There's no denying that the intention of "Contamination" was to be an Italian knock-off of "Alien," just as "Zombi 2" capitalized on "Dawn of the Dead." These are two facts that leave the two films up to be a sort of punching bag for anyone who wants to sneak up behind them and whack them on the back of the head with a hammer. The truth be told, you can look at almost any current horror film at the multiplexes now days, and notice something either inspired from another movie, or, you know, literally a carbon copy remake.
"Contamination," like "Zombi 2," has a few minor similarities to its inspiration. Other than that, the movies have completely different feels, different stories, they look different, walk different, and talk different. They took a lot more liberties than any of the current flow of modern remakes. "Zombi 2" had zombies, and so did "Dawn." "Contamination" has green alien eggs, which admittedly look a lot like Ridley Scott's eggs; there's exploding chests, and it's also got an alien creature. Maybe that's why the original title for the movie was "Alien Arrives On Earth." But "Contamination" does not take place in space, it's central villain is not even an alien being. In fact, an alien doesn't actually turn up in the movie until the last act, and believe me, it couldn't be more different. If the Predator faced off against this thing, the fight wouldn't have lasted quite as long...but I guarantee that that movie would have been a little better.
If you can separate yourself from even comparing this movie to "Alien," which shouldn't be done in the first place, you will have a good time with this movie. I did, and I happen to think it was a lot of fun. It's like a bizarre mixture of some sci-fi gore flick, with villains that seem to come out of a third rate James Bond rip-off. In the opening scene, a mysterious boat floats along the harbor of New York. The crew is all found dead, and yes, I did think that I had accidentally put in my DVD for "Zombi 2." The opening scenes here are nearly identical. And it also doesn't turn out good for both inspection teams checking out the boats.
Green, glowing, and dare I say oozing eggs are found on the boat, one of which explodes and causes some of the inspectors' chests to burst. And burst they do. I'm talking organs are flying all over the place, in slow motion mind you, and once that's done, blood sprays over the walls like we've suddenly drifted into a chopsocky flick. One of the men, a cop, survives, and is teamed up with a female government agent (Louise Marleau) to find the source of the exploding eggs. I'm not exactly sure why the cop stays on the investivation through the rest of the movie, but I didn't care too much, because I particularly like Marino Mase in this role.
Hey, you want another "Zombi 2" comparison? We've got Ian McCulloch in a supporting role here, fresh off of the Fulci flick. He plays an alcoholic former astronaut who was sent on a mission to Mars, and found eggs similar to the ones found at the New York harbor. His claims were later written off, but his help is now being enlisted by the government. There's one particularly awkward scene where he doesn't want to help with the investigation, so Marleau taunts him until he ultimately slaps her. You know, so he can grow some balls I guess. Well, it works, and he joins them through the rest of the movie.
Their investigation leads to a South American coffee plantation, and the discovery of "The Cyclops." The introduction to this is just simply beautiful. The chief villain is also a former astronaut, who has been harvesting the eggs at the plantation, and at gun point he tells our heroes that he is taking them to see The Cyclops. One asks "the cyclops?" The response, in beautifully overacted and dramatically paused terms, is "yes...the cyclopse." There's also an extreme close-up that happens between the words "yes" and "the." The Cyclops by the way is an ooey gooey alien that remains perfectly still, except to move it's mouth and what I think are tentacles. The one eye glows bright yellow, and hypnotizes people into walking right towards it. Once they are close enough to the alien, it swallows them whole.
The main source of gore that we get in this movie is the chest bursting sequences, which happen about 10 or 12 times throughout the thing, most of which are in slow motion. Someone could easily get tired of the repetition of these scenes, all of which are just as gorey as the previous, and indeed I've read this complaint in reviews, but honestly, I never got tired of them. Why would the alien eggs be on earth to perform only one on-screen chest bursting? That wouldn't happen. These eggs mean chest bursting business. Plus, would I really complain if the head bursting scene in "Scanners" happened more than once? That is, if "Scanners" were just some cheesy horror movie? Probably not.
Blue Underground's DVD is pretty fantastic. The movie looks great, with fantastic color in the alien egg/Mars sequences, and the sound quality works wonders when you got that Goblin score beating. There's a poster and still gallery, plus a trailer, and also an in-depth interview with writer/director Luigi Cozzi where he describes the intent of the film, other works in his filmography ("Starcrash" and the Lou Ferrigno "Hercules" etc) and how he tries to work in various elements of sci-fi into his work. There's also a bizarre moment where he tells of how Louise Marleau was cast because she was ugly, though I personally disagree. There's also a behind the scenes documentary shot at the time of filming, and a DVD-Rom feature containing a graphic novel of the film. I imagine a lot of drawings of people's chests exploding.
Two astronauts returning to Earth from Mars carry with them deadly bacterial eggs which have the lethal potential to destroy the Earth's entire popula...More at HotMovieSale.com
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