A Breed Apart (1984)

VCRs began to become readily affordable for regular folks back around 1985. I didn't have one yet, but my friends were getting them. It was a time of excitement. Movie Frenzy had afflicted everyone. People were renting tapes every day.

At one point, early on, we rented A Breed Apart. I remember we all liked the movie, and I always wanted to see it again. The movie never made it to DVD, but once again Shout! Factory came to the rescue with a really nice print on blu-ray.

A Breed Apart was directed by Philippe Mora, a name that makes movie fans cringe. Mora was responsible for Howling 2: Your Sister is a Werewolf and Howling 3: The Marsupials. I happen to like both of these films. Howling 2 is a hysterical movie and I always saw it as a satire of goth culture. Howling 3 is a really odd one. I actually think it's a smart movie that never really found the right kind of appreciative audience.

Then there's The Return of Captain Invincible, a parodic superhero movie starring Alan Arkin, with songs by Rocky Horror's Richard O' Brien. I love this one the most and I consider it to easily be my favorite superhero movie. I've been greeted with near hostility when I made that statement in the past.

Mora also directed the fan-favorite monster yarn, The Beast Within, an excellent Dennis Hopper movie called Mad Dog Morgan, and the lukewarm Whitley Strieber Communion adaptation.

A Breed Apart is a bigger picture than all of the above. The cast is top notch, with Rutger Hauer, Powers Booth, Donald Pleasance, and Kathleen Turner all doing excellent work. It's surprising that Turner did a movie like A Breed Apart, especially when her previous role was in Romancing the Stone.

As for the story, Hauer plays a reclusive animal lover in the hills of North Carolina. He is monitoring the gestation of rare eagle eggs. Donald Pleasance is an egg collector who will stop at nothing to get them. Even if it means the extinction of the species. Powers Booth is a capitalistic mountain climber who is paid to steal the eggs for the diabolical collector. Turner plays a single mom who owns a bait and boat rental shop.

Hauer and Booth meet and develop a cautious friendship. Both like Turner and she likes them back, but things become complicated when idiotic drunken hunters Brion James and John Dennis Johnson decide to kill Hauer. Hauer previously broke up a bird slaughtering party they were having and shot one of them with a crossbow. It's war with the local buffoons while Powers Booth plays a game of deceit with Rutger.

A Breed Apart is an odd mix of the early art films Mora made in his native Australia and the bizarre genre movies he did later on. There might not be enough violence to satisfy action junkies, but there may be too many elements of genre movies for serious film lovers.

Here's the really odd thing: When the film was being transported away from Carolina, one reel was lost. It was too cost-prohibitive to reshoot the scenes, so the film was cobbled together with what they had. It explains some loose ends in the story. I think it still works.

There's a lot to praise about A Breed Apart. Its environmental theme, which came before such concerns became trendy. Lots of gorgeous footage of mountains and eagles. There's nice chemistry between the three main actors. The requisite annoying '80s kid isn't even too distracting.

Thanks once again to Shout! Factory for bringing another worthy film back from the cinematic graveyard.

Written by Mark Sieber