal average guy who just so happens to having an affair with his secretary. She is madly in love with Jim and wants Jim to leave his wife to be with her but Jim is constantly making his excuses.

Inevitably Meredith finds out about his cheating ways. After she discovers motel room charges on a joint account credit card statement. She wasn’t with Jim, so who was? I mean how dumb can you be? Sneak off to a motel room to cheat on your wife yet make the charge to your joint credit card!? With that kind of stupidity, it’s amazing he and Meredith got away with it for so long.

Meredith confronts Jim but he denies it and refuses to even talk about her suspicions. Enraged, Meredith throws an experimental solution on him which causes Jim’s a few problems.

Problems that see his limbs detach and crave human flesh. While searching for a cure, Jim is forced to feed his limbs by killing random people but his control of them is loosening. Everyone close to him is now in danger as his limbs get more and more demanding.

As we said, it’s a decent premise. One that could have been better realised with a little more budget and a more competent director/cast.

Ignoring how bad it looks and sounds, Colony Mutation also sucks the life out of viewers with shoddy acting and horrid editing. It’s a mess of a movie made all the worse by effects that wouldn’t look out of place at a school play where everything is made out of paper-mâché.

Ultimately, it’s going to go down as one of the worst movies ever made. Simply because of how unwatchable it is. We can’t rate it high just because the premise was sound. The realisation of that story never happens. So if it’s body horror you’re after, go check out a David Cronenberg film instead.