Really Surprised!

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The blurb and quotes on the DVD cover for writer/director Neil Meschino's Mold! compare the movie to 80s cult horror classic Street Trash, which seems reasonable to me: I didn't rate Street Trash all that highly either.Set in 1984, Mold! takes place in a top secret laboratory where a highly virulent, genetically engineered strain of mold (or mould, as we English spell it) has been developed to wipe out illegal drug crops. Unfortunately, it also proves deadly for humans, as the scientists and military top brass in the establishment discover when, one-by-one, they come into contact with the super spores.I was expecting bad acting, I was expecting dreadful dialogue, and I was expecting unconvincing special effects, since all of these elements are par for the course in deliberately cheesy trash such as this. However, I was also expecting the whole silly affair to be a lot more fun that it actually was.Mold! takes an awfully long time to get to the good stuff, with way too much talk and unnecessary plot development before getting gross. Unfortunately, when the messy special effects eventually happen, they're not all that special: a lot of green goop and blood gets thrown around, and there are some extremely unconvincing rubbery body parts that go splat and plop, but there's nothing that proves particularly memorable (unlike Street Trash, which at least ended with a genuine showstopper—a glorious decapitation by gas canister).I rate Mold! a disappointing 4.5 out of 10, rounded up to 5 for the brief shot of a mouldy prosthetic schlong, which promised levels of deviancy that never materialised, and for finding a flimsy excuse to get actress Ardis Campbell down to her undies.

The actors were not completely bad and the premise, even with the low budget and cheesy special effects, could have gone towards a nice little horror movie. Instead, they decided to make it a horror parody, which pretty much spoiled everything as the result was neither horrific nor funny.The film itself gives off a lot of mixed signals. A psychopath seems to have written the dialogues, the special effects and acting are like from a 70's movie, down to the gigantic security cameras, the black and white monitors, the time lapsed "mold" growth and giant moustaches, but it was made in 2012. There is no real comedy in the film, only inadvertently, from the really bad script and ridiculous green and red goo splattered all around.Bottom line: I don't know what the makers were trying to achieve, but the movie sucked on several levels. What annoyed me more was that with the same resources and a decent script this could have easily become a cult movie.

Neil Meschino's first attempt as a director to make a full feature. First of all, this isn't a straight horror with gore and blood like the old slashers, neither can it be compared with the horrors of nowadays. This is clearly a throwback to the low budget horrors from way back when effects were done without CGI. By doing that and not giving us the nudity we expect from a horror or not seen a drip of gore or an amount of blood this isn't one to recommend to newcomers. this is really one for the old school B-movie buffs.One thing that the production had in mind must have been, okay, we don't have the big dollars, how are we going to attract viewers. Luckily they made the right choice by putting their cash into the effects and let take it all place in a simple setting. On the other hand they let some characters doing over the top acting which luckily worked out fine. By doing so I even had to laugh a few times because it sometimes had a bit of humour in it. Still, the effects are very simple and do refer to the old school horrors like the melting of a head or eyes being melted. I wont go into titles but there are so many to mention. The score used is also a throwback to the early eighties. But as I said, I never had any problem with Mold! but I can understand that some buffs will miss nudity and gore. The female do get out of her clothes but sadly the underwear she is wearing is a real let down. Gore 2/5 Nudity 0/5 Effects 3/5 Story 3/5 Comedy 1/5

1984. A lethal experimental mold is created as a means to destroy coca fields in Columbia. However, the mold gets loose in a lab during a demonstration and proves to be just as dangerous to humans as it is to plants. It's up to a motley assortment of scientists and government officials to figure out a way to contain the deadly spore before things get too out of hand. Director Neil Meschino, who also co-wrote the compact script with Dave Fogerson, relates the fun story at a brisk pace, builds and sustains a substantial amount of tension, delivers plenty of spectacularly gross moments of graphic splatter (the gruesome make-up f/x hit the grotesquely icky spot something disgusting), and further spices things up with a wickedly funny sense of twisted dark humor. Moreover, Meschino makes the most out of the confined claustrophobic location and has a satiric ball with the 80's period setting (the savagely mocking potshots on the 80's war on drugs are especially fierce and amusing). The sound acting from the capable cast qualifies as another major asset, with stand-out work from Edward X. Young as a hard-nosed, cigar-chomping ramrod colonel, Ardis Campbell as the spunky Dr. Ardis Campbell, Mike Keller as the no-nonsense Sargeant Brisco, who gets infected and embarks on a crazed rampage; Chris Gentile as smarmy jerk Dr. Dave Hardy, Nick Russo as whiny wimp Rhodes, Rick Haymes as the bumbling Dr. Matthew Kane, James Murphy as the sleazy Congressman Stu Blankenship, and David Pringle as the sinister Edison Carter. Robert A. Fattorini's sharp cinematography gives the picture an impressive polished look. Julian Tulip's spirited shivery score does the spine-tingling ooga-booga trick. A really cool little flick.