Casta salvaje

Sh!t from outer space keeps crashing onto earth at the start of this movie. First a spaceship with evil alien parasite-infected astronauts. Then a cocoon-canister with alien eggs. Then another lifepod thing with a female astronaut inhabited by a good alien. The female is the ex-wife of Jack Scalia, and he is the star and co-producer of this thrill-ride sci-fi/horror action-fest (okay, I'm exaggerating things a little bit here). Scalia & his alienized ex-wife have to team up to stop the evil astronauts, as they are here to take over the world (with the bunch of eggs helping them to inevitably create an alien army). There's one cool car-chase sequence early on in the movie (actually, it's a truck-chase sequence and why those aliens decided to steal a truck is beyond me). The rest of the film contains a lot of shooting and military folks running around. The special effects are passable, some highlights: the space shuttle crashing in the harbor, a pretty gory autopsy sequence and two nifty rubber suited aliens near the end. At one point or another, "Dark Breed" might remind you of films like "The Hidden" (good alien teaming up with a human to kill the bad aliens) and perhaps even "Predator" (the facial design of one of the evil aliens). Needles to say those are far better movies than "Dark Breed". But it gains an extra point for blowing up a lot of things.

1996 was a busy year for the protagonist of this film as its leading star, 1980's TV heartthrob actor Jack Scalia, a Brooklyn native of Italian descent, featured in not one but two somewhat obscure sci-fi films; 'Dark Breed' and 'The Silencers'. Both of these films suffer from the same problem, that is of having an interesting concept for the story and narrative but which are adapted amateurishly on film.

The plot's tagline for this film is: 'Six astronauts are infected by an alien organism.' Doesn't that sound cool? Well, yeah, but what we have in 'Dark Breed' is anything but. Despite featuring a number of handsome and pretty actors and actresses in its cast, this film never manages to bring out the potential of anyone of them. The editing is poor, and while there are some effects, they do not look at all convincing. The thing is, despite all of this, I do not think that 'Dark Breed' is horrible in any way either. It is certainly mediocre, sure, but I reserve the title of terrible or horrible for films which insult my intelligence or which make me want to stop watching. At least I watched this film until the end and nothing about it was insulting.

'The Silencers', Jack Scalia's other sci-fi film of 1996, is better than this one because for all its mistakes, at least it was not as tedious as this film. With better editing, 'Dark Breed' could have been a memorable sci-fi film, but as it is, it is nothing better than a mediocre and forgettable sci-fi film which, while not terrible in any way, is nothing if not mediocre.

Actually, things explode a lot! Much of the film's budget must have gone on explosives, cars explode, buildings explode, everything explodes at some point....

The special effects are pretty well staged for a low-budget,straight to DVD/video but the plot gets a bit lost in all the smoke. And I couldn't help feeling there was a really good story trying hard to get out along the way. I would have preferred the film to concentrate on the characters a bit more rather than just sketching them as one dimensional stereotypes. The film was at it's most interesting when it went into 'conspiracy theory' territory.

Sadly, most action films are judged on their special effects these days and if you want a film with lots of action, albeit it all a bit pointless at times, this will suit you fine.

If there is ever Dark Breed 2, be nice to have more story and less explosions.

This is an Alien copycat that doesn't have scary monsters and the plot is mixed up. The astronauts inhabited by aliens for some reason are only inhabited part of the time. Why? I don't know and it doesn't matter. You know they are inhabited because they all of a sudden speak in a stupid computerized "scary" voice that isn't scary. The astronauts go places, but it doesn't matter. Then, they rip off the Terminator by having another alien that can kill them. By this time you are extremely bored and don't care. There are, however, lots of explosions. And there is the obligatory "man running away from large explosion just ahead of the leaping flames" scene. Yawn.

There sure are a lot of panes of glass destroyed in this PM production, involving a bunch of astronauts coming back from space infested with evil aliens hell bent on taking over the Earth. The leader of the aliens is Mike from Breaking Bad, but, you see, he's also still a good guy underneath.

Their former Captain is out to track them down, along with his ex-wife (who also has an alien in her), some evil G-men, etc etc. It's a PM film, and therefore chock-full of car chases, explosions, and a rather large amount of people being thrown through panes of glass.

I was expecting this to be your usual run of the mill 'people running around a warehouse being chased by aliens' film, that only really happens at the end (and via a flashback also). When the aliens do appear, they are rather, eh, Predator like, but I wasn't complaining as they laid waste to all the G-men.

Throw in some mild gore, loads of gunfights, some not bad car chases, and plenty on nineties cheese and you have all you need to pass the time while you're waiting to die.

One thing: In some scenes the alien contact lenses seem to have been inserted incorrectly.