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.

CITY OF BLOOD (1983) Review

TODAY'S BARGAIN: CITY OF BLOOD (1983) - Standalone DVD
PRICE: $2

Directed by: Darrell Roodt
Written by: Mary-Ann Lindenstadt, Darrell Roodt
Starring: Joe Stewardson, Ian Yule, Susan Coetzer

CITY OF BLOOD is certainly an unusual horror film, mostly due to the fact that it isn't a horror movie at all. The title, cover art and synopsis on the DVD case all point to it being a South African slasher film with some sort of ancient evil stalking and slaying prostitutes. Unfortunately it's nothing of the sort.
The film starts off promising by taking us back 2000 years to witness two African tribesmen being murdered by a mysterious masked killer wielding a spiked club. It's an intriguing scene obviously designed to get your attention in the hope that you'll put up with the utter snoozefest that is the majority of the movie in the vain hope of seeing some more gore eventually. After the tribesmen meet their end we are brought forward to 1980s Johannesburg where pathologist Joe Henderson (Stewardson) is called out by his cop buddy to examine the body of a murdered prostitute. The body isn't the first and Joe is convinced that there is a serial killer roaming the streets. So far so good, but this is where things go downhill. Fast.

Back at Joe's office he finds a mysterious death certificate, completely filled out except for a name and his signature. The only problem is that Joe has no idea who the certificate is for or how it found it's way onto his desk. It turns out that a political prisoner has been killed in a bungled interrogation and certain authorities want the death covered up by having Joe sign the mystery death certificate. Joe refuses and spends the rest of the film being pressured into signing while dealing with his own dramas like his hallucinations, nightmares and his personal investigation into the prostitute deaths. He also develops a relationship with a whore named Abigail (Coetzer). By now you are totally justified in being pissed off by the film not delivering on anything that it promises, in fact the slasher / whore murder subplot makes up the smallest portion of the story, which would be fine if every aspect of the movie didn't try and pass itself of as a fucking horror movie.

Apart from the sudden shift from quasi-horror to full blown political drama there are plenty of other flaws with CITY OF BLOOD as well. The acting may be decent but the characters themselves are all boring, two-dimensional cutouts with no backstory and no character development. I assume Joe is supposed to be having some sort of moral struggle about signing the death certificate but the consequences or doing it or not doing it don't seem like all that big a deal and also; are there no other competent fucking pathologists in the country? There's an obvious anti-apartheid message shining through but the question is; what the fuck do the prostitute murders and the 2000 years previous opening scene have to do with any of it? Is the demographic for slasher movies and political dramas the same? I don't fucking think so.

Surprisingly for a DVD which cost a grand total of $2 the transfer is brilliant, it looks about as good as a DVD can. It's completely vanilla with no special features though which is to be expected. The movie is good in a technical way; it's competently shot, edited and photographed, but no amount of good editing will make up for a lousy story and shitty characters. Parts of the soundtrack were kinda neat and there were a few nicely constructed scenes (particularly this one) but the departure from horror to boring drama was a fatal mistake. There's nothing wrong with political drama but for fuck's sake don't market it as horror when it's plainly not.

INFERNO (1997) Review

TODAY'S BARGAIN: INFERNO (1997) - Standalone DVD
PRICE: $2

Directed by: Fred Olen Ray
Written by: Sean O'Bannon
Starring: Don 'The Dragon' Wilson, Evan Lurie, Rick Hill, Jillian Kesner, Tane McClure

Brace yourself. Seriously. Are you ready for this? INFERNO (aka OPERATION COBRA) is a 90s martial arts / action flick filmed entirely in India, directed by Fred Olen Ray (HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS), written by Sean O'Bannon (INVISIBLE MOM II) and produced by the one and only Roger Corman. It also stars Don 'The Dragon' Wilson (BLOODFIST I-VIII) and Evan Lurie (CYBORG III: THE RECYCLER).What a fucking combo. Surely the talented people behind such instant classics like TEENAGE CAVEGIRL, MAXIMUM REVENGE and TARZEENA: JIGGLE IN THE JUNGLE can pull of something special. Special or absolutely shit, either way I'm sure it will give me plenty to talk about.

Interpol agent Kyle Connors (Wilson) and his partner are hot on the trail of big-time criminal Johan Davaad (Lurie) who has stolen a disc containing powerful encryption software and planted a bomb in a museum. Why is he bombing a museum? Who the fuck knows, I sure don't and I'm not even sure the filmmakers do either. While disarming the bomb it explodes, killing Connors' partner and allowing Davaad to escape.
Back at the police station Connors' is told that he's been taken off the case and that he should probably take a vacation for a week or so. Refusing to give up on the case he takes his 'vacation' in India where he has located Davaad. With the help of a bumbling Indian police cadet he manages to track down Davaad and sleeps with a bunch of women along the way, just because.

I must admit I'm not all that familiar with Don Wilson's filmography apart from the first couple of BLOODFIST instalments but I always had the idea that the 'Dragon' part of his name probably isn't justified. INFERNO reinforces that feeling because in it Wilson's martial arts arsenal seems to consist only of a few high kicks, roundhouses and face-punches and not much else. And all of the fight scenes are shot and edited in that lame American style where it's all rapid cuts from one person punching to the other person blocking and then back again, because none of the actors have the ability to perform a properly choreographed fight.
And I'm pretty certain I saw the same actors playing different parts wearing different wigs. And it's surprising I even managed to notice that what with the boom mic dropping into view and distracting me all the time (I honestly saw that damn mic on at least four separate occasions). There are also problems with the audio, in some places the music peaks out and distorts horribly.

The story is completely disjointed and makes almost no sense and I'm trying to figure out if there are an ass-load of key scenes missing or if the filmmakers just didn't give a shit about having a coherent story. I'm betting on the latter. On the plus side all of the women inexplicably throwing themselves at 'The Dragon' throughout the film make for some entertaining softcore scenes, like the wet t-shirt scene (above) and not one but two scenes where Tane McClure lets her ample sweater puppies loose. Jillian Kesner (FIRECRACKER) is a nice addition too although she doesn't get anywhere enough screen time. In any case the boobs and sweating and moaning don't even come close to making up for all of the bad points and so I'm relegating this chop-socky disaster to the shit list.