An strange little film from the waning final days of grassroots horror before the big studios stomped all over their competition, Mutant has often been overlooked among small town contagion movies thanks to its very misleading title. The film was originally shot around Norcross, Georgia and first distributed in drive-ins and shopping mall theaters around the South and Midwest under the title Night Shadows. When that strategy failed, it was reissued to theaters and video under its current title, detracting from what amounts to a fun genre film with lots of zombie-style action in the final stretch.

Josh (Hauser) and his younger brother, Mike (Montgomery), both prone to highly questionable fashion choices, find their vacation road trip waylaid when a truckload of rednecks pushes them off the road and into a creek. The brothers stumble into a nearby town and begin a bar fight with their assailants. Luckily the alcoholic sheriff, Will (Hopkins), steps in to break it up. Josh and Mike find a boarding house for the night, but Mike is suddenly attacked by something under his bed. The next morning Josh searches for his brother and enlists the aid of a doctor, Myra (Warren), and the perky schoolteacher, Holly (Chained Heat's Medford, not the world's most accomplished actress). Mike stumbles across the gaunt, creepy looking corpse of a young girl, which Myra hauls off to her office. Meanwhile Holly falls for Mike after he calls her a redneck (don't ask) and develops her own theories about what might be happening in this small, quiet town. A local fledgling corporation has set up a toxic waste site, and since then people have been disappearing right and left. Sure enough, the town folk are being zombified, leaving them with weird pus-spewing slits in their hands capable of transforming others by touch and burning through glass. Luckily the zombies are also sensitive to light, but how can the survivors hold out until morning?

The first half of Mutant is pretty subdued stuff with an obvious debt to '50s monster movies thanks to its long patches of exposition and dubious Southern stereotypes that really should have been put out to pasture decades earlier. However, the patient will be rewarded when the second half kicks into gear, providing some solid and scary monster attacks in such confined settings as a basement and an elementary school bathroom. With a cast headed by Hauser (who never outdid Vice Squad) and Hopkins, this film was already doomed to be programmed as B-movie fodder; however, it does have its charm and definitely delivers the goods, particularly during the rousing climax which oddly recalls Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. Add to that an effective orchestral score by Richard Band which becomes more lyrical and haunting as the film progresses, and you've got a rough, interesting little find for you movie treasure hunters out there. Credit is also due to director John "Bud" Cardos, who turned dross into gold with underrated '70s drive-in favorites like Kingdom of the Spiders and The Dark. Say what you will, but the guy definitely knows how to milk a scary environment for all it's worth. (Incidentally this film was begun by Mark Rosman as a follow up to House on Sorority Row, but he got canned by producer Dick Clark-- yes, that Dick Clark.)

God knows Mutant couldn't have been a title thrown around too much for a prospective DVD release early in the format's history, but that didn't stop Elite Entertainment from giving it the first class treatment back in 2000. The transfer from the original negative looked nice for the era, a radical departure from the washed-out theatrical prints, many of which were inexplicably tinted blue (as were some video editions). Apparently the prevalence of blue shirts gave some lab technician a bone headed burst of inspiration one day. Diamond Entertainment also promoted its own DVD release, a budget line pan-and-scan issue; avoid that one at all costs. The DVD also included a dupey-looking theatrical trailer under the Mutant title, totally failing to convey even a basic impression of the film's storyline. Later the film was reissued in a drab full-frame transfer paired up with Greydon Clark's Uninvited because, well, why not?

In 2016, Code Red tackled the film for a Blu-ray release sold via its online store, following a handful of other iffy DVD releases in the interim from labels like Miracle Pictures, Westlake, and Liberation. The new HD transfer continued to veer away from that sickly blue look and made for an improvement over past options, but it has some major issues we'll get into below. A very brisk, entertaining audio commentary with Cardos, Montgomery, and producer Igo Kantor is moderated by Jeff McKay and covers everything from the Norcross locals (including one head cheerleader whose crush on Montgomery led to security issues) to the removal of Rosman to the many distribution travails under Film Ventures International, which would collapse soon after. In addition to the trailer, Montgomery also pops up for a 15m41s interview about making his transition here to his first adult role (after films like Burnt Offerings and Ben), his character's refusal to close his shirt, and his thoughts on his character's fate, as well as the rapport he developed with movie brother Hauser during the shoot. Then Hopkins gets a 10m58s interview (apparently shot in a diner) about shooting close to his hometown in South Carolina, the rumors of wild Hauser behavior, accidentally hurting Medford's feeling over a birthday snafu, and his own personal lack of zombie phobia.

In 2026, Vinegar Syndrome gave the film its umpteenth home video release but finally did it right with a UHD and Blu-ray edition featuring a new 4K scan from the 35mm original camera negative, fixing a lot of issues that have plagued the film in the past. One massive upgrade here is actually the sound quality; at the time the film sprang for a bona fide Dolby Stereo mix but past releases have generally sounded pretty lousy with a mono mix that flattened Band's score out horrendously and made it sound very thin and shrill. Here you get a gorgeous, much-improved genuine DTS-HD 2.0 Dolby stereo presentation (with optional English SDH subs) that easily blows away any version of this film you've heard before; even on a TV you'll notice the difference but with a good sound system it's a truly different film. The extreme scrubbing that smoothed out the earlier Blu-ray is also finally gone here, with nice film grain, detail, and genuine black levels finally as they should be. Code Red was well known on many of its releases (especially titles like Alley Cat, Caged Men, and Love Me Deadly) for messing around with their framing, often exposing too much unintended info (albeit on occasion for some bonus nudity in those films) and knocking the compositions out of whack. That was definitely the case with this film; the prior Blu-ray exposed way too much additional info on the left side that was intended for optical info, leaving the credits and much of the film visibly way off center pushed to the right. Here the 1.85:1 framing is perfect with everything centered as it should be. The prior commentary is ported over here, and you also get a new one with Steve Mitchell (director of a documentary on Hauser) and Howard S. Berger who offer useful context about the film's spotty theatrical history, Hauser's career, the state of mid-'80s horror and regional filmmaking, and much more. The Montgomery and Hopkins interviews are both carried over here (along with that lo-res trailer from the DVD), but you also get two new video extras starting with "A Real Country Boy" (17m10s) with the late star's wife, Cali Lili Hauser, talking about his real-life demeanor you can see in the film, his likely great rapport with Warren, and the asthma that figured in some of his physical moments in the film. She also kicks things off mentioning a revival of the actor in new movies via AI, which is... questionable. Then in "Mutant Report" (7m22s), writer Anthony Everitt reflects on his father's coverage of the making of Mutant including the switch to a happier ending with Cardos aboard, Hopkins' outlook on his career at the time, the beefing up of Warren's character, and more.

Vinegar Syndrome (UHD)

Code Red (Blu-ray)

Updated review on April 30, 2026