Contamination

 

 

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No, this is not about Pinkwater's Snarkout boys. Instead it is about a movie called Alien Contamination (A.K.A. Toxic Spawn) a strange but entertaining foreign film set in America with shades of Atomic Submarine and The Arrival.

A runaway freighter is boarded and found to contain a gruesomely dead crew and boxes marked coffee that contain large avocado-like pods or eggs. These eggs explode on maturity and any mammalian life nearby will explode seconds later. Research shows the eggs to be non-terrestrial in nature. A chance landing by alien spores is ruled out and the failed Mars mission is suspected.

The surviving astronaut from the Mars mission is now a drunk. He had claimed to have seen avocado-like eggs on Mars but the rest of the crew denied his claims. With his help the coffee shipment is tracked to a plantation in South America and the action moves there.

It turns out that the Mars crew mate is not dead. He is alive and running the operation to destroy all human life. He is under the control of a being known as the Cyclops. He brought a Cyclops spore back from Mars where he was hypnotized. After some fun scenes the heroes triumph in the end and the menace from Mars is ended.

Despite the feeling of wrongness that foreign films in English often have, this is actually well above the usual monster shlock movie. In a way it reminds me of The X-Files with investigators that actually investigate records instead of just stumbling along. It was much more of a detective film with aliens than an alien movie with detectives.

I recommend this film for anyone who likes better horror and science fiction films.

While it is atmospheric and gory. The movie fails due to lack of common sense(gov. decontamination suits don't have goggles) etc. Acting is OK, effects good. Story FAIL.

I don't know about you, but I always get a kick out of these Italian knock-offs of successful American science fiction films. In this case, it's Alien that serves as the major inspiration, although one can't help but draw a similarity here and there with the classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, as well. Naturally, Contamination (or Alien Contamination, as it was called in the USA) doesn't even begin to compare with Aliens, but it is worth viewing - if you're a fan of the genre, at least. I think it's safe to say that those who care nothing about low-budget science fiction and horror films will not enjoy this film at all, and those without the stomach for gore should also stay away. The film basically has just one gory effect, but it's a pretty good one and is used on a number of occasions. Gorehounds like me, of course, will revel in the "he done blowed up real good" moments.

Contamination opens with a cargo ship barreling into New York Harbor, its crew unwilling or unable to respond to radio calls. Once authorities corral the thing and pull it in, the mystery of the missing crew is solved - they're all very dead, their bodies seemingly ripped open from the inside. Of the three men sent in to explore the ship, only local cop Tony Aris (Marino Mase) comes back out alive. Having found a bunch of strange egg-like things in the ship's hold, the other two made the mistake of picking one up - quickly demonstrating to Aris the awful, immediate, and painful way in which everyone on board the ship must surely have died. That's more than enough reason for the government to quarantine the entire area and send in Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) to figure out what the heck is going on.

Tests soon reveal the deadly acidic nature of the "eggs," as well as the fact that they are not terrestrial in origin. So where did they come from? As it so happens, Commander Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch) had described finding the same sorts of objects in a Martian cave he explored on a recent manned mission to the Red Planet. No one believed him, though - until now. He reluctantly joins Holmes and Aris as they follow the deadly cargo's trail back to a coffee warehouse in Colombia, where all things are revealed.

Not surprisingly, Contamination has its share of weaknesses. Special effects, apart from your general lab design details, aren't among them. Sure, the dark-ish nature of the print sometimes makes it hard to fully enjoy the sight of people exploding from the inside out, but writer/director Luigi Cozzi's commitment to quality gore is obvious. The storyline, though, is rather weak, the acting is not of the highest caliber, and you have to slog through several sections of painfully boring exposition on your way to the end.

I should also mention the fact that there are basically two versions of this film. Unfortunately, I was only able to find the American version (released as Alien Contamination), which has a run time of some 84 minutes. The original film runs a full 95 minutes, so you'll definitely want to pick up that full-length version if at all possible. Why would they cut a full ten minutes out of this film, you ask? It almost surely stems from the fact that the UK's infamous Video Recordings Act originally led to Contamination being branded a "video nasty," effectively banning it at the time. (It has since been released in the UK with a 15 certificate.) Apparently, slow-motion shots of characters exploding were just too extreme for the mother hens clucking over the British Isles.

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3.0 out of 5 stars Alien arrives on Earth, indeed.
A search of a supposedly deserted ship uncovers a gruesome mystery. The crew is dead, literlly torn apart by some unknown force, and the ship's cargo is not coffee, but groaning,... Read more

Published on April 7 2004 by Chadwick H. Saxelid

4.0 out of 5 stars Never pick up alien eggs
"Contamination" is one of those low budget Italian science fiction potboilers that provide countless hours of fun. Read more

Published on Feb 23 2004 by Jeffrey Leach

5.0 out of 5 stars Blue Underground, I adore you!
1979 was a very important year for the Italian film industry. Why? Because two American genre films -- DAWN OF THE DEAD and ALIEN -- spurred a slew of imitators from the land of... Read more

Published on Dec 30 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Good Sci-Fi Shocker
From start to finish, Contamination is a good sci-fi movie that some people claim is an Alien rip-off. Read more

Published on Oct 15 2003 by Damien Johnson

4.0 out of 5 stars Very exciting Italian Shocker!
A boat arrives in New York Harbor, explorers look around the deserted ship to find out that the crew has died and has a cargo of green alien eggs that squirt a liquid that can... Read more

Published on Sep 9 2003 by John Lindsey

4.0 out of 5 stars That's Not Coffee!
This is the only film I've seen of Luigi Cozzi's, and it's not too shabby. Silly and moronic to be sure, but we're talking about Italian gross out flicks here. Read more

Published on Sep 2 2003 by Stanley Runk

3.0 out of 5 stars A lemon given the four star treatment
As funny as this movie is CONTAMINATION really only deserves one star. But the disc looks and sound so good, I can hardly believe it! So five for the DVD and one for the movie.

Published on May 13 2003

4.0 out of 5 stars Another Italian "Alien" [imitation]
From DVD Drive-In:

1979 was a very important year for the Italian film industry. Why? Because two American genre films -- DAWN OF THE DEAD and ALIEN -- spurred a slew of... Read more

Published on Mar 14 2003

3.0 out of 5 stars Charming Low Budget SF
Finally this long neglected SF film appears on DVD: withdrawn some 20 years ago in Britain during the 'Video Nasty' witchhunt and unavailable in any form since, 'Contamination' is... Read more

Published on Mar 6 2003 by Stephen E. Andrews

4.0 out of 5 stars Great Latenight Viewing!
What do expect from an Alien rip-off?
This movie is just plain fun, don't expect to much just sit back and laugh.
Enjoy.

Published on Jan 15 2003 by D. Kraus

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