Alien Arrives On Earth!

Video Nasty #31

YOU CAN FEEL THEM IN YOUR BLOOD!

Contamination

1980

A NEW PLAGUE ON EARTH WILL COME FROM THE STARS!

 

THEY INVADE YOUR BODY...CONTROL YOUR MIND...BLOW YOU APART!

NTSC running time: 95:14

Original Title: Alien Arriva Sulla Terra

Other alternate titles: Alien Contamination, Toxic Spawn

Directed & Story by Luigi Cozzi (as Lewis Coates)

Written by Cozzi & Erich Tomek

Produced by Claudio Mancini

Music by Goblin

Starring: Ian McCulloch, Louise Marleau, Marino Mase, Siegfried Rauch, Gisela Hahn, Carlo De Mejo

Body Count: 16, plus a rat (fake) and a big scary monster.

Availability: Region 0 DVD from Blue Underground.

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Exploding bodies with lots of gore.

What was cut: Not a frame, the film was not submitted for classification until...

Current UK status: Contamination was passed uncut with a 15 certificate on March 10, 2004.

UK Availability: Region 2 DVD from Anchor Bay

Once again, I've got something a bit more involved than a trailer.  Put on your tinfoil hat, wrap yourself in a blanket, and make sure your windows are locked.  Shortly after the success of Ridley Scott's Alien in 1979, the knockoff artists in the Italian film industry (bless their thieving hearts) made at least two unofficial sequels to the US sci-fi hit.  One was Ciro Ippolito's Alien 2: Sulla Terra (available on DVD in the US as Alien 2: On Earth), which hit Italian screens in April of 1980.  Four months later the other, Luigi Cozzi's Alien Arriva Sulla Terra (which translates to Alien Arrives On Earth) hit Italy's cinemas under a title insisted upon by producer Claudio Mancini: Contamination.

New York City: an abandoned freighter is reported to the police.  A team on a helicopter lands on the ship and brings it in to dock.  NY cop Lt. Tony Aris (Marino Mase) leads a medical team onto the ship.  They wear hazmat suits and search from stem to stern.  They find several corpses, corpses which appear to have exploded.  The hold is filled with boxes, each one bearing the logo of a Colombian coffee company...but they don't contain coffee.  Each holds a handful of large green egg-like spheres.  The team picks up one that's rolled under a pipe.  Heated, pulsating, and emitting an ominous breathing tone, the egg explodes...and so do the bodies of most of the team.  Only Lt. Aris survives.

He's taken by the government, decontaminated, and placed in isolation.  Col. Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) and Agent Young (Carlo De Mejo) get his statement and track the "coffee" shipments to a warehouse across town.  When they attempt to stage a raid, the shady characters in the warehouse commit suicide by alien egg - a single shot to one of the hundreds of these things scattered on the floor causes the silent thugs to explode.  What the hell is going on here?  Who are these people?  And what are they doing with all these eggs?  Col. Holmes enlists the help of Commander Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch), the only person to have seen these eggs before...in a cave on Mars!

Hot off the success of his previous film, Starcrash, Luigi Cozzi wanted to make another sci-fi film and he found his inspiration in the 1979 US smash Alien.  Working out of the same production offices as another 1979 hit, Zombi 2, his producer urged him to pick up the same cast, though the only star they were able to secure was McCulloch.  (It's interesting to note that Zombi 2 also opens with a derelict ship sailing into New York.)  Cozzi wanted Caroline Munro, who he had just worked with on Starcrash, as Col. Holmes, but he was thwarted again by producer Mancini, who wanted someone "older and ugly" (Cozzi's words), so Canadian Louise Marleau was cast instead.  (And let's be fair here, Marleau is no beauty queen but she's far from homely.)

Unlike Alien, the chestbursting effects are overly gory (which is tons of fun) and nothing comes out of the people except their guts - they just explode for no reason!  There are some action movie elements (again at the behest of Mancini) as well, and the film clips along at a good pace.  Not too long, not too short, Cozzi really did a good job.  The score is by the always-incredible Italian prog-rock combo Goblin, and highlights Fabio Pignatelli's bass playing.  You can't go wrong with Goblin, they're just amazing.

And the alien!  What we see at the finale isn't anything like Giger's sleek black creations, it's a lot more gooey and green.  What it really reminded me of is the squid-monster in Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' Watchmen comics, and I found it a little scary.  The animatronic beastie wasn't to Cozzi's liking and he used careful editing to maximize the effect.  I think it worked, I was not at all comfortable while that fucking monster was on screen.  More discerning viewers might laugh, but screw them, it's nice to get a scare from a monster in a B-movie, most of them are schlocky compared to the monster in Contamination.

Interestingly, several of the cast members appeared in other films that ended up on the Video Nasty list: Ian McCulloch starred in Zombi 2 (Nasty title: Zombie Flesh Eaters), Marino Mase features in Dario Argento's Tenebre, Gisela Hahn in Jesus Franco's El Canibal (Nasty title: Devil Hunter), and Carlo De Mejo appeared in Lucio Fulci's Quella Villa Accanto Al Cimitero (The House By The Cemetery, see Video Nasty #3), as well as appearing in Fulci's Paura Nelle Citta Dei Morti Viventi and John Shadow's Microscopic Liquid Subway To Oblivion.  (Who is John Shadow?  I finally know, and will have more about it on this page in the near future...but in the meantime you can read my piece on the subject in Bloodfeast Inc. #17, a great zine published by Cleveland, Ohio DJ and horror fan Mike Salamone.  Look them up on Facebook and send them money, it's killer and worth more than the $5 cover price.)

So if you're in your helicopter and someone asks you to check on an abandoned boat, make sure you wear a hazmat suit, and don't touch anything!  You couldn't get me on one of those.  I'll be here where it's safe.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

They Removed The Tumor...And Her Sanity!

Video Nasty #30

Killer Nun

1979

 

 

FROM THE SECRET FILES OF THE VATICAN!

Original Italian title: Suor Omicidi

Also known as: Deadly Habit

NTSC Running time: 86:47

Directed by Giulio Berruti

Written by Berruti & Alberto Tarallo, from an idea by Enzo Gallo

Produced by Enzo Gallo

Costumes and Wardrobe by Albert Tarallo

Starring: Anita Ekberg, Paola Morra, Lou Castel, and Joe Dallesandro

Body Count: 5

Availability: Region 1 DVD from Blue Underground

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Gore murders, mostly, but the "blasphemous" tone probably irked people as well.

What was cut: When submitted for classification on March 11, 1993, 13 seconds of cuts were made to a pins-and-scalpel murder sequence.

Current UK status: The cuts were waived for the next submission on April 19, 2006.  Killer Nun now holds an 18 certificate for the uncut version.

UK Availability: Region 0 DVD from Shameless Entertainment.
Killer Nun was seized, but escaped prosecution.

Hope you have a bit of time to watch that video up there, because that's not the trailer.  Grab some snax, lock your door, take the phone off the hook, and enjoy the show.

A veiled nun (we don't see her face) kneels at confession, telling the priest she cannot forgive the man who wronged her.  He tells her she has fallen from grace.  Who is she, and who will she not forgive?

Sister Gertrude (Anita Ekberg) seems at first a bright and cheerful nursing nun, but we soon see that she's having some problems.  After the removal of a benign brain tumor, she's become addicted to morphine and her behavior has grown increasingly erratic.  She berates her elderly charges, smashing one poor woman's dentures in a fit of annoyance.  The patient passes away later that night.  Sister Gertrude has one close friend, her roommate Sister Mathilde (Paola Morra), who works to protect her and professes her love as the women lie nude in their cell.  When Sister Gertrude's physician won't give her any morphine, Gertrude steals jewelry from the dead patient and goes into town to get the drugs herself...but first she captures a man.

Back in the convent, a man is brutally beaten and thrown from a window while Gertrude is nodding out on her morphine high.  Could she be the killer...or is someone trying to frame her?

Giulio Berruti directed this nunsploitation feature under similar conditions to John Carpenter making Halloween: a producer had a catchy title and the director had to do the rest.  Enzo Gallo knew that the well-liked Berruti would be able to secure top-notch talent for rock-bottom prices, so Gallo told him to make a movie called Suor Omicidi and left him to it.  Berruti delivered.  Anita Ekberg (La Dolce Vita, Miss Sweden 1950) is alternately wild, prim, and catatonic.  Joe Dallesandro (Flesh For Frankenstein, other Warhol pictures) comes into the film late and brings his own subtle oomph to the proceedings.  Paola Morra, an Italian Playboy Playmate who had a brief acting career, is the weakest link, but to be fair she was working with longtime actors who knew their craft: Ekberg, Dallesandro, Alida Valli, and Lou Castel all had (in the case of the males, still have) acting careers spanning decades.

Perhaps the most shocking thing about Killer Nun is that it was filmed in an actual convent!  Nuns using drugs, sneaking out for anonymous sex, killing their elderly patients, and having lesbian trysts (offscreen, Berruti chose to leave the lesbian scenes to the viewer's imagination out of respect for Ekberg) are not the stuff that the diocese are likely to condone.  When the church officials requested to review the script, Berruti and a friend knocked out some innocuous scenes in a night and presented the fresh pages as their script.  If anyone happened upon the filming while something salacious was being filmed, the crew would begin behaving as though they were just setting up a shot.  The spectators would get bored and wander off, leaving the production to continue filming.  I believe the technical term for this behavior is BALLS.  Big brass balls.  Guts.  Chutzpah!  To make a movie like this right under the church's nose is audacious and beautiful.  Because this isn't a picture out to ignite any kind of social change, it's just an exploitation film, and a pretty tame one as far as this genre goes.

However, the story was based off of the truth: a Belgian nun was found to have stolen gold and jewelry from her patients, knocking off a few of the more annoying ones in the process.  It's said she'd taken $30,000.  The sex, drugs, and twisted motives were added just because they're fun!

So after you watch it in that little window up there, go buy a legit release of Suor Omicidi.  I'll watch your stuff while you run the errand.  We gotta look out for each other.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.

How Far Will He Go To Cover Up His Crimes?

Video Nasty #29

The Cannibal Man

1971

 

 

WHEN THE BUTCHER GOES BERSERK...

Original Spanish title: La Semana Del Asesino (The Week Of The Killer)

Other alternate title: The Apartment On The 13th Floor

NTSC Running Time: 97:53

Directed by Eloy de la Iglesia

Written by de la Iglesia & Antonio Fos

Dialogues by Dick Randall (as Robert Oliver)

Produced by Vicente Parra and Jose Truchado

Starring: Vicente Parra, Eusebio Poncela, Vicky Lagos, Emma Cohen, and Charly Bravo

Body Count: 6, and a cow.

Region 1 DVD from Blue Underground

BBFC Status

Why it's a Nasty: Because the BBFC freaked out over anything with "Cannibal" in the title.  The gore murders probably helped.

What was cut: 3 seconds of a throat-cutting murder were required for certification.

Current UK Status: The Cannibal Man was awarded an 18 certificate on September 21, 1993.

UK Availability: A Dutch Region 2 DVD is uncensored, the 1993 VHS from Redemption is the 18 cert cut of the film.
The Cannibal Man was successfully prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act, making it one of the DPP39.

First off, the alternate English titles don't describe this film very well.  There is a small amount of implied cannibalism, and only one scene (a very important one) takes place in a 13th floor apartment.  La Semana Del Asesino is the best title for this one.

Slaughterhouse worker Marcos (Vicente Parra) is doing okay for himself.  He has a crappy shack situated in the shadow of new posh high-rises; a young, pretty girlfriend, Paula (Emma Cohen); and his rugged good looks bring no shortage of attention from both women and men alike.  One night, after a sex-fueled date with Paula, they hail a cab to head home.  The cab driver, however, is a blue-nosed conservative who doesn't take too kindly to their heated makeout session in the backseat.  The cab driver kicks them out after a few blocks and demands his three-fifty for the journey.  Marcos refuses to pay and the cab driver (a real freakball) starts beating on Paula.  Marcos clubs him with a rock and the couple escapes.

The next day, Marcos reads of the cabbie's death in the paper and Paula urges Marcos to go to the police.  But this is Spain in 1971 and Francisco Franco is still in power.  Knowing that coming forward will spell his doom, Marcos strangles Paula while kissing her and hides the body under his bed.  Determined to evade justice, more murders follow, the bodies piling up in Marcos' bedroom.  The stench is unbearable.  Eventually he begins carrying pieces of the bodies to work where he disposes of corpsemeat by mixing it in with the beef.

But it's not all bad for Marcos.  He makes a new friend in Nestor (Eusebio Poncela), an effeminate bachelor with a pet Boxer named Trotsky who likes using his binoculars to spy on Marcos from his apartment balcony.  As the body count rises and the relationship between Marcos and Nestor deepens, the tension never stops rising.  Will Marcos ever pay for his crimes?

La Semana Del Asesino is an underseen thriller that struggles against the constraints of the environment in which it was made.  Franco's totalitarian regime did not take kindly to aberrations like homosexuality, which led director Eloy de la Iglesia to find creative ways to discuss what it meant to be gay in such a repressive and rigid society.  It is no accident that the only time Marcos is seen smiling is when he is with Nestor.  The homosexual subtext of the film is also its core theme, but the heavy artistic censorship in Spain at that time meant that it could never be brought to the fore.  This isn't a mindless killing spree picture - this is a tragic love story about a man who cannot face who he really is.  Marcos' denial of the consequences of his actions and reluctance to dispose of the bodies mirrors his internal struggle against his true sexuality.  He's running from the law as he runs from himself.

There's some gore here and some tame love scenes, but really not much that is going to bother anyone in today's world.  It's a slow-burner and the tension rises until the climactic scene in Nestor's apartment.  The relationship between these two men is the meat of the matter, the murders themselves are a clever cover for what the film is actually about.  It's nice to see a horror film that cares so much about subtleties.  Pay close attention to the dialogue, to the actors' expressions, to the little gestures and things said and not said.  If you like films that make you work for the payoff, you're in for a treat.

So if you've got a crush on a special someone, be careful that they aren't on a killing spree.  It may mean doom...or something more.  I'll keep my binoculars handy to help you out.  Because my name's Justin.  JustinCase.