CONTAMINATION (1980) Review

TODAY'S BARGAIN: CONTAMINATION (1980) - Part of a 20 Film Horror / Sci Fi Collection
PRICE: $20 / 20 Films = $1

Directed by: Luigi Cozzi
Written by: Luigi Cozzi, Erich Tomek
Starring: Ian McCulloch, Louise Marleau, Marino Masé, Siegfried Rauch

CONTAMINATION is part of that oh so special breed of pseudo-sequel cash-ins that Italian filmmakers seemed to love pumping out in the 70s and 80s. CONTAMINATION is to ALIEN what ZOMBI 2 is to DAWN OF THE DEAD or what CRUEL JAWS is to JAWS; totally unofficial, unrelated but nevertheless marketed as a sequel just for the promise of some quick cash. This is most certainly not the only one (Ciro Ippolito's ALIEN 2: ON EARTH was released only months earlier) but it is especially noteworthy for being immortalized as one of the UK's infamous 'Video Nasties'. In fact to be honest its inclusion on that particular list is probably the only reason this movie hasn't faded into complete obscurity.
As often as you might hear about this film being a 'rip-off' of ALIEN, in reality it really isn't all that similar apart from the inclusion of the alien eggs and the 'queen alien' towards the film's end. It also happens to be low budget and set entirely on Earth and the first 2 minutes are all you need to be certain that what you're watching is in no way related to Ridley Scott's movie.

While we're on the subject of Italian pseudo-sequels, the beginning of CONTAMINATION is suspiciously reminiscent of the beginning of Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE. A ship with no signs of life is spotted headed towards New York City. Police and medical experts board the ship (wearing respirator's which on one hand make their voices impossible to understand while on the other hand masking the terrible dubbing) to investigate and swiftly stumble upon a whole slew of dead bodies. But the bodies themselves aren't the most terrifying part, it's the way the bodies have been torn apart; as though they've exploded from within...
Soon they come across the ship's cargo which is comprised of boxes and boxes of coffee, except that it's not really coffee at all. One of the boxes has broken open, revealing a group of large, green egg-shaped objects. One of these has rolled conveniently under a warm steam pipe and has begun glowing and pulsating. One of the investigators picks it up (exactly what you should do with a mysterious object found on a ship full of dead bodies) and it promptly explodes, spraying it's juices all about the place. What's worse is that anybody who comes in contact with the goo also explodes. Cue some deliciously gory chest and face explosions (the gore is especially nasty due to the fact that real animal guts were used in some scenes).

The only survivor of the ship investigation , Lt. Tony Aris (Masé) eventually teams up with Col. Stella Holmes (Marleau) and ex-astronaut Ian Hubbard (McCulloch) to find out where the exploding eggs are coming from and what they are being used for, and just who is the mastermind behind smuggling them in boxes with 'coffee' written on the side (because that's a completely foolproof plan). The answer involves a cave on Mars, a South American coffee plantation and a whole lot of exploding bodies. We're also treated to some dumb dialogue, terrible dubbing and unintentionally funny scenes like my personal favorite when Stella is trapped in a bathroom with an egg about to explode. Hiding in the shower and throwing a towel over herself would probably be a good idea, but nowhere near as hilarious as sitting on the floor wrestling with the doorknob for a half hour. And then there's the inane 'logic' the film offers - "oh, heat causes the eggs to ripen and explode... bring out the flamethrower!". Brilliant.

CONTAMINATION is a bad movie in just about every way. The acting is bad, dialogue is awkward, dubbing is crap and its low budget is very obvious. So why the hell do I love this movie so much? Is it the impressive gore? The music by Goblin? The presence of Ian McCulloch? The certain mystique that comes with being a Nasty? I like to think that's its a combination of all of that and more. CONTAMINATION has almost all of the ingredients for a classic Italian exploitation flick (some nudity would have gone a long way) and if this kind of trashy cinema is up your alley I suggest you track it down, especially if you can find it for a decent price. Just make sure you get it in its uncut form so you get the benefit of all the movie's juicy mess.

PRINCESS OF MARS (2009) Review

TODAY'S BARGAIN: PRINCESS OF MARS (2009) - Part of a 5 Film Sci Fi Collection
PRICE: $4 / 5 Films = 80c

Directed by: Mark Atkins
Written by: Mark Atkins, Edgar Rice Burroughs (novel, characters)
Starring: Traci Lords, Antonio Sabato Jr, Matt Lasky, Chacko Vadaketh

It seems that The Asylum beat Disney to the punch in adapting Edgar Rice Burrough's John Carter novels and as usual they have delivered a far inferior product. I'll admit that JOHN CARTER was an absolute turd but compared to PRINCESS OF MARS it is a fucking tour de force. I've never read any of Burrough's Barsoom series (my experience with ERG's writings begins and ends with THE PEOPLE THAT TIME FORGOT) so I have no way of comparing this film to its source material but there is one thing I noticed and that's the fact that nowhere in the entire film is Edgar Rice Burroughs given any credit for the story or characters. That might seem a bit low but I'm sure that if he was alive today the author would rather his name not be attached to this piece of utter excrement anyway. Even worse is the fact that the filmmakers have covertly tried to take credit for inspiring AVATAR by placing the line "the classic story that inspired James Cameroon's Avatar" and yes on the dvd (at least the copy I have) they even managed to spell James Cameron's name wrong. Great job. Burrough's novel may have indeed inspired AVATAR but believe me when I say that PRINCESS OF MARS had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The Bold & The Beautiful's Antonio Sabato Jr plays John Carter, a soldier who gets double crossed and then shot to pieces before being offered another chance at life. The catch? The military is going to use him for an experimental exploratory trip to Mars in a new body, the DNA for which is handily stored on a 16Gb flash drive. And no I'm not making this up.
Oh and by the way this isn't the regular everyday planet Mars just down the road from Earth we're talking about here, no that would be too easy. That would make too much sense. No, this is another Mars in another galaxy, a Mars that nobody really knows anything about yet, in fact they don't even know if it has a breathable atmosphere they just 'think' that it might. Good luck John Carter, you'll need it.

So the deed is done and before long John awakens on Mars, lying naked with Traci Lords standing over him. I could think of much worse ways to wake up. Traci (the titular Princess of Mars) and another humanoid man leave John lying in the dirt and climb aboard a ship and fly off. He gets up, walks around for a bit, wraps a towel around his naked self and then finds himself surrounded by Tuskan Raiders, er I mean Turians, no wait a second... I can't remember what they're called but whatever they are they look like they fell right out of Mass Effect and grabbed some guns from Star Wars on their way. They chain John up and take him prisoner, but don't fret; he eventually proves his warrior prowess to them and forms an unbreakable bond with one of them. We then find out that the green dudes and the human-looking race are at war with each other and John Carter takes it upon himself to sort everything out. Along the way John spends his time jumping real high, eating some gross bugs and having an incredibly boring relationship with Traci Lords who doesn't get her gear off.

It's pretty impressive how many references to popular culture The Asylum have gathered and crammed into this movie. Apart from the aforementioned Turians and Tuskan Raiders there is also the Princess' metal 'Leia' bikini, a form of speeder bike ( although it does look much more like a kayak with a windshield attached), a ship which looks suspiciously like Jabba the Hut's sand barge, John's 'Russell Crowe' Gladiator outfit, and the iconic Vasquez Rocks location where Captain Kirk famously fought the Gorn. In fact it seems that PRINCESS OF MARS ripped off just about every movie except for the one it was trying to capitalize on in the first place (that's AVATAR by the way). There are a lot of CGI beasts in the film so why not cram in some 6-legged horses? Or make the aliens blue instead of green? Oh who the hell knows, it's not like logic is The Asylum's strong point.

The CGI is bad but the acting is worse. Sabato Jr couldn't act his way out of a urine-soaked paper bag and Traci Lords turns in a very disappointing turn as the (rather old looking) Princess. It's astonishing how she could go from something this bad to putting in a brilliant performance in a brilliant movie like EXCISION, but I digress.
Pizza and beer (especially beer, lots of it) are your best friends if you decide to take the plunge and watch this movie, and speaking of friends you should probably have a couple of them with you as well, so you can all join in at laughing about how ridiculous this piece of Asylum shit is. And if you think watching Traci Lords traipsing around in her Leia outfit sounds good, don't even bother, there are plenty of other flicks where she puts on a much better show.