Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘Can your hear me?’
Before James Cameron jumped in with his ‘official’ sequel,
Ciro Ippolito followed up Ridley Scott’s Alien with Alien 2: On Earth.
In space, no one can hear you violate copyright.
‘I’m afraid’
Cunningly bypassing the expensive setting by bringing the title character to earth and into,
‘The wonderful world of caves and caverns, stalagmites and stalgatites’
Actually, the wonderful world of caves and caverns is pretty impressive, other areas less so.
‘What is that makes an attractive girl like you decide to go exploring underground?’
Courtesy of some borrowed footage,
‘Make sure you superimpose the stock footage sign or the audience will think it’s live’
a space mission returns to earth,
but the astronauts have vanished.
‘When they opened the capsule there was no trace of the astronauts’
A surprise to everyone except caver Thelma, who knew something was amiss.
‘You know, Thelma is telepathic and when something happens she senses it. Even at a distance.’
Naturally this upsets her and she seeks counselling.
‘So what do I do?’
‘Notihng; keep it to yourself like the rest of us do’
Just quit whining,
‘You’re not the only one with problems’
Great friends she’s got, one of them gives her a rock he found,
'It's a real jewel isn't it.'
and as we know from long experience on Dark Corners, there’s nothing that enlivens a movie like a heroic geologist,
‘How many feet below sea level is the cave’
Oh, I’ve wasted my life,
‘No!’
Thelma and friends head into a cave, to explore...
‘Hey guys, that looks like a camel’
'Comeon Bedouins charge!'
and…
'Hey Bert.'
must be the screenwriter,
‘Everything I write is such garbage’
That confirms it.
‘How come you always type by candlelight?’
Because I desperately need to draw attention to the fact that I’m a serious writer,
and Starbucks hasn’t been invented yet.
But they’ve not been underground long before Thelma’s present starts to make trouble.
‘The stone’s moving’
There’s an old English expression, doesn’t get used much anymore;
Coals to Newcastle.
You see, Newcastle is an English town with lots of colleries,
so if you’re trying to sell coal, don’t go there, they’re set for coal.
‘What do you want?’
Now, when you go caving, there are lots of things you need;
food, water, first aid kit, ropes and other equipment.
And these guys are staying overnight so they also needs tents, sleeping bags.
Space and weight are at a premium so what you probably don’t need in your rucksack, is a rock.
Now in this case...
It does go particularly badly but my point remains,
when going caving you do not need to bring your own rocks.
You’re sorted for rocks. Coals to Newcastle.
‘It’s incredible’
Anyway, we’re now into proper Alien territory.
Ah yes, the well-known faceburster.
The cavers seek another way out, pausing only discuss current events.
‘How could those astronauts disappear?’
and make an incredibly tenuous link.
‘Could there be some connection with the stone’
You found the stone by a gas station bathroom nowhere near where the capsule came down.
I know they’re connected and even I don’t believe it.
‘I wish I understood what’s going on’
Now the alien starts to pick off the scattered team.
In increasingly gory fashion.
While Thelma uses her Shining to help her friends.
‘It’s above your head’
She’s really good at it.
Only Thelma and her boyfriend Roy escape and they rush to find help,
‘Let’s go’
but the surrounding area is deserted.
'Hey anyone around?'
Back in the city they had straight for the...
bowling alley. Well I guess it’s been a stressful day.
Filmed in sphincter-vision.
As Roy too is taken it becomes apparent that the apocalypse has happened while they were underground.
Which really calls Thelma’s telepathy into question,
at no point did it seem as if millions of voices had cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.
‘A stronger force is holding me back’
Unsurprisingly, Fox sued the makers of Alien 2 who got away with it thanks to a 1930s novel called Alien.
More surprisingly, Ippolito would later sue the makers of The Descent for ripping off this!
‘You yourself create the monsters that are frightening you’
I mean, that takes some serious front.
'Can we go again?'
'No thanks, I think that will do.'
Thanks for watching.
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This is the 2nd Alien rip-off we’ve reviewed this year and Star Crystal is waiting,
what other films have been frequently ripped off. Let us know in the comments below.
'Look it's getting late, I gotta go.'