Roughly 20 years in the past, as a smartass teenager with a burgeoning appreciation for horrible motion pictures and absurdist web comedy, I first learn a scathing overview of a movie known as Feeders 2. Written within the yr 2000 by now-deceased SomethingAwful founder Wealthy “Lowtax” Kyanka, the comedy overview painted Feeders 2 as a brand new and heretofore undiscovered species of zero-budget sci-fi horror cinema, the worst movie that had ever been reviewed by SA to that time. In my thoughts’s eye, this second was akin to Feeders 2 coming into some type of immortal canon, a corridor of fame for horrible motion pictures that may in the end enshrine it alongside different obscurely notorious works like Andrew Jordan’s legendarily grungy 1989 Canadian horror flick Issues. Within the years that adopted, different distinguished reviewers of misplaced, horrible cinema such because the Crimson Letter Media crew have likewise taken their photographs at Feeders 2 and its predecessor, spreading consciousness of the movie as a well known member of the unhealthy film canon.
Right here’s the factor, although: Most filmmakers accountable for a zero-budget catastrophe on the extent of Feeders 2 generally tend to fade away into obscurity within the years that observe, their transient dalliance on this planet of cinema all however forgotten. The man behind Feeders 2, alternatively? He directed eight function movies in 2021, and can produce a minimum of six extra in 2022. His identify is Mark Polonia, and he’s maybe the toughest working and most prolific man within the unhealthy film enterprise as we speak. He’s additionally an oddly inspiring determine to would-be, zero-budget auteurs all over the place, a person who bounced again from the tragic lack of his brother and filmmaking accomplice to turn into extra prolific than ever. Seemingly nothing can cease this man—actually not unfavourable opinions, that’s for sure. Making motion pictures appears to easily be a perform of his existence on this planet.
The Movies of the Polonia Brothers
Feeders 2, and just about each different movie to bear the identify “Polonia” earlier than 1998, was the product of not solely Mark however John Polonia, an identical twin brothers from small-town Pennsylvania who dreamed of emulating the grindhouse horror movies of their youth, and doing it as a crew. As children, they reportedly obtained house video gear and instruments for birthdays, obsessive about the prospect of creating their very own motion pictures from the time Mark first noticed Mothra vs. Godzilla as a 5-year-old. Filmmaking was their shared raison d’etre.
The pair had been solely 18 years outdated, the truth is, after they shot their first industrial function—in a free sense of the phrase—1987’s Splatter Farm, a story a couple of necrophiliac outdated girl dwelling with the corpse of her husband, and (naturally) starring each Polonia boys as effectively. Splatter Farm, although extraordinarily crude, features as a near-perfect rubric for the whole lot that may come to outline the Polonia Brothers’ type: Very low manufacturing values and beginner actors, mixed with barely extra competent FX and gore in suburban and rural settings that took benefit of wherever the brothers had been capable of shoot for a number of days at a time. Supreme opportunists, they took benefit of no matter was obtainable to them as a way to produce trashy gems like this Splatter Farm sequence, which incorporates not solely an exploding model head however a senior citizen blown to bits by a suggestively positioned pipe bomb. The content material could be stunning, if it wasn’t additionally so crudely amateurish that it in the end loops all the best way again round to “hilarious.” Even when coping with disturbing materials, a Polonia Brothers movie is so earnest in its try that it someway reads as bizarrely healthful. Their classic work specifically has that form of easy “good bad” high quality to it.
Collectively, the pair would go on to supply, direct and edit nearly 30 movies collectively within the subsequent twenty years following Splatter Farm, together with 1996’s significantly notorious Feeders and its 1998, Christmas-themed sequel Feeders 2: Slay Bells. The previous was seen by way more viewers than one would possibly anticipate, because the pathetic “alien puppets attack” flick was picked up by the Blockbuster Video chain within the wake of Independence Day’s huge success, in the end changing into the chain’s most rented impartial movie of 1996 within the course of. If you happen to thought such success would possibly someway translate to greater budgets for a movie like Feeders 2, you’ll be sadly mistaken—this can be a movie that ends with a scene involving Santa Claus personally gunning down the aliens with a handheld laser pistol that fires not digitally rendered blasts of sunshine however hand-drawn squibs of laser that appear like they had been freehanded in MS Paint. All the sequence is awe-inspiringly horrible.
I can solely think about that on the time, the Polonia Brothers will need to have considered themselves as contemporaries of the likes of Sam Raimi or Peter Jackson; fellow shoestring visionaries who wished to make use of their boundless enthusiasm in service of crafting fashionable, schlocky, gross-out thrills geared toward their horror-loving friends. However the place the likes of Raimi had an innate genius for shot composition and connections with actors and technicians who would go on to turn into Hollywood icons, the Polonia Brothers had…entry to homes over lengthy weekends in rural Pennsylvania, and a community of mates who had been completely happy to assist, however none who had been destined to go on to fame and fortune within the trade. Watching the movies they produced on this period, one is nearly tempted to label them as pioneers of “bad on purpose” filmmaking, however Mark Polonia insists that the intention has at all times been (and stays) to do one of the best he can with the extraordinarily modest sources obtainable to him.
“No one sets out to make a cult film,” Mark Polonia noticed to the Philadelphia Enquirer again in 2019. “It’s up to others to make that call. I guess if you break it into the most simplistic form, you have to ask the question ‘Were you entertained?’ And if that’s yes, we won.”
Given the depth and central nature of the filmmaking reference to brother John Polonia, who Mark describes in the identical Philadelphia Enquirer story as “basically the same person,” one would perceive if Mark Polonia’s directorial profession had come to a sudden halt in 2008, when John unexpectedly handed away simply earlier than his fortieth birthday. I can’t think about what it will need to have felt like for Mark, shedding the an identical twin presence who had served as a co-writer, co-editor and co-director on basically all his movies for 20 years, however it’s hardly a shock that Mark’s output dropped after dedicating 2009’s HalloweeNight to John. Within the subsequent three years, he directed solely a single function movie—nearly inconceivable for somebody named “Polonia.”
However because the mid-2010s arrived, Mark Polonia confirmed B-movie followers what “prolific” really regarded like.
Polonia Ascendant
Starting progressively in 2013, and in earnest round 2015, Mark Polonia started what can actually solely be described as a filmmaking spree. Within the final seven years, particularly, he’s directed no fewer than 37 function movies, a minimum of so far as IMDb is anxious, a tempo of greater than 5 options on a yearly foundation. Suffice to say, Mark Polonia clearly discovered his groove as soon as once more, even after the lack of John, and alongside the best way he embraced newer methods of maximum low-budget taking pictures, together with a larger reliance on computer-generated results. Right this moment, he’s seemingly extra busy than ever, and legitimately in demand as a low-budget shlock skilled for rent.
And oh lord, the movies which have been rolling out by means of this era. Taking some fairly clear cues from the likes of The Asylum, specialists in producing low-budget movies that constantly flip a revenue by means of exhibition on streaming companies, Polonia has refined the industrial viability of his craft by more and more turning to absurdist, meme-worthy titles and creature options with names like Sharkenstein, Bigfoot vs. Zombies, Land Shark and…Home Squatch, which is a couple of sasquatch that received’t go away somebody’s home. Sure, that’s your entire premise. All are coupled with spectacular posters that massively oversell the contents of the movie you’re about to devour. Significantly, whoever is designing posters for these movies is the actual MVP of the operation.
Polonia has likewise explored the Asylum-style “mockbuster” path to a minimum of some extent, with titles like Amityville Exorcism, Sand World or Jurassic Prey. That is, in any case, the identical man whose movie Feeders ended up benefiting from its extraordinarily passing similarity to Independence Day, so he probably understands the worth of being adjoining to respectability greater than most.
The factor for a viewer to know, although, is that there’s nonetheless a large, vast gulf between the likes of Mark Polonia and The Asylum, nearly as vast a gulf as there’s between The Asylum and Hollywood. Whereas a CGI-laden Asylum creature function would possibly objectively appear like rubbish, a lot of their movies nonetheless have budgets pushing the $1 million mark, spent on a mix of washed-up B film expertise and copious quantities of results photographs. A Mark Polonia joint, alternatively, is fortunate if its funds scrapes the $10,000 mark, and typically he’s making a function movie out of as little as…a gorilla go well with and an empty home. Most individuals, glancing at these property, would overlook the potential for a quasi-feature movie. Polonia, alternatively, thinks “Well, I can make 71 minutes of House Squatch with this.”
The power to market and promote these sorts of movies is probably going because of the crowded trendy streaming service panorama, which has created a sudden vacuum and demand for precisely this form of schlocky content material, as a method of filling out the style pages of assorted streamers with cheap titles. These movies are subsequently delivered in bulk, by filmmakers and manufacturing firms specializing in cranking out as many shark, ghost, sasquatch, and many others. tasks as they probably can in a calendar yr. It was solely pure that Polonia unite with the likes of Wild Eye Releasing, cheapo horror experts who produce a really mind-boggling variety of releases, as a patron—as he factors out on this 2016 interview, the corporate approached him with a pitch to benefit from the general public area standing of the Amityville Horror story, and the consequence was Amityville Exorcism. This yr? He’s about to drop Amityville in House, additionally with Wild Eye Releasing. As ever, every movie is made in service of the subsequent movie.
The legacy of John Polonia, in the meantime, has been stored seen within the zero-budget indie movie neighborhood in quite a few methods, together with a 350-page, independently produced ebook concerning the brothers that was launched in 2021, titled Monstervision: The Movies of John and Mark Polonia. Mark likewise devoted one other particular function to his brother in latest reminiscence: 2020’s Return to Splatter Farm, which successfully introduced your entire Polonia filmmaking journey full circle, proper again to the farmhouse stuffed with corpses the place it started.
Because it stands as we speak, IMDb credit Mark Polonia because the director of 71 movies, and at his present price of output, he’ll cruise previous the century mark by the top of the last decade. With the barest of sources at his disposal, he’s made each a interest and a profession out of movie that has spanned greater than 35 years, from the daybreak of the house video horror period to the arrival of the VOD cheapie. Nobody who watched Feeders 2 within the late Nineties would probably imagine it, however Mark Polonia doesn’t care what you assume, so long as you watch. The person has motion pictures to make.
Jim Vorel is a Paste employees author and resident style geek. You possibly can follow him on Twitter for extra movie and TV writing.
“Well bless their hearts.”
