Inseminoid (1981)

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Funny, strange, confrontational and subversive, this is one of the most interesting experiences you'll have at the cinema this year.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Seriously, how hard can it be for an entire group of people to include at least five guys to restrain or kill one psychopath!!?? Some people found this a well-written story with a few problems. It's not well-written, and it has more than a few problems. Some have compared it as a rip-off of the movie Alien, however it came out only the following year. To me it appears to be just a bit of a coincidence, but this comparison is like comparing one of Mozart's piano concertos to chopsticks. The stupidity of the reactions of the crew upon realizing the threat they faced is pretty much like watching a long version of the Keystone Cops, just not as funny. They did everything that they could possibly do wrong and added a few new things that weren't even in the book of wrong things to do.Case in point, you know she has murdered her co-workers brutally, instead of sending every able-bodied man with blunt objects, or any kind of weapon knowing that she's a little on the strong side the commander sends takes the doctor and Sharon to subdue the brutal psychopathic herculean woman killer. As the doctor is struggling with her, Commander Holly McKay stands right behind him during the struggle with a high-powered welding gun triggering it needlessly a few times, just feet behind the doctor. You don't have to be a road scholar to know how this scene is going to end. The person who wrote this, did they have to skip kindergarten that day? This is really bad! Horribly horribly awful! And I'm being polite here. Another of many serious flaws is when the commander knows about the death of Barbara at the hands of Sandy, instead of giving an announcement that Sandy has gone out of her mind and is extremely dangerous her instructions are simply to go back to your rooms and lock the door. I'm not entirely sure but a better suggestion would have been, Sandy has gone nuts, we have to go and find her, everyone get together in pairs and make your way to the command room. That way we may be able to organize a search for the dangerous lunatic. Again, just my suggestion. This is written so badly for scientists they're all ignorant morons if they couldn't see this happening and did nothing plausible to prevent it. Seriously, four or five guys can't take down one pregnant female? Really!?

One of the top reviews is very extensive and boasts this film is "Gore Galore." I didn't read that until after watching the movie and I honestly cannot understand what struck them as gory. I remember thinking that the movie could easily get away with a PG-13 rating considering it has basically no nudity or sex at all, the killings are shortcutted and mostly bloodless. Aside from that, the movie is extremely slow paced and boring. It's not bad because it was for all intensive purposes an 'Alien' rip-off, it's bad because the director used all that previously developed footing and then did nothing creative with it. So the movie gets slammed for being an Alien rip-off because not only does it follow the plotfolds of that movie 100%, but it also fails miserably to even come close to the level of suspense, writing, or neat special effects. If you want to see a cool alien rip-off that actually succeeds on some level of being creative in it's own right, then check out X-Tro, X-Tro 2, or Alien 2 : Sulla Tera.

A group of archaeologists on an unnamed planet get more than they bargained for when they unearth some crystals. One crew member immediately dies when exposed to them and soon Sandy (Judy Geeson) finds herself kidnapped and impregnated by an alien. This causes her to have superhuman strength and decide to kill everyone. Totally a bummer for Mark (Robin Clarke), the mission leader and her old boyfriend. My earlier viewing Norman J. Warren's PREY (1978) prompted me to revisit the only Warren film I had seen. I still enjoy this cheap-o ALIEN (1979) clone as it unfolds like a slasher in a space mining camp. Seriously, these characters act just like the thick headed teens in a body count flick, always doing dumb stuff like leaving secure areas. Hell, they fall for the "I'm okay, help me" bit from Sandy twice! It is the kind of movie where someone gets their oxygen helmet opened and instantly fall back with their arms out, gasping for air (hint: use your arms to close the helmet). I also love the bit of tension from a woman whose foot gets caught. She barely attempts to dislodge it, cries when they tell her to connect two wires on her suit and then decides the best course of action is to cut her own foot off. She doesn't make it. The film also answers the age-old question of "which alien pregnancy came first, the INSEMINOID or the XTRO?" It was INSEMINOID, although XTRO topped it in terms of the gross out factor. What is up with you Brits and alien pregnancy?

Man, this deliciously vicious early 80's British low-budget "ALIEN" rip-off can't seem to buy a positive comment. Well, luckily I'm here to post the token "where's this fool's head at?" odd man out favorable review for this enjoyably rough'n'nasty sci-fi/horror nugget. This extremely crude (and hence pretty smoking in my severely misguided book) dreck epic par excellence arguably boasts the single most brazen and absurd premise imaginable: Judy Geeson (yes, the same exact Judy Geeson of "To Sir With Love" fame) delivers a bang-up performance in the very thankless part of a luckless arid desert planet explorer who gets raped and impregnated by a foul extraterrestrial monster, which in turn causes her to go utterly bonkers and savagely butcher her fellow researchers. Geeson blows one guy's stomach open with a bulky laser gun, slices up future Steve Martin better half Victoria Tennant with a pair of scissors and snacks on a shrieking Jennifer Ashley, taking time out in between committing these ghastly murders to give painful birth to two slimy and ugly lethal humanoid alien babies in a sickening sequence that's absolutely appalling to behold (naturally, it's one of my favorite moments in the film). Directed with a laudable lack of taste and restraint by Norman J. Warren, with a quick, steady pace, a suitably bleak tone, some pleasingly barbed dialogue ("That would look great on the report," one beleaguered astronaut caustically remarks, "the team terrorized by an expectant mother"), an unusually strong cast, plenty of unflinching in-your-face graphic splatter, and a way funky score by John Scott, "Inseminoid" rates highly as first-rate unapologetic down'n'dirty trash that's not to be missed by hardcore connoisseurs of low-grade sleazy cinema.