The time is nigh, the stars have aligned, and the Mutants shambled out of their dingy caves to shriek in Hollywood’s general direction and cast this year’s awards into a mud pit. Hey, if the winners want them, they’ll have to be willing to get a bit dirty!

That’s right: It’s time for this year’s 14th Annual Mutant Awards, brought to you by None of Your Business. Starting back in 1998, the AMA is our attempt to thumb our noses at the Oscars and give the real awards that what need givin’. So peruse this year’s nonsensical categories and awards, and feel free to tell us in the comments of your great displeasure and ire at the results!

Sitting Duck: Award shows like the Oscars and the Golden Globes see themselves as highlighting the best cinema has to offer and not always succeeding. On the other end, the Razzies see themselves as highlighting the worst cinema has to offer and not always succeeding. But here at the Mutant Awards, we don’t restrict ourselves to such simplistic formulae. So I’ll be presenting the Lyrical Paradox Award as represented by this antimatter statuette encased within a null sphere, recognizing songs that are simultaneously epic masterpieces and cacophonic abominations.

And if you’re familiar with my ranting on the subject movie, you’ve probably already guessed that the winner is “The Song of the Defy,” written by Hoyt Axton as featured in The Legend of Hillbilly John. If you wish to hear it yourself, there are two options. You can check out Episode 3 of Mutant Matinee, where I end up singing a couple verses. Though to better comprehend the true contradiction, you’ll have to go onto YouTube where the movie is available. Be warned, the decent looking ones have been pulled and all that’s left at the time I write this is a Filmed in CataractVision VHS transfer.

On the epic masterpiece end, we have the opening credits rendition sung by Axton himself. This performance is a thing of beauty that perfectly captures the vibe of Appalachian folk music, aside from some of the drumming being a bit too modern in style. On the cacophonic abomination end, the song gets reprised over the end credits with the movie’s lead Hedges Capers performing it with a hippie folk rock arrangement. This is a problem. Hippie folk rock songs are to actual folk songs what Sanka is to actual coffee or Budweiser Zero is to actual beer. This rendition is a mockery of all that is good and true and makes the tattered remains of my soul weep. Little wonder Capers never got any other film offers, though he was lucky enough to not suffer the sort of total career implosion that The Village People experienced after having done Can’t Stop the Music.

So, The Legend of Hillbilly John, enjoy this award. It’s likely to be the only one that’ll ever decorate your mantelpiece.

Justin: Sometimes I genuinely worry that kid-centered movies today are too safe, too nerfy for a healthy psyche, especially when compared to the periodic mental trauma that ’80s flicks would induce. And then I came across Food Fight and breathed easier, because there’s no way that little Dylan or Delilah was going to be exposed to this and not immediately ask their parents for a year’s subscription to a therapist.

From jerky, demon-possessed animation to uncalled for innuendo to character models so off-putting that Chucky has nightmares about them, Food Fight is truly kid nightmare fuel for a new generation.

Wolfy: Much like Justin intoned in his Battlefield Earth review, I went into this one with a vague hope that maybe it was just being dumped on because people find it more fun to hate media than enjoy it. Unfortunately, everything about his assessment is spot on, particularly with relation to the Psychlos, which manage to be Klingon-adjacent yet also without any sense of being a warrior race or part of an intergalactic community.

I got the impression that Travolta was just told to yell his lines and hope that it carried a semblance of emotion and weight, while the Psychlos themselves looked like they were hoping nobody would notice their outfits looked like foamcore. It was hilarious in the “oh no, baby, no” way. About the only reason I don’t feel deep animus towards the movie is because I rented it for free (I worked at a video store at the time).

Drake: This was a tough category because, let’s face it, there have been some truly outrageous slasher sequels over the years. Starting with Halloween II’s sibling reveal, sequels often not only upped the gore game but also introduced weird and often random new elements to keep the slasher formula from getting stale.

But as voted upon by noted experts in the horror film community,* Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II was the clear winner. And really, what sequel was more random, weird, and just plain bonkers? Admittedly a sequel in name only, this movie still far surpassed the original Prom Night in grabbing the audience by the lapels of their powder blue tuxedos and taking them on a ride alongside a depraved prom queen whose reign lasted all of about three minutes before it, and she, went up in flames. Filled with wicked humor, great practical FX and some surprisingly good performances for a slasher, Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night II is not only a strong and surprisingly oddball entry into the genre, but a weirdly fun horror flick in its own right. Come for the slasher antics, but stay for the pervy rocking horse!

*The Mutant Mice. And it wasn’t easy counting all those little green paws that were held up in the air.

Justin: It’s not a surprise when a movie gets a sequel or prequel or sidequel or whateverquel these days. But a flick that positions itself as a sequel to a film that doesn’t exist? That takes the kind of weird guts that we here at Mutant Reviewers admire! And so it is with great pleasure that I award this tinfoil medal to 1984’s Surf II: The End of the Trilogy. May you finally rest in peace that your great achievement in sequelology is now immortalized on some seventh page Google search site!

…shut up Leonard Part 6. Nobody likes you and you know why.

Wolfy: Going into the theater for Naked Gun 2025, I had set my expectations pretty damned low. By the time the movie was done, I was in tears with laughter, and it’s entirely thanks to the film’s writing crew who understood how Police Squad and The Naked Gun works: rapid-fire hilarity, absolutely ridiculous moments, verbal and sight gags aplenty, all dressed up in an old police noir trenchcoat. I obviously also have to give props to Liam Neeson and Pamela Anderson for their full commitment and to Schaffer for his direction, but the writers of this film (Akiva Schaffer, Doug Mand, and Dan Gregor) are the ones who really helped make the landing stick.

Want to see what won last year? Check out 2024’s 13th Annual Mutant Awards!