There are low-budget films, and then there’s Feeders. A movie so cheap it makes Plan 9 from Outer Space look like Avengers: Endgame. Directed by John and Mark Polonia (the patron saints of Pennsylvania backyard cinema) and co-starring Jon McBride, Feeders is a $500 ode to why camcorders in the ’90s should have come with a warning: “Please do not attempt feature-length science fiction horror without adult supervision.”
Yet somehow, despite being made for the cost of a used riding lawnmower, Feeders became one of the most rented indie films at Blockbuster in 1996. Which means thousands of unsuspecting families grabbed it off the shelf thinking, “Aliens? Cool!” only to discover it was basically Mystery Science Theater 3000 without the irony—or the budget.
The Aliens: Muppets With Rabies
The “feeders” of Feeders are small gray aliens who look like rejected Happy Meal toys. They don’t walk, they don’t talk—they just kind of exist, wobbling around like dollar store E.T.s left in the sun too long. The filmmakers clearly only had one or two rubber puppets, which they filmed from the same three angles until the tape started to melt.
These creatures are supposed to be terrifying carnivores from space. Instead, they look like someone’s craft project from Vacation Bible School, with googly eyes and teeth glued on. They attack by awkwardly leaning forward until their heads touch the victim, at which point the victim screams, flails, and pretends to be eaten. If you ever wanted to see a movie where Play-Doh monsters devour people like pigeons eating breadcrumbs, Feeders is your jam.
The Plot: Road Trip to Nowhere
Derek and Bennett, two friends traveling through Pennsylvania, stumble onto the alien invasion. Derek is a photographer, which means the movie gets long, loving close-ups of him fiddling with his camera, probably because it gave the directors an excuse to pad the runtime. Bennett is his buddy, and together they… well, they mostly just drive around, camp badly, and argue like two guys who forgot to bring enough snacks on their road trip.
The aliens kill a ranger, attack a fisherman, decapitate a doctor, and nibble on a few locals like they’re grazing at a human buffet. Derek and Bennett, meanwhile, fail to leave town despite multiple opportunities, instead deciding to camp in the woods where the aliens are clearly hanging out. It’s like if you saw Jason Voorhees at the edge of Crystal Lake and thought, “Perfect spot for s’mores.”
Special Effects: A Blender, a Rock, and Some Ketchup
If you thought the aliens were bad, wait until you see their spaceship. The “flying saucer” is literally a pie pan with blinking Christmas lights glued to it, filmed against the night sky while someone shook the camera. The laser effects look like they were drawn on with highlighter and hope.
When Derek gets acid spit on his hand, it’s just red paint smeared around like he lost a fight with a ketchup bottle. When Bennett kills an alien with a rock, the alien doesn’t so much die as “take a nap.” And when the aliens decapitate a doctor, the filmmakers cut away before you realize the head they’re holding is just a mannequin from Goodwill.
This isn’t so much “special effects” as it is “effects that make you feel special for not turning the movie off.”
Acting: Help Wanted
Jon McBride as Derek delivers his lines like he’s reading them off cue cards taped to the camera. John Polonia as Bennett acts like he’s in a community theater production of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, only everyone else forgot to show up. Michelle and Donna, the two women they meet, exist only to scream at the right times, then die horribly.
The standout performance goes to “Ranger Gordon,” who dies in the first few minutes after being attacked by aliens. His big acting choice is to yell “AHHHH!” while waving his arms, then collapse like a man who just remembered he left the stove on.
It’s less “acting” and more “neighbors bribed with pizza and beer.”
The Clone Twist: The Dumbest Sci-Fi Gimmick Ever
The film builds to its big twist: Bennett is abducted by aliens, cloned, and returned to Derek. Suddenly there are two Bennetts! Which one is real? Which one is the doppelgänger?
Derek, after a few seconds of dramatic indecision, kills one of them with a sickle. Naturally, he chooses wrong. Oops. This is played like a tragic climax, but it’s hard to feel emotional when you realize both Bennetts looked equally confused, probably because neither actor knew what scene they were filming.
Instead of tragic irony, it feels like watching someone lose a coin toss.
The Ending: Alien Armageddon on $12
The film closes with Derek fleeing into town as more flying saucers invade Earth. Of course, we never see the invasion—just some stock footage of the sky and the same two toy saucers recycled again and again. It’s meant to suggest a worldwide apocalypse. What it really suggests is that the filmmakers ran out of money for fake blood and thought, “Eh, just end it here.”
The last shot is Derek staggering around, screaming into the night, while aliens swarm the planet off-screen. Roll credits. It’s less “apocalyptic finale” and more “we’re late returning this camera to RadioShack.”
Why This Movie Exists
Here’s the kicker: Feeders wasn’t just made—it was rented en masse. Blockbuster Video stocked it in stores nationwide, and it became one of the chain’s top indie rentals in 1996. That means untold numbers of suburban families walked in, passed over Jurassic Park and Independence Day, and went home with this bargain-bin puppet massacre instead.
The Polonia brothers made Feeders for $500. Let that sink in. That’s less than the cost of a PlayStation 1 in 1996. And while the movie is objectively awful, you can’t help but admire the hustle. They turned couch-change into a nationwide rental phenomenon. Which means the joke’s on us: the filmmakers got their money’s worth, while we got 69 minutes of camcorder hell.
Final Thoughts: A Feast for Masochists
Watching Feeders feels like being abducted by aliens who just want to show you their home movies. It’s cheap, it’s ugly, it’s poorly acted, and it’s edited like someone sneezed on the pause button. But it also has a weird, undeniable charm—the kind of “so bad it’s good” energy that only happens when earnest amateurs throw everything they have (which, in this case, was very little) onto the screen.
Is it scary? Not unless you’re afraid of papier-mâché. Is it entertaining? Only if you invite friends over, crack open some beers, and treat it like an endurance test. By the end, you’ll either be laughing hysterically or questioning your life choices.
