Parasite

My review was written in March 1982 after a TImes Square screening:

"Parasite" is a low-budget monster film which utilizes the 3-D process to amplify its shock effects. Outlook is okay to attract fans of horror pics and depth films.

Set in 1992, tale has a skimpy sci-fi peg, of scientist Dr. Paul Dean (Robert Glaudini) attempting to neutralize a strain of parasite he has developed for the government. Morbid premise (accounting perhaps for Glaudini's glum, almost laughably downbeat line readings) is that the large, worm-like parasite is in his abdomen growing while he studies another specimen, racing to somehow avert his own death and save the world from millions of offspring.

Post-nuclear war locale is a remote, western town, with fashions resembling today but gas up to $40 per gallon. Filmmaker Charles Band is weak on transitions and story development, ending many scenes arbitrarily with a fast fade. Nominal tension is generated by merchant (industrial class controlling society) James Davidson pursuing the hero while both use futuristic laser guns to deal with the young punk locals.

Pic's raison d'etre is a set of frightening mechanical and sculpted monster makeup effects by Oscar-nominated (for "Heartbeeps") Stan Winston, aided by James Kagel and Lance Anderson. Convincing gore and sudden plunges at the camera are enhanced by StereoVision 3-D filming, with cameraman Mac Ahlberg creating some interesting foreground-dominated compositions among the standard shots. Otherwise "Parasite" is lethargic between its terror scenes, making it a test of patience for all but the fanatical followers of horror cheapies.

No, this is not a very good movie at all. However, I saw it when it was first released in 1982 in 3D, and not once since then, and I still remember some creepy scenes. The big gross-out in the movie -- when the dripping parasite falls down on you from the ceiling in 3D!! -- had me squirming in my seat in 1982.

I saw a number of films during the short-lived 3D revival of the early '80's, and, believe me, there were very few kick-ass uses of the 3D effect anywhere, but Parasite had one of the better ones. (Most of the other good 3D moments are in House of Wax with Vincent Price. Even Hitchcock couldn't figure out what to do with the gimmick.)

By the way, in 1982 no one had ever heard of Demi Moore. Did we predict big things for her after seeing her in this? Yeah, right.

I've just bought the DVD for "Parasite". The widescreen DVD is totally superior to the old vhs rental copies, and the fun of this awesome 80s prediction film only gets better with age. The debut of Demi Moore isn't even nearly as interesting as the campy story of a scientist meeting a bunch of strange early eighties punk bikers (who have to be the stupidest gang I've ever seen)and unleash a big wormy looking monster with teeth. The story is fun and scary at the same time. The world was going to come to and end in '92, well that was '83 thinking anyway. There's no end to the fury of bad films you love being promoted to DVD. This one of them.

Calling PARASITE a good movie is as arguable as whether or not Paris Hilton has had a breast enlargement. It's no secret that I've always had a soft spot for Charles Band's pre-Full Moon stuff. And even though I've liked PARASITE ever since I saw it in my mid-teens, I think I'm not being biased if I say that watching this movie is a worthwhile effort and it's worthy of an honourable mention as an entry in B-movie horror history set in a post-apocalyptic future. Well, "future", is somewhat of a debatable topic here, since the movie is set in the year 1992 (while having been produced in 1982).

PARASITE is noticeable for quite some aspects. One of them being that it was originally shot and released in theaters as a 3-D feature. While 3-Dimensional Photography was a popular phenomena in cinematic history during the 50's (CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON, anyone?), its popularity soon fizzled out by the decade's end. Fast forward to the early 80's and we encounter director/producer Charles Band as one of the people (in collaboration with 3-D specialist Randall Larsen) who revived 3-D for a short-lived period and brought it back to theaters. PARASITE was his contribution to the sudden but short wave of 3-D features to emerge around that time (FRIDAY THE 13th PART 3, AMITYVILLE 3-D and JAWS 3-D being the most famous ones). One year later Charles would make another 3-D feature, the sci-fi/adventure flick METALSTORM: THE DESTRUCTION OF JARED-SYN (another worthwhile watch, if you ask me). The use of the 3-D gimmick is integrated nicely with the rest of the movie (e.g. during a fist-fight you can see a snake lashing out at the camera; the titular parasite creature falling from the ceiling towards the camera positioned on the ground). The two most memorable scenes involving 3-D cinematography involve one killing (a guy gets impaled by an iron pipe; when the camera slowly closes in on the hollow pipe, blood starts dripping out of it) and the parasite-creature bursting out of the head of actress Viviane Blaine (well, not her real head, of course).

The story itself is rather simplistic and sometimes moves at a slow pace, but there are a lot of enjoyable scenes to make up for that. A scientist, played by tormented-looking Robert Glaudini, flees from an oppressive paramilitary government, for which he created the flesh-eating parasite. He takes with him two specimens. One he keeps in a canister; the other creature… is growing inside his stomach. We don't get to see much of the futuristic paramilitary government, though. The only information we learn about it, is coming from the various characters our scientist meets when he's stranded in an isolated desert town (amongst them being a group of post-apocalyptic punks and a scarred-by-radiation black bartender). But... there is one black-suited (and laser-armed) villainous Government Agent (called "Wolf The Merchant" and sadistically played by James Davidson) on the hunt for him (it all leads to an enjoyable but short showdown near the end, of course). Children of the 80's will sure love the Lamborghini Countach Car he drives (complete with vertically opening doors). The acting even is fair enough for this type of movie, and another reason to watch this flick is that it stars no-one less than Demi Moore in her second motion picture role ever (although, indeed, one can clearly tell that Miss Moore was only just getting started with her acting career). She plays an all-American post-apocalyptic cutie (that even makes and sells lemonade), eventually teaming op with Robert Glaudini. A small role is also granted to Cherie Currie (Former lead singer of the Runaways).

Another aspect of PARASITE worthwhile mentioning is the work of cinematographer Mac Ahlberg. For one thing, while around the same time (early 80's) his Italian colleagues were still obsessed with getting a spontaneous erection by touching the zoom-button on their camera's, Ahlberg prefers to use slow tracking shots every now and then while equipping his camera with wide-angled lenses. His images bring a dusty and desolate feeling to PARASITE. And then there's the contribution of Stan Winston, who designed the creature and did the make-up effects. While far from being his best work (hey, the man was just getting started too), most of the effects are quite grotesque, slimy and deliciously cheesy. I wouldn't want it any other way in a movie from the early 80's.

I can understand that, to some, PARASITE might be considered a post-apocalyptic snooze-fest (with bad acting, bad special effects and whatever else they might find to nag about). But my love for it and the joy I got out of (re-)watching this slightly offbeat and rather obscure 80's gem, encourages me to be generous in my final rating. I can say one other thing too even: Once you've seen one of Charles Band's older movies and liked it, there's a big chance you'll like all his other stuff up until the early 90's too (whether he produced or directed it doesn't even matter). Reportedly, there were plans to produce an inevitable sequel back in the early 80's, simply titled PARASITE II. I think it's safe to say that, sadly, we can abandon all hope of that ever happening, in this year of writing, 2007.

Problem with this movie is that it's being a quite boring one to watch. It picks a totally serious approach, while the story is just far from interesting or well written. There is hardly anything spectacular happening in it and as a science-fiction/horror or post-apocalyptic movie, it's a severely lacking one.

It's funny how this movie is supposed to be a post-apocalyptic movie. Once the movie starts off there is nothing to indicate that this movie is supposed to be set in a near future, in which the entire world has supposedly gone to waste, due to some kind of atomic war, presumably. But the movie simply looks like an 1982 movie set in 1982. There are only some lasers featured in it, to indicate that this movie is not being set at present time.

But to be frank, there are far more movies like that out there, that are still not being half as bad as this one though. Problem really is that this movie takes itself far too serious and tries to be more of a realistic movie, though the story has absolutely nothing clever or original in it to justify this approach. The movie really doesn't work out too well because of this. It instead makes this movie work out as a boring one, also since it doesn't have any redeeming characters or some fun or good tense horror-like moments in it.

It's actually quite amazing how bland and totally uninteresting the movie its story is, while its concept itself doesn't sound that bad at all. Seriously, this is all they could come up with? I'm surprised that a person green-lighted this project at the first place.

The characters absolutely don't work out at all, also due to its poorly and unimaginative written story. The actors also come across as bad ones because of this, since the movie features some real poor dialog as well. Doubtful that this is a movie Demi Moore is still very proud off. This movie was one of the very first ones she ever appeared in and to be honest, she was absolutely horrible in this, which is, as I said, more due to the writing and perhaps directing as well, than her actual acting skills.

But to name a good thing about this movie; it has some quite confusing looking effects and special effects make-up. No big surprise though, once you see that Stan Winston's name is attached to this.

This movie is too much of a bore and there is no reason to recommend it to anyone.

4/10

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