Contamination

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• Italy / West Germany • 1980 • 95m •

• Directed by: Luigi Cozzi. • Starring: Ian McCulloch, Louise Marleau, Marino Masé, Siegfried Rauch, Gisela Hahn, Carlo De Mejo, Carlo Monni, Nick Alexander, Larry Dolgin, Edward Mannix, Mike Morris, Angelo Ragusa, Martin Sorrentino. • Music by: Goblin, Agostino Marangolo, Antonio Marangolo, Fabio Pignatelli.

A ship pulls into New York Harbor with no one on board. The police find a cargo full of green pulsating eggs. Upon contact, the eggs explode spreading a green acid like substance that seeps into the skin and explodes. It is later discovered that the eggs are being manufactured in South America by a one-eyed Martian that grew from a tiny seed a former astronaut brought back from a expedition o Mars.

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3:12

Review:

In an attempt to cash in on the success of Alien, director and scifi lover Luigi Cozzi gives us something that is hardly like Alien at all. It is an interesting romp and while there are no scares to speak of, there is a healthy dose of gore, which is unusual for a scifi film that has horror overtones. There just aren't that many out there. After ripping of Star Wars by making the space opera Star Crash, Cozzi had a greatly reduced budget to make Contamination, and he only had 5 weeks to shoot. Even without knowing any production info, a good moviegoer will easily recognize the establishing shots of New York in the films intro(still hard to watch the old skyline) and then realize the rest of the film is not set in New York, though it's supposed to be. That's how many Italian films of the day were set--early establishing shots with easily recognizable landmarks, then it's back to Rome for the rest of the shots. The basic premise is that after a successful martian landing, a creature is brought back to Earth that matures(not matoors) and begins laying all these eggs in an effort to take over the planet. With some help from hypnotized humans and using a coffee plantation as a shipping front, the beast almost succeeds.

The film is, for the most part, riddled with bad dubbing and insipid dialogue, though there are a few moments that are good, and a funny moment about Ian's sex life and the use of a crane. The only standout moment occurs about halfway through the picture when the defamed astronaut and the way-out-of-his-element Brooklyn cop are pondering what to have for lunch outside their hotel rooms while their partner, Louise Marleau, is taking a non-revealing shower(unfortunate) when a mystery assailant places an alien spore egg in her bathroom and locks her in with it. That is perhaps the most suspenseful moment, with Marleau beating on the door trying to get out or get help and rummaging through her makeup bag for any sharp objects to pick the lock until eventually her friends get her out. It's not a saving grace for the movie, but it's a pretty tight scene.

Speaking of Marleau, Cozzi wanted to use Star Crash actress Caroline Munro for the role of Holmes, but the producers wanted someone older and ugly, which Cozzi claims it what they got with Marleau. Personally, I think Marleau is pretty easy on the eyes and probably much more believable in such a role than Munro would have been.

And now, to the question of gore. The answer is, yes, please, thank you. This was a rather notorious little film because of the exploding chest scenes. Anyone in the cast who gets goo on them from the exploding egg spores will begin to bodily smoke before their tummies rupture and send real cow guts and chicken livers spraying all over the room. It's effective, with several instances of slow motion belly popping, and strangely enough, only one woman dies in the entire movie, and that is by gunshot. Most horror movies usually have many male and female deaths, but this was sort of a head-scratcher. Maybe there was some pregnancy concerns with it(some producers worry about monstrous birth films and such, maybe they had a conscience, who knows?).

The final shots of the Alien Cyclops are not very good, but I've seen much much worse. The creature should have been named Bruce(horror fans know why) because the thing never worked properly for any of the shots. It was filled with all sorts of tubes and hydraulics, but the effects were never fully realized, which resulted in many quick takes of tentacle shots and few full body shots. Still, covered in all its goop, the cyclops isn't awful. In fact, as I was watching it, I wondered if maybe he wasn't the forerunner of the much better Jabba the Hutt that would appear on screen a few years later. Is it possible anyone from the Star Wars effects team saw this monster? I have no clue, but it's an intriguing prospect.

The only reason Ian McCulloch is even in this film is because Cozzi was also trying to cash in on the success of Lucio Fulci's Zombie 2, and Ian was the only available member of that cast Cozzi could hire. As with so many Italian entries into the horror realm, the film suffers the most from inept dubbing. I think the principle actors have to redub their own voices and it never matches up, which is a shame.

Review by Tender-Flesh from the Internet Movie Database.

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