Colony Mutation (Blu-ray Review)
Director
Tom BernaRelease Date(s)
1995 (April 7, 2026)Studio(s)
Tyger Brand Coffee Productions (Visual Vengeance)- Film/Program Grade: C-
- Video Grade: B-
- Audio Grade: C
- Extras Grade: B+
Review
Oh boy. So, I love bad movies. I’m known in some circles as a bad movie whisperer. I live by a philosophy that every movie ever made has SOMETHING to offer. It could just be a particularly cool shot or a standout performance, but there’s usually something. Film making is hard and just getting one made and out there is an incredible achievement. Tom Berna’s Colony Mutation may test my philosophy.
Colony Mutation (originally released on home video in 1995 as just Colony), ignoring the cold open with a woman stalking around with a gun, starts off like an early mumblecore rom-com that turns into a body horror treatise on the early films of David Cronenberg. It follows Jim Matthews, a PR guy for Gendes Corp, a genetic science firm on the cutting edge. Jim is a real POS. This is a guy who, in a poorly structured sequence, bumps into a scientist at his job, Meredith Weaver, who asks him out and he says he’s too busy with work but will get with her soon. He proceeds to go to a different area of the building and asks a different girl, Jenny Dole, out for a lunch date where they proceed to discuss his wife and how he needs to leave her. (He’s got a wife too?) He says he needs more time and she needs to be patient. (That’s what they all say.) He also states a need to get home before his wife, to get the mail. Why? We’ll find out in a second. But hold on, the co-worker that asked him out is part of a research team that is creating a serum that will grow severed limbs back onto living subjects. Can you imagine the impact that would have on humanity? Limitless. Of course, we see the experiment go wrong—where instead of a limb, the subject grows a parasitic symbiote in place of the limb. In some circles that would be a huge win, but here it’s a loss and anything short of a new limb is a fail. But let’s put a tack in the whole parasitic symbiote thing for now. Because, it turns out the scientist co-worker Meredith, get this, IS Jim’s wife and that weird poorly structured sequence earlier in the film, was just her wanting to see her husband and he’s been avoiding her by “working late” getting into Jenny’s panties via hotel stays that goofy Gus is putting on his credit card, which bill is mailed to his house and so the reason he has to get home early. So, guess who goes home early because of a certain failed experiment? Yup. And she’s a bit miffed when she sees the hotel stay charges and learns they are legit. When that dirty dog Jim is confronted at the lab, he tries to apologize his way out of it, but Meredith throws that failed serum into his face. And in true Cronenbergian fashion, Jim starts to transform where one by one all of his limbs start to fall off and are replaced by creatures (yes, all his limbs—it wouldn’t be a salute to Mr. Cronenberg without an “oh no, not his penis too” scene. He now needs living flesh to survive, and his world soon fall apart. As does the movie, quite frankly.
Tom Berna, as a first-time filmmaker, showcases that he knows his stuff. Sure, there are some awkwardly staged scenes, but with a debut feature, that’s just a given. The problem is everywhere else. The cast isn’t pro, so much of the acting is just flat. The film was shot on Super 8 with crap cameras using cheap stock and some poor lighting choices. His female lead, who was meant to be the hero, quit the film midway through the shoot requiring a script rewrite and the introduction of a tough as nails, gun toting sister character (seen in the cold open to introduce her to the audience in a way that won’t shock and confuse when she organically shows up 45 minutes into the film due to said rewrites). The budget was 35K, all paid for by Berna on credit cards which netted him with crippling debt that pushed the post schedule so far into the future, that he essentially missed the whole shot-on-video craze where a movie like this would have flown off the shelves. It’s honestly amazing that this film exists and that I’m even writing about at all. For what it is, Colony Mutation is watchable and in its own way, kinda fun... especially if watched with a group of friends where you can all yell at the screen asking questions about the dumb things everyone does in this film.
The main, 2022 2K restored version of Colony Mutation is presented at 1.851. Being that it was originally a Super 8 film this restoration only goes so far. It looks good, although some of the “nighttime” shots look a little digital for my tastes. Overall, it’s clean, although slightly washed out. Also on board are the original 1998 VHS version which is full frame, 1:33:1 and a zoomed in faked widescreen version of the 2013 DVD edition. When taken in all together, you’ll see each version has its pacing, own effects and different opening credits, which is interesting to see. Except for the commentary I’ll discuss below, I’d stay away from the 2013 edition—the zooming in is awful and each and every flaw of the film is that much more emphasized. The 1998 version is actually a more watchable and purer version of the film, and I quite enjoyed watching this edition. I honestly didn’t like the film when I watched the 2022 cut—but the 1998 cut, taken in a few days later for the special features made me reassess the movie and allowed me to appreciate the filmmaker’s choices. Sound across all three cuts is a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo track (with optional English subs). The VHS track isn’t as good as the 2022 version, which makes it hard to tell you to ignore the restored edition and just watch the original cut, which kinda sucks.
Extras are where Virtual Vengeance (VV) as a boutique media producer truly shine. There are autoplay trailers when you pop in the disc for upcoming VV releases Cyclops, A Polish Vampire in Burbank and Vampire’s Embrace. A trailer for Colony Mutation is in the Extras section as well. There are two commentary tracks, one featuring director Tom Berna on the 2022 restoration, who warns that his track will be gappy and it very much is—so much so, that it’s basically unlistenable, even if the things he does point out are quite interesting. He doesn’t talk for such long periods you start to forget he is there and it ends up with a few jump scares. The other track is on the 2013 DVD cut with Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop Magazine and that’s a bit more useful and Tony comes off as a good fan of the film and drops in information he received from Berna over the course of interviews he gave for the magazine. There are three current interviews, the first with Berna telling about his background as a University of Wisconsin film student, his filmmaking stories, his love of Cronenberg and it all makes up for the craptastic commentary. There’s an interview with the actor who played Jim (David Rommel) where he learn about the film from the actors POV, what it was like working with Berna, some of the complications and actorly stuff. Finally, there’s an interview with music composer Patrick Nettesheim, which is the better of the three where we find out it was the legendary midwestern filmmaker Mark Borchardt who helped Berna put music to his film. The final major video extra is an archival mid-nineties interview with Berna from Milwaukee Public Access entitled In the Director’s Chair. It’s cool to see Berna right after post-production and before hard times where he’s a bit more hopeful and has that young filmmaker swagger still going. Rounding everything out is the complete original script, a quick image gallery, a folded poster of some Gigeresque art for the original Colony version, the VV standard ’Stick Your Own’ VHS stickers and if you get a first edition with slipcase, a liner notes booklet by the previously mentioned Tony Strauss. Not a bad set for a film that easily could have been lost to time. And that’s why we love physical media here at The Bits.
- Todd Doogan