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.