Specimen |
  • Canada / USA • 1996 • 85m •    • Directed by: John Bradshaw. • Starring: Mark-Paul Gosselaar, Douglas O'Keeffe, Ingrid Kavelaars, Andrew Jackson, David Nerman, Michelle Johnson, Marc Donato, Carmelina Lamanna, Mark Lutz, Grant Nickalls, Bryan Thomas, Jared Durand, Robert Weiss. • Music by: Gowan.     After his grandmother's death, 24-year-old Mike Hillary sets off in search of who he thinks is his real father. Little does he suspect the real scenario: his late mother was impregnated by aliens, and now they've sent someone down to bring back their "specimen"--dead or alive.
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Review:
The film begins with a pre-credits sequence in which a young boy, Mike, somehow unwittingly causes fires in his sleep, resulting in the accidental death of his mother. That boy grows up to be Gosselaar, who—after the death of his grandmother—finds a box of his mother's belongings which leads him to her hometown in search of the identity of his father, and an answer to his uncontrollable pyrokinesis. All of this is handled pretty well by director John Bradshaw, and Gosselaar is actually decent; at this point, Specimen is shaping up to be a surprisingly classy flick.
And then 'The Terminator' arrives—or rather Eleven, an extraterrestrial in human guise (played by Doug O'Keefe, doing his best Schwarzeneggar), arrives—and the film becomes an unintentionally laughable mess. Eleven's mission is to find and destroy Mike, who is an alienhuman hybrid, the result of his mother being abducted and impregnated by scientists from another world (and who can blame the naughty ETs? Mike's mother is played by the very probe-worthy Carmelina Lamanna, who flashes full-frontal during some flash-backs), but is thwarted by another alien named Sixty-six who happens to be Mike's father!
Matters get progressively sillier here on in, with the two aliens battling it out with each other while Mike tries to come to terms with his bizarre lineage and the fact that he might not be able to get it on with new girlfriend without causing her third degree burns. Expect a lot of pyrotechnics, a Terminator-style synth score, plenty of dreadful dialogue, no explanation as to why Eleven wants Mike dead, and an open ending that makes one wonder whether this was intended as a pilot for a TV series that (not surprisingly) never happened.
Review by BA_Harrison from the Internet Movie Database.
Movie Database