Offspring (2009)

It was inevitable that I would end up watching a movie about tribal cannibals at some point but I honestly never thought that the movie would take place in Maine. “Offspring” is about a family of caveman-like cannibals that migrate up and down the East coast between Maine and up into Canada. They have their own language, tactical strategies in how they take over a house, look ridiculous and way to clean. I personally didn’t care for it but I could see others really liking it because it does go way over the top at some points. The film also tries to make the comparison between the tribe and how evil some modern, civilized people can be. From what I’ve read about the sequel “The Woman”, this attempt goes even further.

The storyline is minimal. The family of cannibals have returned to a small coastal town known as Dead River. The town’s former sheriff thought he had killed them ten years earlier, but after a gruesome murder scene is discovered, he joins the current police department in their search for the murders. The tribe it seems is looking for babies (for sacrifice?) as well as eating whoever they find. They attack a house where a family lives and who currently has visitors. The husband is killed, the woman are taken to the cave and beaten, and a twelve year old boy hides his baby sibling in a tree house and follows the tribe to their cave. The sheriff finds the boy who points out the cave, goes in and kills a few before being stabbed in the chest and dying. The women escape, there is a final fight between the boy and a tribal child, and the leader of the tribe, the mother, escapes only to be stabbed by the only other survivor of her clan. She kills him and wanders off into the woods. The end. Thank god.