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 An alien has been waiting a long time to breed. The explorers that land on its
planet are unaware of its desires. Six men and six women land and check out
the planet for "possible origins of the planet's vanished civilization." The
creature is soon awakened and it "viciously assaults one of the female crew
members and the horror that follows is more terrifying than anyone's worst
nightmare, especially for the unlucky-mother-to-be.." 1981, 93 minutes, VHS
I've tried three times to watch this movie. The first time I attempted it was
about five or six years ago right after I bought this from a video store that
didn't
realize the little nugget of gold they had on their hands. About halfway
through the movie, I passed out, this time without the aid of prescription
drugs or some good Missouri-made vodka. The second time I was going to watch
it with some buddies of mine. Twenty minutes into the film, they got bored and
we
turned it off and probably ended up watching a movie starring Jean Claude Van
Damme (at
least it wasn't Jeff Speakman!). As the days turned into weeks, then years,
this semi-ratty video cover with the sleazy cover art kept taunting me,
laughing at me for the way it had dominated me in my own house, not once, but
twice! Never had I been so utterly defeated by a film. Each day I would scan
the floor of my trailer trying to find a movie to watch amidst all the Goody's
Headache Powder wrappers and crushed cans of Keystone Light. And every day, Horror Planet would sneer at me, daring me to give it one more go. Finally, last Sunday, I
knew that it was time to get back on the horse, to step back in the batter's
box, to strap it on, for one last great ride and I picked it up and I told it
that I would no longer bow down to its terminally stupid story, its insipid
acting, its auditorily inhuman musical score. I had slept in until 2:00 in the
afternoon, so sleep would not be my enemy. I was by myself, my wuss friends at
where ever wuss friends go when they aren't trying to wuss out on you. Bring
me your tedious chase scenes, your ugly hairstyles, your improbable
archeological digs on a deserted planet with a raping, body snatching,
cannibalistic monster. But most important of all, bring me Stephanie Beacham in
her most embarrassing role, because I want to be able to look Sister Kate in the
eye and tell her that she let all those orphans down (especially the one in the
wheelchair) when she signed on for this film.  This sleazy film was released in Great Britain under the sleazy title of Inseminoid (is that like The Sperminator?) and wants to tell the tale of what happens when a race of aliens are
uncovered on a distant planet that have a hankering for some Earth booty. As
to be expected in these space hook-up movies, this involves really yucky
looking creatures raping really yucky looking women. I'm assuming that this
movie is aimed at the six or seven people that turned Galaxy of Terror into the
landmark space-rape movie it was. I seem to recall seeing that movie (Was it
the one with Erin Moran of Happy Days where space chicks got raped by big
worms? Or was that just a dream I had?). Knowing that we can never have
enough degenerate space trash out there that to give horror and science fiction
a bad name, some loser decided to make sure all the space-rape fans were
satiated and barfed this one out their blow hole. Now, the common rap on this
movie is that it's an Alien rip-off, but I am so tired of hearing that something like every third movie is
an Alien rip-off, when we all know that Alien ripped off earlier movies like Planet of the Vampires and It! The Terror From Beyond Space. Alien updated the whole "nasty alien on the loose" concept with gore, style,
and actors that you are actually familiar with from real movies, not just more
SF/Horror crud. That doesn't give it a monopoly on gory alien movies, anymore
than Romeo & Juliet has a monopoly on star-crossed lover stories. So, I'm not
going to bemoan the fact that this film is so inferior to Alien. I mean, if memory serves me right, Alien never had anyone raped, nor did they have a whole bunch of pointless and
confusing scenes where people ran around willy-nilly in a mine. See, this
isn't like Alien at all!  The concept here is that you've got this group of bad actors down on this
planet at some type of archeological dig where they've pretty much built a
giant complex underground in these mines (I kept looking for a food court
whenever these people chased each other through all the really big and well lit
caverns). During some digging or other, someone comes across some mysterious
crystals. These crystals cause some problems (note to astronauts - picking up
strange crystals from another planet ranks up there with invading Russia in the
winter and betting on the Braves to ever get past the NLCS). There's an
explosion or some type of problem that causes a couple of these space guys to
get killed and injured. One of the guys has these strange wounds on his face
and constantly complains about not feeling too good (well, he did just get blown
up). Eventually, he goes insane and runs around the mines doing crazy stuff
like wearing his underwear on the outside of his pants. I didn't understand
what all the hoopla was about. He didn't seem be to causing much of a problem
if you didn't get in his way and try to ask him what was wrong. At this point
in the movie (um, about the beginning) I become irretrievably lost on a number
of issues. This was one of those films where I never did get down how many
people were in it and who they were. Sometimes, like when this guy was running
people over in the caves this place looked as crowded as the beer tent at the
local Oktoberfest I regularly attend, other times, usually when they wanted to
inject some suspense into things, the place looked about as deserted as the
deodorant aisle at the Wal-Mart that's just down the street from my trailer
park. Another thing I never figured out was the whole lay out of the mines and
base or where ever these guys were staying. Characters would run to and fro,
shrieking about the importance of opening or closing airlock # 6 or
shouting that so and so was heading for the explosives room or that they
desperately
needed to get to the galley for a fish sandwich. A couple of times I thought
some character was outside on the planet only to discover that there were still
some more doors that had to dramatically be blown open or held shut. It
reminded me of those malls with multiple wings where I think I'm heading to the
bathrooms, but end up at the Bath and Body Works store (I still go anyway).  This whole crystal business seems to be forgotten or at least plays little part
in the rest of movie, because somehow or other one of the chicks goes and gets
herself raped by an alien. It's all shown in flashback and I was never sure if
this was like a regular rape or one of these abduction/medical-type rapes that
the X-Files has a fetish for. See, during her flashbacks the woman remembers
this tube with these circular green globs being inserted between her legs. I'm
not familiar enough with off-world sex to know exactly what was happening, but
those
globs looked like they were exiting her body not entering. I would also note
for the record that they looked like the material inside a lava lamp. So after
all this, it turns out she's preggers and she goes insane, attacking one chick
in the bathroom with a pair of scissors, just because she asked to borrow some
toilet paper or something (She could have just said no.). At this point, the
rest of the crew realizes that this isn't going to be your typical pregnancy
and that it's probably premature to schedule ship-wide lamaze classes.
Someone, I think Sister Kate, suggests that they need to kill this woman and
there is actually some debate as to whether something less drastic could be
worked out, like keeping better tabs on the scissors and a better stock of
buttwipe. All this indecisiveness leads to more deaths, some of which just
seemed to happen because they had spare crew laying around. One chick freezes
to death as she tries to chain saw her foot off, since it had become caught in
one of those things that's always laying around these types of movies to trap
the unaware astronaut. Not sure why that all happened, but it did and allows
the film to keep up the suspense (i.e. how is Sister Kate going to check
out?). The thing about these alien breeder movies is that going into it, you know
you're guaranteed one of those "alien-birth" scenes. We've all seen 'em. The
woman is screaming and gasping and these really fake hand puppets emerge from
between her legs all smothered in goo and hissing. You can count on them
having either forked tongues or fangs, and they always have icky claw-like
hands and real sour dispositions. As far as whether you could call them cute,
I would add that the resemblance is always from the father's side and frankly
there's very little humaness to them at all. In this case, the babies (it was
twins - you know - twice the horror!) look pretty much like the thing that
pumped this woman about 24 hours ago. Aliens are not known for their long
gestation periods. Once they're born, someone gets the bright idea to kidnap
the little rascals from the mother. This leads to some chasing, explosions,
dying (see ya Sister Kate), and eventually a rescue party arrives, determines
that yep, everyone is all dead and manages to rescue no one at all. Well,
except for a couple of real cute stowaways that are hiding in a trunk. The
movie continues to assault the senses by showing you the cast after it's all
over, complete with instant replays of each character's death scene! Classy
move. I found myself saying as these unfamiliar faces rolled by: "who's
that?" "when did this happen?" and of course "so that's what happened to the
black guy." The movie fails because it concentrates solely on all this running
around in these caves. The entire movie is one big chase and hide and seek
scenario. No one ever stops to identify themselves or let you know anything
about what's going on. The film is an ugly one to look at, the sets resembling
something out of a science fiction movie twenty years its senior. The music is
the most earsplitting combination of echo effects and cheap synthesizer music
that would put any high school kid with a Casio to shame. Stephanie Beacham is
the only one you'll recognize here and I'm assuming that they found her at a
soup kitchen or something when this was made. There's really no hint of the
superstardom she wouldn't later achieve on such projects as Seaquest DSV andSister Kate. You may recognize Sir Run Run Shaw as the dude behind all this mayhem if you
look closely at your video box. I'm assuming that Sir Run Run Shaw got himself
a big auditorium
named after him at The Chinese University of Hong Kong in spite of efforts like this. Hmm, in glancing at the Sir Run Run Shaw Hall schedule,
I notice that even though there are calligraphy and peony exhibitions (huh?)
there is of yet no Horror Planet retrospective planned! Go ahead and get that
petition ready. I'll sign it, as long as long as they promise to keep it at
good old CUHK.
Reviews © 2004
MonsterHunter
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