Alien, la créature des abysses

Not exactly Margheriti's shining moment on screen, but it's still loads better than a lot of his other mid-to-late 80's work like CODE NAME: WILDGEESE or INDIO thanks to some energetic editing and rich special effects. Not to say the the effects budget was all that high, it was awfully low with plenty of painfully obvious miniatures blowing up in slow motion to make them look big. The goofiest effect has to be the full-sized robotic alien at the ending, which has lots of cool tubing and steam vents all over it but looked as though the crew had little or no control over it. When the alien first pops out of the woodwork it's legs dangle limply as though a crane is hoisting it up (and that's exactly what the crew probably used too).

To my knowledge, this is the only time Margheriti worked for Franco Gaudenzi, who usually worked fairly exclusively with Bruno Mattei. In comparison with most of Mattei similar work from the same period, this film seems almost classic. There's a fair amount of cheesy gore and horrendous acting. Co-star Robert Marius from AMERICAN COMMANDOS and COP GAME has to be the worst actor in the history of cinema. Aside from a pretty passive cameo by Charles Napier and Luciano Pigozzi wobbling around in his last role, the acting was all pretty uniformally hopeless. However, I don't see how this film earns the status as "Margheriti's worst film" even though it does flagrantly lift musical cues right out of Larry Cohen's Q - THE WINGED SERPENT. The film is exciting and action-packed enough so that it's never boring, and the finale isn't too big an ALIENS rip, with them using bulldozers instead of robotic lifters of course. Low budget in the extreme, but with enough amusing dialog and funny special effects to earn it a certain place in history. Not nearly as bad as Gaudenzi's other ALIENS ripoff produced the same year, SHOCKING DARK aka TERMINATOR II, which has to be an all new low.

Antonio Margheriti's filmography is interesting and varied. It featured such well made Italian films as Danse Macabre and Schoolgirl Killer; as well as some trash, such as The Last Hunter, Death Rage and Cannibal Apocalypse. One thing you have to credit the director with, however, is that even when he's making trash; he usually makes it well, and while Alien from the Deep is not exactly a high quality piece of film-making; I do firmly believe that it would have been a lot worse in the hands of a lesser director. The title features the word 'alien' and the film was released not long after James Cameron's Aliens was a big hit; so seeing as this is an Italian film, it should be pretty clear that it's a rip off of the Alien films. Unlike the Alien films (but a bit like the first Predator film), this one takes place out in the jungle. We focus on a big (evil) corporation with an irresponsible approach to waste management; they're pouring it all down a volcano (oh yes), and naturally this leads to trouble in the form of a giant monster.

The film puts it's focus on a couple of people aiming to expose the big corporation's social ills, and this gives it a bit of plot to work with outside of the main monster theme. It has to be said that it can be a little dull at times; but things never ground to a complete halt and Margheriti keeps our interest well enough until the monster appears on screen. Naturally, the monster is saved for as long as possible; but all the scenes featuring it are generally well orchestrated and amusing. Only parts of the monster are shown at first; and it seems to be a sort of scorpion-like contraption...but this leads to disappointment when it's actually revealed towards the end, as it turns out to look more than just a little bit silly (HR Giger has nothing to worry about). The cast is nothing to write home about really; but we do get a pleasant surprise in the form of Charles Napier, who is perfectly cast as the main bad guy. Aside from the monster there's a few interesting ideas, and the monster itself is fun in the way it attacks from underwater and underground. The film is most definitely trash and there's no denying it; but it's also a lot of fun and I can recommend it.

`It's gigantic, evil and invincible!' boasts the tagline. Well, this alien dwarfs the original alien in physical size only. Although the film takes place on a tropic island, a few similarities to `Alien' are obvious, down to the fact that the heroine has to stand the last fight with the creature wearing nothing but her white underwear. No, I don't complain about that ;-) Anyway, the huge creature which can move under the ground is quite scary (but only until it stands up and suddenly looks like a cross between a senile robot and a lunatic crab), the characters (including a snake hunter, Greenpeace investigators, a not-yet-mad scientist and an unscrupulous officer trying to `control' the situation) help to develop an interesting storyline, and I cannot agree with reviewers who consider this a simple rip-off. There is a lot more to see, `Alien degli abissi' is not too bad entertainment from an experienced director (voted 6/10).

A cheap and cheezy sci-fi/horror clunker from director Antonio Margheriti, Alien From The Deep joins the select list of titles that have proved so tedious that they have taken me three successive nights to finish. Congratulations, Antonio!

The film stars sexy blonde Marina Giulia Cavalli as Jane, a Greenpeace activist who, along with her cameraman Lee (Robert Marius), sneaks onto a high security island where an unscrupulous corporation has been dumping radioactive waste into the heart of an active volcano, an irresponsible act that results in a stream of pure energy being emitted into space, much to the annoyance of an huge, ugly alien who comes to Earth and smashes stuff with its massive claw.

Judging by the amount of recycling that's going on here, Margheriti has clearly taken his film's ecological theme to heart: the director employs well-worn ideas from James Cameron's Aliens and The Abyss for his lousy script, while his monster looks like it has been constructed from old bits and pieces scavenged from a local junkyard. Antonio isn't wasteful when it comes to excitement or scares either, delivering very little of either, the action being repetitive and uninspired (lots of dreary running around the jungle and skulking around a factory) and the horror element almost non existent. The alien doesn't even make an appearance until about an hour in, and when it does show up, it's a massive disappointment, a poorly-conceived bio-mechanical being that looks like it's being wheeled around on a trolley before eventually rising to its feet where it wobbles uncertainly like a newborn baby deer.

This kind of trash usually tries to compensate for its many inadequacies with some splatter and nudity, but Alien From The Deep fails to satisfy in both departments, with only one decent moment of gore (a diver emerging from the sea with his face melted off) and Cavalli only going so far as stripping to her underwear Ripley-style, except that her vest is baggier and her panties are bigger.

2.5 out of 10, rounded up to 3 for IMDb.

Antonio Margheriti's Alien from the Deep is a gonzo Aliens rip-off, to be sure, and one not to be missed by fans of Margheriti's work as well as Italian exploitation cinema! Any film featuring Charles Napier as the tough-talking, no-nonsense, get-it-done military type is worth checking out but only Aliens from the Deep features Luciano Pigozzi doing his best impression of Lucio Fulci and an alien so outrageous, so comedic, that you will never look at crustaceous meals the same way again. There's no denying that Alien from the Deep is an uneven film, it starts out as an action adventure film with cheesy B-movie potential and then steadily declines into an unintentionally hilarious sci-fi horror film featuring a massive crab's claw swinging back and forth.

As I mentioned above, cult actors like Charles Napier, Luciano Pigozzi and Robert Marius star in this delightful stinker so expect good to adequate acting. Hit or miss acting aside, there's no denying the quality of the production values in this film, I was greatly impressed with the colors, sets and costumes, despite the low budget. It boggles the mind how far some of these Italian filmmakers were able to go in order to stretch their dollars to get a certain "look" and "feel," even if the film itself was a bomb.

Aliens from the Deep is one of those films that you shouldn't over-think, it is what it is and you just have to kick back and enjoy the ride. For me two things really stood out in this production and that was the forehead-slappingly bad creature and the painful dialog. The minute you see the alien tooling about like a remote control car, wildly swinging its claw and, eventually, standing up to reveal its Rickets-riddled legs, you'll fall in love with this film. Before you get to the "good stuff" though you'll be forced to suffer through the dialog which mainly consists of the actors each getting a turn saying, "Balls!" Carpi must have had a rough time writing this gem! From beginning to end, I enjoyed this film. No need to polish a turd, my review is pretty clear. You're either going to be entertained or you won't be. I recommend giving it a rental.