Gremlins del espacio

My review was written in August 1985 after watching the movie on Continental video cassette.

Made in 1981 and just released on video cassette, "Biohazard" is a silly horror film that slavishly imitates (as have many other low-budgeters) the monster effects in the 1979 hit "Alien". Ironically, pic made for 21st Century release retained its moniker though 20 Century Fox reportedly tried to buy the name to affix to its recent "Warning Sign" film. Postscript is that 20th Fox is itself back in production with the Sigourney Weaver-starred sequel "Aliens".

Thin story has Dr. Williams (Arthur Payton) experimenting in his remote desert research lab on matter transfer, not the process used in the Fox classic "The Fly" but rather bringing objects here from another, unknown dimension. One such foot-long object has been materialized and is being shown to military observers led by Gen. Randolph (Aldo Ray). The object is stolen by a journalist who wishes to write about it, and it opens, releasing a series of monsters that go on the rampage.

Mitchell Carter (William Fair) of the Army tries to track down the monsters, using a geiger counter (they are radioactive). He is aided by Lisa (Angelique Pettyjohn), an ESP-sensitive who has been instrumental in Dr. Williams' experiments. Climax has a leading character revealed to be one of the monsters.

Spectacle of seeing the "Alien" monster imitated in each of its guises is a sad excuse for a film, loaded with gore and in-jokes (at one point a monster angrily tears up a poster displaying "E. T."). This short feature ends ludicrously with the director audibly yelling "Cut!" from off-screen, followed by nearly 10 minutes of outtakes as padding. Funniest bit is when mature bombshell Angelique Pettyjohn's platinum blonde wig slips off during a sex scene, duly recorded in the outtake section.

Biohazard (1985) is a movie that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a science experiment gone wrong that creates a monster with psychic abilities that can reproduce quickly. Can the scientists survive the creature and stop it before taking over the planet?

This movie is directed by Fred Olen Ray (The Phantom Empire) and stars Aldo Ray (We're No Angels), Angelique Pettyjohn (Repo Man), Bret Miller (Some Are Born), David O'Hara (Nightingale: A Melody of Life) and Art Payton (Never too Young to Die).

The costumes, sets and props are a lot of fun and classic 80s. The alien is a man in a costume and looks like it, but it's still fun to watch. As you would expect in this picture there's lots of flashes of topless scenes and the ladies are absolutely gorgeous. The cast delivers strong performances and the dialogue is well written with some fun comedy and zings. The horror special effects are limited and the kills are fairly mediocre, though the baby creatures were entertaining. There is a nice twist at the end.

Overall, this is an above average addition to the science fiction horror genre that I would score a 5.5/10 and strongly recommend.

I couldn't believe some of the horrible dialog coming out of people's mouths, and the end reel of bloopers attached to body of the film was a real hoot. And we get titty shots of Angelique Pettyjohn (sort of) and Loren Crabtree to boot.

A teleportation device activated by psychic Angelique Pettyjohn brings an alien container to an underground lab out in the desert. According to director Fred Olen Ray, they were leftover sets from the Klaus Kinski film, ANDROID which gives the film an increased value beyond how cheap it looks.

Inside the container is a midget alien (played by Ray's son) who starts clawing people to death. It was pretty funny watching this little 'creature' in a black reptile suit with what looks like large beetle shells attached to it, running around in the dark. We even get to see the little thing stamp and tear at a poster of ET, which I thought was hilarious.

And then there's what looks like a snake that also comes out of the container that gets hammered to death by William Fair, after the mini creature chews into Frank McDonald's neck in the kitchen. A low budget take on ALIEN, I suppose...

The whole thing ends abruptly, looking like they ran out of film at the end before the blooper reel comes in with the end credits. Talk about a lack of funding...

Fred Olen Ray also mentions in the director's commentary that they also weren't sure if Aldo Ray would make through the shooting and remember his lines. He barely did.

Low budget cheese sneeze. It's fun to watch, I'll grant ya that.

4 out of 10

I was always curious about this film because it is so tough to find, so when I stumbled upon it on Ebay I forked over the $10 and bought it, now I understand why its so rare! This film is SO bad, so terribly written and hopelessly low budget that the ending credits, which show all of the cut scenes where they fumbled their lines, are literally the movie's highlight. The film is about a psychic (Pettyjohn) whom uses her powers with an experimental machine to pull objects from another dimension into this reality. When she pulls in some kind of box like object the military nonchalantly throws it into the open back of a truck with one soldier to guard it, and gee, what do you know? SURPRISE! A kid in a foam-rubber monster costume pops out, instantly kills the soldier with a scratch across his face, then escapes to a nearby city. But rather than deploy half the armed forces of the county to find it and protect the public those in charge just leave it up to Pettyjohn and Ray to find it on their own, but no matter, this movie blows all its credibility LONG before then. This barely escapes being voted a 1 by me only because of unintentional laughs, somebody needs to alert the producers of "Mystery Science Theater 3000" if they don't know about it already! 2 out 10, really, REALLY bad!

If you're watching this movie, you're either a Fred Olen Ray fan, you found it on the $4.99 shelf at Suncoast and thought "what do I have to lose?", or you spun around the video store with your eyes closed and rented the first movie your finger touched.

This movie is hysterically bad. It's got everything a terrible movie needs: a screenplay featuring jaw-dropping dialogue and baffling detours in the plot, wacky science involving psychics and other dimensions, continuity that seems to travel through wormholes in time and space, actors that are not only wooden, but seems to border on befuddled, gratuitous nudity (not all of it is what you necessarily would ask for), and of course, a 5' monster played by what I assume is Fred Olen Ray's kid.

Underneath it all, however, there is something resembling heart -- as if Mickey & Judy decided to get together all the kids in the neighborhood and make a monster movie (hey! my dad can direct it! yeah! We can use red paint from my johnny's dad's hardware store, and I know this ex-stripper who can act in it!).

Watch for the blooper reel over the credits -- you get to find out why the final cut of the movie was so crappy.

Incidentally, Biohazard II...the Alien Force is also worth a look, but doesn't have the same enjoyably crappy veneer this one does.