CONTAMINATION

Louise Marleau and Marino Mase

CONTAMINATION (aka Alien Contamination/1980). Director: Luigi Cozzi.  

Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) is called in when a derelict ship floats into New York Harbor containing corpses and a lot of weird little eggs. Helping with the investigation is Lt. Tony Aris (Marino Mase) of the NYPD, who at first isn't crazy about the lady government agent and scientist. They bring in a third member of the team, Mars astronaut Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch of Zombie), whose stories about finding the eggs on Mars were never believed. The eggs contain an element that can make people literally explode, with their internal organs bursting out of their bodies. The intrepid trio travel down to South America where they determine these Martian eggs are being distributed.  

Watch out for that egg!

Director Luigi Cozzi [The Dark is Death's Friend] originally conceived this as a sequel to Alien (!), and the deadly eggs are the element that most reminds one of that far superior movie. Despite all the splattery effects, which never come off as being too realistic, the film is slow-moving and in the middle section in particular becomes rather dull. Although they seem to be speaking English, the print I saw was dubbed, so it's difficult to judge the performances, which seem competent. 

              The Martian Cyclops -- watch out for that eye!

The most interesting element of the film is the Martian "cyclops," which appears at the end. Several feet tall, it is a squiggly wet thing with one enormous yellow eye like a flashlight (reminding one a bit of the cyclops in The Atomic Submarine), with more than one large, wide, uneven maw. The best scene has one of the characters being sucked head first into a tentacle from this creature, devouring him. The cyclops creates and incubates these eggs, although how they got to earth is never explained. The noises that the eggs make are really creepy and effective. The three leads -- Scottish McCulloch, Canadian Marleau, and Italian Mase -- all had a great many credits. 

Verdict: Some fun in this but the pace drags a little too much. **1/4.