Professor Jim McFarland (Al Baker) teaches astronomy at the local university. Jim hears about some strange lights that have been seen in the skies over the small town of Berryhill. He and his assistant, Ann Bennett (Katherine Hutson) decide to take several of his students on a school field trip to investigate the sightings.
The students assemble together to discuss the trip. On hand are Jerry Newland (Richard Taylor), Libby Jones (Shelly Creel), Roger Clayton (Matthew Hixenbaugh), Fran Stevens (Jackie Shook), Eugene Kendall (William Jerrick) and Connie Hamilton (Pamela Michaels). Just before leaving for Berryhill, Jerry shows Jim an article in the local paper about the sightings. The article reveals that there have also been reports about cattle mutilations in the same area.
On the way to the site the group finds a mutilated cow. The car the group is in is attacked by a spaceship. They manage to get away and end up at a diner owned by Buck Jenson (Bill Buckner). Buck and a local farmer, Charley Hill (Harvey Shell) tell Jim about their encounters with the lights and the cattle mutilations. Charley mentions that his two dogs were killed and partially eaten by whatever is out there. Buck tells Jim about a hermit, Oliver Matson (John Bliss), who saw what he says were aliens. Oliver has a reputation of being crazy, but now people think that there may be something to his ravings this time.
Jim, Ann and the kids head up to Oliver’s house to see if they can garner any information from the man. At first Oliver is hostile but when he finds out that Jim is more than willing to give him the benefit of the doubt, Oliver opens up and talks about his encounter with the aliens. Suddenly a spaceship crash lands in front of the house. Aliens from the ship begin hunting, killing and eating the students.
“Mutilations” was released in 1986 and was written and directed by Larry Thomas. It is a zero budget American independent science fiction horror “B” movie. This is another hard-to-find film.
The movie falls into one of two categories. It is either so bad its good, or it’s just bad.
It is an SOV (shot-on-video) film. Director Thomas is a salesman who makes movies in his spare time. The movie is rife with bad acting, bad special effects, (especially the mutilated cow) and no plot. The actors are a bunch of twenty-something-year-old “teenagers”. Most of them have never been in a movie before, or since.
Despite the bad effects, or maybe because of them, the movie is perfect for the usual cult following. The effects are mostly Claymation stop motion. There is an overabundance of it involved, and the scenes with the Claymation were repeated continuously. The gore is rather plentiful but obviously fake. The aliens are stiff-legged lumpy piles of red silly putty with teeth. Altogether, the special effects range from average to really bad.
While shooting, the filmmakers ran across a forest fire. They filmed it and used the film in the movie.