Atrocious, er, Ferocious Planet

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Here we'll explore the raw ferocity of a planet, as envisioned by an aimless movie crew who just can't be bothered to make an effort. The film quickly establishes tension between characters for no reason other than as a sad excuse for character development and back story. I was mildly excited to see John Rhys-Davies, knowing he is no stranger to bad cinema. The fact that I was longing for the comfort of a chupacabra terror loose on a cruise ship says a lot about this movie. Fortunately for John, his character is killed in the first 15 minutes by some kind of budget-animated dinosaur-alien-monster.

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Ok, let's back up. Science has allowed us to see into other dimensions, but not go to them. Seems a little odd, since there's have to be some way to get images and sent them back, right? Anyway, the alternate dimensions look pretty much like ours, but with maybe a differently colored sky. Wow, what creativity. I'm not saying that an alternate dimension has to be wildly different; in fact, I embrace subtlety. In an infinite multiverse, there will be one in which everything is as we know our world to be, but there are marginally fewer left-handed raccoons, and one where all is as it seems except the flavors we know as mint and toast have been swapped. These worlds exist, and I think we are sorely missing out by not exploring them through cinematic creativity.

Anyway, our “heroes” are suddenly (and without explanation) sent to a parallel universe: Dublin, Ireland. They proceed to react (or not) to a variety of situations as if they weren't actually people. Find a bunch of dead dudes? No big deal, just pile them up! Weird creature-thing in your presence? Poke it with a pen until it spurts lethal fluid at someone! Oh, he's dead now? Whatever! Need to see outside? Shoot some holes through the thick concrete wall with a pistol! Find a parking meter impaled through a tree? Steal the quarters out of it! The list goes on, but I won't.

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The ensuing quest for 50 gallons of water, needed to power the cold fusion computer (!) that allows inter-dimensional travel, is more inept and less engaging than quests for a different thing. For those unfamiliar with that film, it is a dialogue-less estimate of pre-human culture, wherein the grunts and moans of filthy, barely-dressed actors conveys a wider range of human emotions than the ham-fisted acting on display here.

Many of the characters who (I guess?) had names, are killed off for a variety of inane reasons while the computer repair efforts coast about intellectual space before landing on ammonia. This compound flows in the monsters' veins (and eggs) and can obviously be used in the place of Freon, since they are in the same “family”. I'm no chemist, but putting these things in the same family is like saying hammers are substitutable with pickles because both take up space and could be used as doorstops.

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The film wraps up so suddenly, they must have simply extinguished the budget. A major character is mercilessly left behind for no good reason while the remaining two teleport back to the normal world. Or do they?!? Actually, we can't tell. And, no, it's not because we are left to wonder how it is that we identify reality while forced to observe the world through a necessarily subjective point of view deeply influenced by the cultural constructs in which we exist while simultaneously constructing. It's because nothing is shown to us and then the credits come flying in. Huzzah!

Inappropriately goofy music throughout ruins any attempt at establishing a mood for the film, so it is impossible to even attempt to contextualize the characters' actions. Also, I think the title is misleading. Since there is only one planet involved, though it occurs in multiple universes. I'd say the filmmakers were commenting on the ferocity fundamental to the ongoing conflict between humans and nature, but that's me being rather generous to people who clearly don't care. Honestly, the worst aspect of this movie is that everyone involved seemed to know they were part of making a bad movie. That's not to say that they didn't take their roles seriously, but that they lacked the depth of conviction that is the hallmark of truly bad movies: earnest attempts to perform despite (or in ignorance/denial of) surrounding, catastrophic failures.

Prepare to have your mind...contaminated!

Alien Contamination was one of the 72 “video nasties” at the heart of a censorship struggle in the UK during the early 80s. I've seen a couple of these movies, so I was excited to delve into another. Disappointment sets in pretty quickly here.

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The movie opens with an assault of bad dialogue. The terribleness of the sound quality is greatly enhanced by recording the actors through respirators donned to keep them safe from a strange smell coming from a cargo ship. Upon inspection, the crew is missing!

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They find some dudes covered in blood and conclude they exploded(?)! I might have made a similar decision if the lighting had been better. Our crack team of investigators quickly conclude that no bacteria or virus could cause these deaths, and then scramble to prepare for an epidemic. An explosion epidemic? I'm not sure what that would mean, but I guess people would be asked to stay inside. There would probably be a ban on all carbonated beverages, just to be safe. I can also imagine the government issuing some kind of anti-explosion containment girdle to everyone, just to corral the forthcoming mess during this catastrophe.

As you might have guessed, our team soon finds crates of giant avocados (possibly alien eggs) that quickly explode. Naturally, once the goo from the eggs gets on you, you explode as well. That's how these things usually work, in my experience.

We meet a high-ranking female military officer who quickly takes control to start calling the shots. First order: freeze the entire cargo ship. Heat seems to, I don't know, accelerate the eggs? Surely freezing them is the answer. Back in the lab, we learn that these aren't eggs, but masses of bacteria. After using the bacteria to explode a lab rat (for fun?) our heroes immediately intuit that whoever was intended to receive the shipment planned to introduce the bacteria into the sewers. This is obvious, conclusion has no bearing on the rest of the movie.

When they find a warehouse full of eggs, they destroy them with fire. Now, I know what you're thinking. It's usually best to avoid thinking during these movies, lest you become agitated and miss the movie explanation for what's going on. One character comments on how using fire to kill the eggs makes no sense, but he is dismissed with a “I'm only doing my job” containment, which we are left to ponder. All containment protocols are initially heavily enforced and then carelessly discarded almost immediately. The capriciousness is blamed on the woman in charge, who is oddly never in uniform, despite her rank, unless heavy eye makeup counts as a uniform.

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It turns out these eggs are nothing new, since they were seen on a mission to Mars from two years ago. I can see why the space agency wouldn't have followed up on such a monumental finding. Science is hard, and maintaining even the most basic level of curiosity about the world around you is a lot of work. Besides, there's no way the eggs would possess an astronaut and use his body as a puppet to further their race, right? Right?

The film slows to a crawl as we travel to South America, where the eggs originated. One highlight is an “attack” by an egg, which apparently just make sad trombone noises without being threatening in any measurable way. Since the only danger they pose is getting the exploding goo onto you, it seems they could easily be neutralized by covering them with a towel or something. Instead, our heroine has a screaming fit, lightly pounding at the door for quite some time, filmed in a way to pathetically evoke the “Here's Johnny!” scene from The Shining.

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When the movie wakes up, we quickly learn that the eggs are being farmed under the direction of The Cyclops. This large, slimy alien has some telepathic powers (I guess), a few mouths, and a hunger for human flesh. It might be a cousin of Jabba the Hut, though we don't get to learn much about it before it is killed and then spontaneously combusts. And no, it does not explode like every single other thing in the movie, but instead catches on fire. Why not?

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The overall alien plan is never quite clear, so I'm not sure who won in the end. It doesn't matter, really, and this Italian knockoff of Alien is just another in the long chain of imitations that fail spectacularly. It did succeed at presenting lots of uncomfortably tight head shots that linger for far too long, and propagating weird sexual tension that did nothing to develop characters or further the plot. Go watch Galaxy of Terror, The Blob, or even Critters if you are looking for good-bad horrorstuff, and leave this one for the deep freeze. Or fire. Whatever.

Alien Species? More like Alien Feces! So clever...

Twenty years ago, we were given a great blockbuster alien invasion movie: Independence Day. While there is lots of talk about the needless sequel, nobody seems to be talking about the other alien invasion movie from 1996: Alien Species.

Set in the distant future of 1999 (three whole years beyond when this film was made), aliens visit our planet and immediately set to work on their master plan:

1. abduct a cow and some people
2. destroy a few vehicles at random
3. ?????
4. profit

Fortunately (?) for us, an astronomer, his granddaughter and acolytes combined with some deputies and their prisoners are here to help. After their truck gets upended by a (drunk?) alien pilot, the group takes shelter in a cave (like you do), only to find (uh oh!) the aliens have set up shop in there for, well, it isn't clear. I assumed some kind of alien pottery seminar, though I didn't see a wheel. Perhaps it is an Earthist assumption that a wheel would be involved, so increased cultural exchange between our races is clearly needed. Anyway, the cave is used by our heroes to run back and forth through the same ten or so feet, while the aliens lay waste to a city somewhere.

What's important is that we later learn that being abducted by the aliens means going to the cave to be covered in spiderwebs and/or enclosed in some kind of cocoon. Hatching from the cocoon makes you a zombie, a curious story element that goes nowhere. The humans fail miserably at everything, but they do destroy one ship, which sends the aliens packing. World saved!

This movie is full of ACTING, as shown to us by people who have probably heard of acting, but only over the radio or something. It's filmed almost entirely at night with insufficient lighting to make out a lot of what's going on. I'm filing that second point as an accomplishment, and I think the movie would have been better if it were even darker.

That's more like it!