Another review, you say? But Mr. Starmummy Sir, it's only been a day since your last review? Don't fret, son. I plan on delivering a poopload of reviews as quickly as possible. I wonder what the metric conversion would be for a poopload?
For my second review, I have chosen the low budget Italian sci fi film Contamination (aka Alien Contamination, Toxic Spawn or the director's choice Alien Arrives on Earth) directed by Luigi Cozzi, who previously helmed Star Crash with Caroline Munro (Maniac), Joe Spinell (mention #2 in my blog) and a 26 year old David Hasselhoff. Contamination stars Ian McCulloch (Lucio Fulci's Zombie) and some other distinguished thespians (by distinguished I mean totally devoid of any acting skills whatsoever). The movie is about a bunch of eggs from outer space that spray liquid which causes its victim's chests to explode. McCulloch's character (so memorable that I have no idea what his name was) holds the secret to these eggs and joins a government researcher and a correspondent from the White House to stop whomever is behind this deadly plot to eliminate the human race...at least I think that's the plot.
When I started watching this, after the first 15 minutes I was saying to myself "this is better than Alien". By the end I was shaking my head wondering how a movie could start out so good and quickly tumble face first into a pile of dogshit. This movie reeks of a ripoff of Alien. Even the director admits the studio wanted to cash in on Alien, which is where the whole bumpy green eggs and chest bursting came from. I will admit, the chest bursting scenes were great. I can definitely see myself going back to the film and watching those scenes again.
Despite the bad acting and the obvious Alien ripoff, the climax is easily one of the most laughable in film history. Without giving too much away, the creature responsible for all of the eggs finally makes its appearance at the end of the film. Let's just say that...how can I put this nicely...it's probably the worst designed creature ever put in a film. It does open up one of its orifices (I couldn't really tell what part of the creature it was supposed to be) and sucks a guy up in it, which was cool. Other than that, crap.
To end this review, I want to say a little bit about the dvd out now of Contamination on Blue Underground, probably my favorite company putting out dvds. The picture is in great shape, especially considering the budget and age. The dvd features an interview with Luigi Cozzi, the highlight of which is when he calls the female lead ugly. There is also a behind the scenes documentary with footage filmed at the time the movie was released.
RATING: 2/5
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