| CONTAMINATION (1980) Directed by Luigi Cozzi. |
| Ridley Scott�s Alien was one of the biggest sci-fi moneymakers of the seventies, and one of the more influential monster movies of its time. And apparently few were more influenced by the chestburster antics than Contamination director Luigi Cozzi. Gotta love those Italian exploiteers. If an American makes a movie about a barbarian with an Austrian accent, Rome has a carbon copy out in months with more violence, more nudity, less production values, but a hero who�s as American as apple pie. They know how to play dirty. What was it that was so popular about Alien? Was it the feminist icon Ellen Ripley before she hit the weights? Or perhaps the possibly drug induced H.R. Giger creature design? Hell no. The whole selling point was seeing some poor sap�s innards explode outwards ruining a perfectly civilized dinner in outer space. So clearly Cozzi reasoned that if one chest explosion could make all that money, then ten or fifteen chest explosions on a ten cent budget would rake in ten or fifteen times the box office of Scott�s movie. At least that was the financial plan. Contamination begins a little like Lucio Fulci�s Zombie. An unmanned cargo ship is spotted steaming toward Manhattan. But there isn�t a big bald zombie who looks a lot like Terror from The Wanderers aboard. There�s something much worse. A cache of deadly glowing space eggs smuggled as coffee. Unfortunately it seems that the crew needed a caffeine fix, and have all become victims of exploding eggs. These eggs aren�t incubators for cute (or not so cute ) little critters. They just blow people up more effectively than a Baghdad roadside bomb for reasons never fully explained. Customs officials board the ship, inspect the eggs, and we�re treated to a spectacle of chest exploding carnage the like of which hasn�t been seen since Pamela Anderson lay in the sun too long with her silicone implants. A gung ho scientist named Ripley� I mean Stella is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery. She enlists the help of an alcoholic astronaut ( Ian McCulloch, who never looks like he particularly wants to be in any of these Italian quickies), and an alcoholic cop who�s probably suspended to accompany her to South America where the coffee shipment was from. It may not be Alien, but believe it or not I found this mix of outer space hyjinx, police drama, gratuitous gore, and banana republic shenanigans pretty entertaining. And hey, it�s better than Alien 3. As an added bonus, Goblin have provided all of the music, and the score of Contamination was later recycled and used to better effect in Bruno Mattei�s hilarious Night of the Zombies. This one�s out in Australia right now thanks to Stomp, who are the distributors for Blue Underground. Surprisingly there are a couple of extras to be had. There�s the fairly standard ones like trailers and stills, and then there are the featurettes. These are particularly interesting if like me you were always wondering just what the hell these Italian exploiteers were thinking at times while watching these zany eighties time capsules in our youth. Luigi Cozzi seems to take both himself, and his film seriously; which makes for a couple of unintentionally hilarious featurettes. There�s supposed to be a graphic novel on the disc too, but I�m too tight to own a DVD burner, so I�ll have to take Blue Underground�s word for it. I was unlucky enough to catch (pardon the pun) Stephen King�s Dreamcatcher on Rupert-vision (that�s Foxtel for the uninitiated) the other night, which shared a few plot points with Contamination, but wasn�t half as entertaining, and was even more incoherent (probably had seventeen writers). So if you�re standing in your local JB HI-FI trying to decide between another Stephen King adaptation (never the greatest of odds) and this cheap and cheerful Italian rip-off, you�ll be way better off with Cozzi�s effort. Just be careful next time you pop the top off a fresh tin of Nescafe Instant. Entertainment : 3 out of 4 Watchability : 2.5 out of 4 Overall : 2.75 out of 4 Reviewed by Blake |