Shocking dark - Spectres à Venise

Wow. I'm kind of surprised by its decent rating on this site. But, talk about plagiarism. "Aliens" is what it wants to be. And "Aliens" it is not. It blatantly lifts scenes, dialogues ("Please, kill me"), characters, story arches and ideas. It's that obvious… you'd be in amazement. Yeah, you could probably play a drinking game with what it tries to squeeze in. It simply becomes a waiting to see what they rip- off next. And throw in a touch of "Terminator". Especially within the film's dying stages and misplaced climax. Well in some countries it does have the title "Terminator II". Wonder what James Cameron would have made of it? Director Bruno Mattei and writer Claudio Fragasso are no strangers to trash, and the grungy "Shocking Dark" is no exception to the trend. Too bad it's not as exploitative in its visuals. Even though it's on the cheap, daft in every sense, the plot doesn't make a lick of sense and junky as it can be… what killed it for me was how flat, sluggish and meandering the action and story came out to be. No great shakes that the acting is wooden (and that constant screaming from the Newt character gets truly unbearable), the genetic monsters look completely goofy and the thrills are more silly than rousing, but it's not as fun as it could have been. Good idea of the setting; a polluted Venice, despite most of the time is spent in dark, dingy and long underground corridors, which is caught by murky photography. Lame-brain, but it gets bogged down too often and doesn't let its outlandish nature implode.

This movie is not actually a sequel to the 1984 James Cameron movie, but more or less a remake of Cameron's 1986 movie ALIENS. The major difference between this movie and Aliens is... well, almost nothing actually.

The plot, lines of dialog, situations, etc. are all completely identical to those seen in ALIENS, such as the mischievous android who more or less plays the "Burke" role up until he gets damaged a bit, then he goes on a TERMINATOR-style rampage chasing after the woman and the young girl.

The actual Aliens here are more like genetic mutations, and they don't really look that bad considering they're just guys in monster suits. Whatever they have to do with the plot is negligible since the movie seems to be more of a post-nuke film having to do with soldiers unlocking some government conspiracy deep in the bowels of a futuristic ruined Venice.

The cast is uniformly awful, with several Americans (some with South African accents) in the cast who appear to have little or no prior acting experience, sort of the same situation with TROLL 2 or CRUEL JAWS where I think the production company just wheeled through K-mart asking people if they wanted to act in a film. Only Fausto Lombardi comes across as anything resembling good, though Chris Ahrens and Janna Ryan are pretty amusing bad movie veterans.

The musical score for this picture I believe was liberated from a number of other 80's films, including Blade Runner and Miami Cops. Much of the footage (with the explosions, etc.) is taken from Mattei's earlier DOUBLE TARGET too.

So bad is this film, in fact, that writer/co-director Claudio Fragasso refused to make any more movies with Mattei afterward - and that's saying a lot. I have to say that I enjoyed it to a certain extent, though it's more fun to wonder how they managed to avoid a lawsuit than it is to actually sit down and watch the movie in one sitting. A little too depressing and dull to be unintentionally funny - though it does certainly have its moments.

Terminator II (1989)

** (out of 4)

This here is a Bruno Mattei film so that right there tells you that it must be a rip-off of something much better. The title will make it seems as if this is trying to cash-in on the success of James Cameron's THE TERMINATOR but instead this is actually a rip on his film ALIENS. The story is pretty simple as the setting is a futuristic Venice where soldiers and civilians are living underground but soon there's a breach and people are getting attacked by a creature.

If you've seen ALIENS then you're pretty much going to recognize countless scenes here. Look, Mattei wasn't an original person and it's doubtful he could really make what most would call a "good" movie but at the same time his name has pretty much become a cult favorite and a sub-genre all its own. I mean, not only did this guy rip off ALIENS but there are also rips on PREDATOR, DAWN OF THE DEAD, CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST, ROBOCOP, JAWS and countless other movies. People can call him a hack and a no-talent freak but the man did carve out a rather interesting piece of history for himself.

TERMINATOR II, also known as SHOCKING DARK, ALIENS 2 and countless other titles, isn't nearly as bad as you might think but at the same time there's no question that there's not too much going on here. The biggest problem I had with the movie is the fact that the majority of the action takes place in the dark and more times than not it's really difficult to see what's going on. Also, the monster outfit looks decent considering the low-budget but at the same time he has got to be the biggest sissy in horror film history. There are countless times where he will grab someone yet the smallest thing makes him let go to where the body count is rather small.

The performances are pretty much what you'd expect in a movie like this. The dialgoue is downright awful at times including a bunch of racial fighting, which makes you wonder if DAY OF THE DEAD was another thing getting ripped off. TERMINATOR II came out two years before the official sequel and it remains an mildly entertaining rip-off.

OK, so I'm not quite a full-time professional critic just yet, dabbled in a few tomes that I hope to peddle, worked as a Mac games journalist for a couple years & then did some freelance writing for a couple other computer geek oriented websites. You know, big deal. But I do pride myself at being able to maintain at least the appearance of having a professional demeanor when it comes to writing about movies or whatever, and one of the things I learned very quickly when reading other people's essays/comments was to avoid using expressions like THIS IS THE WORST MOVIE EVER MADE or EASILY THE WORST MOVIE EVER MADE. A good "THIS SUCKS" every once in a while is legit, since stuff either sucks or it rules.

Then I saw SHOCKING DARK (or ALIENATORS, as the version I saw was titled) and my view upon such things is shaken. There is an amazingly annoying movie called THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT that is a fake documentary about a guy's search for Sasquatch that is actually a lot of idle nature photography edited together with vacation footage and then about ten minutes of staged Bigfoot related scenes, one or two of which actually show some schook dressed up like Bigfoot for about 8 seconds in total. At one point they use a rigid, posed, stuffed bear lying on it's side to simulate one of Bigfoot's victims. The most dramatic scene in the film is when a groundhog is hit by a car and it's frantic mate drags it into their hole before a hawk circling overhead can eat them.

THE LEGEND OF BIGFOOT is a better movie than SHOCKING DARK. JOHN Q. with Denzel Washington was a better movie than SHOCKING DARK. So was CROSSROADS with Britney Spears or even DOOM: THE MOVIE with The Rock, which bears a superficial resemblance to SHOCKING DARK. KID VENGEANCE is a better movie than SHOCKING DARK, and that is saying a lot. The science fiction films of Alfonso Brescia cannot even touch SHOCKING DARK's layers of utter awfulness. Larry Buchanan's ZONTAR - THING FROM VENUS is a cerebral masterpiece by comparison. MEGAFORCE is a better movie. GYMKATA is a better movie. They are silly, goofy, clumsy, cheesy, and hopelessly derivative, but they have the distinction of being watchable.

I will let others describe the plot: SHOCKING DARK is in many ways like Mattei's far superior (and highly equally stupid) ROBOWAR: It is a collage, a pastiche of moments, lines, specific incidents, plot ideas, individual shots and even the same title as other movies. They are turned on their side, mixed up, jumbled, re-arranged, given slightly different names, and re-assembled into a narrative that serves no point, tells no story, and exists as a collection of 90 second interludes that all segue into each other and are edited together to take on the appearance of a movie. I will admit that the *LOOK* of the film is pretty polished: they found some sort of a huge power plant, hung up a bunch of neon lights, dressed a mob of clowns up like the Power Rangers, and have them scuttling about pretending to be various cast members of ALIENS, PREDATOR, FULL METAL JACKET, ROBOCOP, PLATOON and THE TERMINATOR. If you watch the movie with the sound off it is actually rather impressive looking at times. But if you listen to what the people are saying it is so close to so many other movies we have seen so many times -- but just awkwardly different enough to avoid a lawsuit -- that it is disorienting and annoying. You want to fix it, or straighten the mess out so that it retains the original form Mattei was basing his film on. Sadly, art doesn't work like that and the result is a colossal annoyance.

The only analogy I can make is to sitting in the crowded waiting room of a doctor you don't particularly enjoy seeing, seated directly across from a really awful mail-order art print that has been framed, hung on the wall, and apparently brushed against by someone so that it's not hanging perfectly square. You sit in this chair and stare at this schwag art print and the only thing you can think of is how many other things you could be doing at that moment, and how pathetic that picture looks hanging there crooked. But since it isn't your picture in your office and there are other people present all you can do is sit there and suffer, waiting to be called for your turn. And then when you go back again the next month, the stupid picture is still hanging in the same crooked way, and it is time to sit and wait and stare at it all over again. The exasperation of futility.

That is what watching SHOCKING DARK is like when viewed the same way one would watch any other movie. My advice is to not do so, listen to some tunes or something, and that's why this is such a great party movie. It's awful, but if you need random cool looking images with violence and explosions while some Ozzy blares, this should be your first pick. Anyone else will need blood pressure medication before the thing is even half over: THE MOST ANNOYING MOVIE EVER MADE. There, I said it.

3/10

Shlock ripoff of Aliens and The Terminator. Must be seen to be believed. I laughed, I cried laughing and it is glorious. Watch with friends and cocktails.