Contamination

I first heard of this film from a friend of mine. He owns a very old copy of this movie that was not called "Contamination" but called "Alien Contamination". So, he let me borrow this flick one night and I was rather disappointed at first. The gore and exploding stomaches were heavily cut out and the story really isn't worth watching without it. I finally got a copy of this film that is fully uncut and it is much better. Of course the story line is quite simple. A ship is found with some extremely mangled bodies on board and some eggs that look similar to the eggs from the movie "Alien" only much smaller and when picked up they explode causing anyone around to basically explode from the inside. So you can only imagine where the story line is going from here. Great gore effects, "Zombi 2's" Ian McColluch and a good score by "The Goblins" make this a descent Italian horror flick. I enjoyed it and I think most fans of the genre will. And by the way, other than the exploding eggs, this movie is in no way like "Alien". Many people call this movie another "Alien" ripoff, but this movie is not anything like it.

Well this was another movie that tried to pass itself off as Alien 2 long with Ciro Ippolito's Alien 2 - On Earth. The problem with doing this is that one immediately draws a comparison with Alien which had a much bigger budget and therefore is always going to look a lot better.

Luigi Cozzi's stab at Alien isn't too bad, although he himself has stated that his is a better movie than Ippolito's film although I don't agree - sure the effects are slightly better, but there is only one effect in the entire movie - the chest exploding (or popping) that is repeated about a billion times in super-slow-motion. Alien 2 - On Earth was much more fun.

Anyway the narrative begins as an exact copy of Zombie Flesh Eaters with the appearance of an abandoned boat floating into New York Harbour. Even the dialogue is copied from that film - "The skipper of that boat must be a real turkey!". Not only do the Italians rip-off Hollywood movies, they rip each other off as well.

Predictably the police who investigate the boat stumble across the dead crew, who fall out of cupboards and look as if they have been ripped open from the inside! They then discover some strange egg like shapes, "Maybe they're avocados!" enthuses one policeman. However when they try to pick one up it explodes, showering the police in sticky goo. The goo leads to immediate imflammation of the belly and "pop!" they're guts fly out all over the place. Not a bad effect although if you look closely at one of the victims, he has suddenly become a foot wider (to make room for all those animal entrails).

The police captain escapes and helps Commander Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) in the hunt to discover the origin of the eggs.

They visit Hubbard (Ian McCulloch), who was part of an expedition to Mars some years previous who was declared crazy after talking about seeing thousands of eggs there. Now living in alcoholic squalor he moans at Lt. Holmes before telling his story. Cue flashback of the expedition to a Martian cave and a terrible attempt at recreating the exact scene in Alien. The acting in this bit is truly atrocious as McCulloch delivers his lines "I looked at Hamilton - and he was, his eyes, he was beginning to....Hamilton.....HAMILTON!" Followed by a Daa Daaa DAAAAAAAA on the soundtrack. Truly the funniest part of the movie using that same useless Goblin soundtrack that for some reason everyone raves about - why? It's terrible!

Well it's not great and nowhere near as fun as "Alien 2 - On Earth" but it's better than the average trash movie. Starts well and finishes okay but it sags very badly in the middle which does make you want to nod off.

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.

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.