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Food of the Gods II, sometimes referred to as Gnaw: Food of the Gods II as well as Food of the Gods part 2, is a 1989 film that is a very loose sequel to the 1976 Bert I. Gordon film based on H.G. Wells' novel, The Food of the Gods. It is a sequel in name only, as its plot bears no relation to the 1976 film.

Plot

Dr. Neil Hamilton (Paul Coufos) is called by his old professor Dr. Kate Travis (Jackie Burroughs) to deal with a problem involving a patient of hers, a little boy named Bobby. Bobby was given an experimental growth serum Travis had created, and has grown not only large but also violent, profane and difficult to control. Neil agrees to help Dr. Travis and takes a sample of the serum back to his university, which is under fire from a group of animal-rights activists led by Mark Hales (Réal Andrews) and Alex Reed (Lisa Schrage), the latter of whom is also Neil's girlfriend. In particular, the group takes issue with the work of Prof. Edmund Delhurst (Colin Fox), who, although he claims to study cancer, uses animals to experiment with a means of curing baldness.

Neil and his assistant Joshua (Frank Pellegrino) test it on some lab rats as well. Later that night, Mark and the other activists (minus Alex) break into the university. They trash Neil's lab, during which they accidentally set free the now-giant rats, which kill Mark and then escape into the utility tunnels underneath the campus. Despite testimony from the two surviving activists as well as Neil's own admission that he used a growth hormone, police Lieutenant Weizel (Michael Copeman) does not believe their story. Dean White (David B. Nichols) hires a pair of comic relief exterminators to handle what he believes are normal rats.

The rats kill several people, including one of the exterminators as well as both of the other activists after they decide to try and hunt the animals down themselves. Although Lieutenant Weizel is now willing to listen to Neil, Dean White is not, refusing to shut down the campus due to the impending opening of a new sports complex. When Joshua is killed as a direct result of White's refusal to involve the police, Neil attacks the Dean, and is fired as a result.

Suspicious of Neil's "side project" for some time, Edmund Delhurst takes advantage of Neil's termination to help himself to the growth formula samples. He dies when he tests it on a sample of dog cancer cells and cuts his finger, getting the mixture of cancer cells and growth serum into his bloodstream, causing him to transform into a mass of cancerous tumors. Neil breaks back into the university, completes the antidote, and discovers it works when he tests it out on the tumorous mass that used to be Delhurst. Meanwhile, the rats attack the swimming competition being held at the pool of the new sports complex, killing several people, including Dean White, who ends up falling to his death.

Weizel and his men arrive and with Neil's assistance lure the rats into the university's courtyard, where they gun them all down. With the carnage over, Neil phones Dr. Travis to inform her of the completed antidote, but it is too late. The now-psychotic and much bigger Bobby kills Travis while she is on the phone, and then escapes.

Cast

• Paul Coufos as Dr. Neil Hamilton
• Lisa Schrage as Alex Reed
• Colin Fox as Prof. Edmund Delhurst
• Frank Pellegrino as Joshua
• Jackie Burroughs as Dr. Kate Travis
• Réal Andrews as Mark Hales
• Stuart Hughes as Al
• Karen Hines as Angie
• David B. Nichols as Dean White
• Michael Copeman as Lieutenant Weizel
• Sean Mitchell as Bobby
• Robert Kennedy as Brett
• Frank Moore as Jacques
• Howard Jerome as Louis