Astaron - Brut des Schreckens

Contamination is my idea of movie heaven. It is a shining example of the dubbed sci-fi/horror, Euro-trash spectaculars that were produced on a massive scale in the 70s and early 1980s before Europe turned its backs on cheap entertainment and focused on making dreary art-house fare. In my opinion, Contamination is a reminder of all that was great about this, now virtually extinct, film-making phenomenon.

Contamination is generally regarded as the embarrassing bastard child of Ridley Scott's "Alien". While the film does shamelessly steal certain elements from Scott's masterpiece, it is by no means a boring copy. The plot is so twisted and demented, not to mention ludicrous and ridiculous, that it transcends its "borrowed" elements and becomes something almost entirely unique and wonderful. For example, whereas Alien takes place on a deserted spacecraft, Contamination begins on a deserted boat, then moves to New York City, makes a detour via Mars and ends up in a Colombian coffee factory!

In addition to the utterly preposterous storyline, the joys of Contamination are manifold. There is the wonderful 80s synth score, some of the most atrocious acting committed to film, side-splitting dialogue, fantastically ancient cutting-edge technology (the science lab is a marvel of 70s/80s set design), fabulous euro-effects (among them glowing, musical alien eggs, exploding rats and better yet, exploding people) and then there is the Cyclops.

I could probably write a novel just on the glorious Cyclops. What a wonder of latex and wire! The film is worth viewing just for this magnificent creature, with its big, glowing eye and vile snout. This kind of craptastic special effect died a painful death with the introduction of CGI, and movies have been all the worse for it.

Forget the pretentious rubbish clogging up IMDb's top 250 and watch this stunning opus instead. I can not recommend this highly enough.

Italian/German sci-fi horror about large green Martian eggs initially found on a cargo ship drifting apparently unmanned into New York. An unlikely team of three head to a coffee manufacturer in Colombia where they eventually encounter a big alien cyclops. Back in the 1980's Contamination found itself banned as a Video Nasty in Britain, and has been released in cuts of varying length. Thankfully it is now available uncut and it looks great on Blu-ray. The plot is silly, the dialogue is hilariously bad, the Martian cave looks very cheap and the dubbing is often out of sync (not unusual to be fair), but on the other hand there is a lot of gore on show, the pace is good and the movie boasts a Goblin musical score. I love the movie, yes it is trashy but for me it is very entertainingly so. I don't think that I could tire of watching it.

Luigi Cozzi's "Contamination" is a typical Italian "Alien" clone.The film itself is not bad,because it offers some cheap thrills with plenty of nasty gore.Ian McCulloch("Zombi 2","Zombi Holocaust")is quite memorable as a former astronaut,who returned from Mars.Like many Italian exploitation films made in the early 80's,the film begins on location in New York City.A bunch of mysterious eggs is discovered along with some mutilated bodies on a deserted ship.Getting too close to these eggs could be very deadly,because they spew some goo at you and make your body explode."Contamination" is a fun little film loaded with enough gore and violence to satisfy fans of Italian splatter.It's sometimes too talky and dull,but the beginning is great as is the ending.So if you're a fan of Italian low-budget exploitation give this one a look.Grab some beer and get ready for some thrills,chills and blood spills!

And Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Cheech & Chong.

This is the Italian version of Alien. The main actress is played, I believe, by Sigournia Weaverotta. The main actor is the highly esteemed Doug McClurio.

The badly dubbed dialogue has such gems as: "We have over 400 eggs" "Eggcelent"

The cast has all faded into obscurity except the alien creature who got a job making Slurm in the late 90s.

Ian McCulloch shines, as he did in 'Zombie Flesh-eaters', this time as an alcoholic former NASA astronaut who is dismissed as mad when he talks of the threat of an alien invasion from Mars (as is par for the course in these space capers).

If you enjoy lame acting, poorly dubbed voices, cheesy 80's gore effects and an implausible plot, then this is the film for you.