ALIEN CONTAMINATION (1980) Uncut 96 min. Luigi Cozzi
3827DVD
Fully
Uncut Gory SciFi Thriller from Luigi Cozzi
Original Italian
Title: CONTAMINATION: ALIEN ARRIVA SULLA TERRA [Contamination: Aliens Arrive on the Earth]
also known as TOXIC SPAWN (Edited Version) and CONTAMINATION
director: Luigi
Cozzi (as Lewis Coates)
starring: Ian McCulloch · Louise Marleau · Marino Mase
· Gisela Hahn · Siegried Rauch · Carlo De Mejo
A crewless
ship floats into the New York City harbor. The police discover numerous
mutilated bodies inside the boat and a collection of pulsating avacado-shaped
eggs aboard. The eggs start to explode causing the cops to explode too.
Commander Stella Holmes begins a hunt to discover the origin of the eggs.
She visits Hubbard, an astronaut who was part of a Mars expedition, but
had been declared insane after ranting about seeing thousands of similar
eggs inside a cave on the Red Planet. Hubbard had since turned to alcohol.
However, his life has meaning again as he and Commander Stella begin tracking
these lethal flesh-dissolving eggs. Their search takes them to a South
American coffee plantation controlled by alien pod clones.
This
is decidedly one of the better Luigi Cozzi films, filled with gore and
exploding bodies. The film is so graphic that it was put on the British
Video Nasties list of banned movies upon its release in 1980. Director
Cozzi originally wrote the script as a proposed sequel to Ridley Scott's
Alien but eventually decided to direct it himself (in some Euro
countries it was released as Alien 2: Earth). Many members of the
production crew [as well as lead actor Ian McCulloch] had just returned
from working on Lucio Fulci's ZOMBIE
FLESH EATERS when they signed aboard for this project. Quite possibly,
that is the reason the two films look and feel similar. It's also interesting
that each movie begins the exact same way (with appearance of an abandoned
boat floating into NY Harbor) and both whisk the characters to South America
for the confrontation.
Director Cozzi originally signed Caroline Munro to play Commander Stella
Holmes (he had just worked with her in his previous STAR
CRASH) but the producers convinced him that the role needed to
be played by someone a bit older and "less attractive." Canadian
actress Louise Marleau (POSSESSION
OF VIRGINA) got the job. In turn, Cozzi hired upcoming German
starlet Gisela Hahn for the supporting role of Perla de la Cruz. She would
follow this performance with Jess Franco's DEVIL
HUNTER: SEX CANNIBAL.
An
Italian film in English language; widescreen windowbox format, uncut (96
minutes)
DVD encoded for ALL REGION NTSC FORMAT; extras include theatrical trailer.
Graphic
Violence/Excessive
Gore
for Mature Audiences
