MY CALL: Another totally bonkers low budget 80s Alien rip-off. But is it worth your time? Ummmm…an evil fetal alien action finale says Hell yes! MOVIES LIKE Creepozoids: The Terror Within (1989), Inseminoid (1982) and Contamination (1980) come close. But stylistically more pleasing are Galaxy of Terror (1981), Forbidden World (1982), Leviathan (1989), The Thing (2011, yes the remake), The Thing (1981) and Prometheus (2012).
It’s the year 1998 (over ten years in the future at the time of production) and six years of WW III have created a world filled with dangerous mutants and flesh-melting acid rain. Trying to escape the latest deadly rainfall, survivors Bianca (Scream Queen Linnea Quigley; The Return of the Living Dead, A Nightmare on Elm Street 4), Kate (Kim McKamy/Ashlyn Gere; Dreamaniac and many adult films later in her career), Butch (Ken Abraham; The Forgotten, Hobgoblins), Jesse (Michael Aranda; El Chupacabra) and Jake seek refuge in an apparently abandoned underground lab. Now that the filmmakers have justified shooting the entire film inside of a beaten up warehouse and we’ve established the willingness of our actresses to disrobe, director David DeCoteau (Curse of the Puppet Master, Puppet Master III: Toulon’s Revenge, Retro Puppet Master) has spun 72 minutes of grindhouse sci-fi/horror for us.
Yup. With Linnea Quigley on board there’s always room for a shower scene. Even in the post-apocalyptic mutant-infested future Linnea WILL find a functioning shower and a man who still manscapes!
Some investigation reveals that essential amino acids research of some kind was being conducted down there. While this is merely suggestive of the development of a new bodybuilding protein supplement, in grindhouse films it’s actually indicative of creating monstrous mutants–and our survivors are now trapped underground with one of them!
An interactive computer terminal, random goo in the ventilation ducts, a quasi-insectoid-humanoid monster, and a general boycott on wearing bras under women’s white tank tops are all suggestive of an Alien/Aliens rip-off.
Further substantiating this notion is that one crew member mutates, vomits and dies (a la John Hurt) during their first meal in the underground compound. Oh, there’s more. Giant mutant rats create facehugger-like scenes (including when Newt and Ripley were locked in a room with one) and the mutant isn’t exactly concerned with killing humans. Instead, it infects them (by urinating on them, perhaps? Hard to tell what happened) with its black goo. So that’s where Prometheus got the black goo idea!
Reminds me of Gnaw: Food of the Gods 2.
But have no fear. This rubber-suited menace (clearly designed to resemble H. R. Giger’s xenomorph) is injected with some sort of protein antidote. But does that save the day? Not quite. It posthumously gives birth to something hybridizing a chestburster and an evil human fetus! It looks like one of the failed experiments from Alien Resurrection (1997).
This movie really covered its crazy bases. 1) It was made by an experienced schlockmaster and stars both a future prolific porn star and a prominent scream queen. 2) It rips off a classic and actually manages to do an entertaining job of it. 3) It goes so into the deep end of bonkers that it took ideas from Prometheus (2012) and Alien Resurrection (1997), and then traveled back in time to 1987 to pawn these ideas off as original. They should probably sue those other movies’ filmmakers for taking their ideas. 4) This mutant monster movie was so infectiously bad that it mutated actress Kim McKamy into porn star Ashlyn Gere. 5) Oh, and there’s an evil fetal baby alien action finale!
Enough said!
