American Tourists rarely have it easy in the world of the cinema, always portrayed as elitist and ignorant, they usually get what they deserve. In Evil Breed, a group of University students take a trip to the emerald isle to study up on Celtic/Druid rituals. While soaking up the scenery, screwing and scaring one another our intrepid collegians run afoul of a local inbred-cannibal-killer-cult whose plans include offering the young bunch up as a tasty sacrifice to the festival of Samhain.

There are a few things you need to know right from the start about Evil Breed. To begin with Director Christian Veil has completely disavowed the film in a massive dispute with producer William Mariani. The second thing you should understand is that of the three names that appear above the title, two of them, and arguably the two most recognizable, Jenna Jameson and Richard Grieco have a combined total screen time of less than 10 minutes. The final thing you really need to know before sitting down to watch this puppy is the pop culture references are wildly rampant, and distracting as hell. In a better film lifting entire passages of dialogue directly from Scream and An American Werewolf in London might seem like a smart inside joke or a clever homage, but in Evil Breed, it just seems like a poor substitute for some much needed scriptwriting.

The truly tragic thing about Evil Breed is that the film had a lot of potential. The plot is reasonably original given the obvious limitations of the “teens in peril” genre. The performances from the interesting cast (more on that later) are passable, I mean lets face it - this is not the Royal Shakespeare Company here, and the death scenes are sufficiently gory. In fact, the gore is what really saves this film from being a tedious exercise in MTV styled horror clichés.

The DVD edition of Evil Breed includes an unrated extension of Jenna’s evisceration scene and, I’ll say this much, it’s damn near the bloodiest and most brutal scene I’ve seen anyone try to stick in a mainstream movie –even a horror movie- in a longtime. In fact the sequence is so much better than the final cut of the film, it almost does a disservice to the movie you just sat through. In retrospect, the inclusion of the scene, simply begs the question, why is this release not an unrated cut of the film? There is certainly no marketing reasoning behind putting out an R-rated cut of a horror film on DVD, knowing full well that an unrated version would sell just as well, if not better. So, the jury is still out on the thought process behind that flub.

It’s hard to say what to make of Evil Breed; the film was completed in 2002 and only now makes its cinematic debut. It’s an interesting film, high quality on a low budget, and definitely worth taking a look at. The special effects are rock solid, the cannibal tribe is suitably gruesome and the carnage quotient is respectable to say the least. A big bonus out there if you have a penchant for porn stars, the film populates its cast with some pretty big names. Aside from adult film supergirl Jenna Jameson, the film offers up roles and cameos to Ginger Lynn Allen, Chasey Lain, and Taylor Hayes all of which put forth reasonably adequate performances, with the notable exception being Ginger Lynn’s Irish-by-Tom-Cruise-esque brogue. So with a sufficient amount of sex and slaughter, this may not be the best date movie on the shelves, but it should meet your base desires for some late night butchery and bloodshed.