DVD Release
Here’s the deal…I’m not going to waste too much time here yammering on about Contamination being an Alien clone because one need only watch the first half hour of the film to figure that out. Director Luigi Cozzi and producers didn’t have the budget for elaborate aliens and a big fancy ship so they just whipped up some eggs (spray painted rubber balls & balloons) and rigged up some meat filled bladders to capture the whole ‘splodin’ stomach thing and PRESTO! Instant craptastic classic…well…when I say “classic” I really mean to say “sack of shit” because as goofy and fun as Contamination is…its still molto garbagio.
When an abandoned ship, The Caribbean Lady, swings on into New York harbor, the police and health department are called out to investigate the ship for life signs and a possible reason for the abandonment. A small crew head on into the ship and come across some horribly mutilated bodies apparently torn to pieces from the inside out as if they exploded. As they continue their search they happen upon a huge shipment of what appears to be coffee in the cargo hold but upon closer inspection they discover the boxes are all filled with strange green egg-like objects. When one of the eggs rolls from a box against a warm pipe and begins pulsating, glowing and making silly “wow wow” noises, one of the investigation team members scoops the egg up and it explodes propelling green acid into their faces. The strange green acid not only melts skin but it triggers wild, gory chest explosions as well!
Lt. Tony Aris, the only survivor of the Caribbean Lady investigation team, is picked up by Internal Security: Special Division 5 for decontamination and debriefing. When they learn of the dangerous pods and their destructive potential they send in Special Section: Squad 2 to collect a sample and bring it back to the lab for analysis. Aris is brought into the operation by project head, Colonel Stella Holmes and they all head out hoping to deliver the cargo of egg-filled boxes to an unsuspecting warehouse in order to catch the culprits responsible for bringing the eggs to New York.
When the team arrives at the warehouse they’re met with resistance and are forced to fight their way inside. The warehouse is filled with pulsating eggs so the command is given to neutralize them with flamethrowers. What could these eggs be and why are they in New York?
When Stella Holmes and Aris arrive back at command they learn the eggs are most definitely not of this Earth and must have somehow dropped here as seeds of some kind. Col. Holmes deducts that the eggs may not have come to Earth at all but were brought here which would mean the disgraced Mars Mission astronaut Commander Ian Hubbard was telling the truth all those months back. Hubbard claimed he and his mission partner Hamilton came across the eggs in an ice cave on Mars. Unfortunately, Hamilton refused to corroborate Hubbard’s story and he was discharged from service a broken man.
Commander Hubbard may be Col. Holmes and Lt. Aris’ only hope of identifying and stopping whoever it is that’s preparing to use the eggs against the world. Can Hubbard put down the bottle long enough to help Internal Services or will he opt to continue drinking his life away?
Somebody close to the Mars Mission must be responsible for these eggs being on Earth but it couldn’t possibly be Hubbard’s partner Hamilton as he died while flying one of his private planes. Their only lead is the coffee company in South America that shipped the eggs so the three are off in search of answers.
Contamination features clown college acting and ass-clenchingly bad dialogue but the FX rocked my box like a lap dance from Queen Latifah! There were meaty melting faces, wiry wizzing intestines and goopy green alien egg glop galore! You’re not going to get much more from this dud aside from a few scattered “homages” to American B-movie horror films and a Goblin score that’s far from the “pounding score” described on the back of the DVD case. It sounded like they were slumming their discarded B-sides about and Cozzi upped the lira.
I must admit though I laughed my ass off through most of the film because Marino Masé (Tenebre & The Godfather III) was the spitting image of Michael Richard’s “Cosmo Kramer” from “Seinfeld!” There’s also this great little sequence when Col. Holmes and one of her lackies waltz into a futuristic decontamination room to visit Lt. Aris and there’s this dude twisting knobs and pushing buttons aimlessly…how delightfully B-movie.
Contamination is a bad film, no doubt about it, but it’s enjoyable on some strange bored, nerd ass level. It could have done with some nudity from Louise Marleau (who Cozzi infers is ugly in the special features) and Gisela Hahn (who looked a bit like Richard Lynch) but you get what you get and at the very least Blue Underground gives us a few interesting special features and a Contamination graphic novel to ease the pain. I wouldn’t recommend purchasing this at all unless you’re a sucker (like me) for Italian rip-off cinema.
