Alien Terror 1981
Movie - Review & Info

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Film Review:

If there's one thing you can say about low-budget Italian exploitation cinema, then it has to be one of the greenest on the planet. Never has so-much re-cycling been done in the name of good. The Italian horror knock-off successfully manages to recycle and reuse every aspect of film. Plots, actors, sets, ideas and even footage. They've not been slow to pinch the Hollywood franchise and pass of one of their own as a legitimate successor.

Alien Terror is no exception. Made as a quick and cheap sequel to Alien, without any of the things that made the original Alien so enjoyable - as in, no (visible) creature, no suspense, and, um, in a major cost cutting exercise its not set in space or the future either. They must have gotten in trouble for naming it Alien 2 as well - as if you look at the opening title slot, you see a strange green blob over where the number 2 once was no doubt and the word Terror has obviously been added at a later date.

Opening with some stock footage of a space pod landing in the ocean, we are treated to the start of a typical inept piece of Italian exploitation. Confused and pointless plotting, stilted and at times unintentionally funny dialogue and great leaps of credibility are the order of the day. As the craft lands, a psychic potholer starts feeling a bit rum, whilst mysterious blue rocks and meat-paste faced children start turning up on beaches and restrooms everywhere.

The potholers (including a young Michael Soavi) find themselves in one bad situation after another and a few gory set-pieces and weird moments later, the film draws to the logical conclusion without ever really showing you anything of the creature that caused it or really explaining about why it happened.

But hell, if I wanted a proper film I'd have ordered one. There is plenty of undeniable fun to be had with this film, and if you have 80 minutes to kill and fancy the company of some highly cheesy Italian knock-about, this is worth considering. At least it would be if you could get it on DVD.

AKA:
Alien 2 sulla Terra (Original Italian Title)
Alien 2 (USA) (video title)
Alien 2 e sulla terra
Alien 2: On Earth (USA)
Alien Terror (UK) (video title)
Strangers (USA)

Video Capture Comments:

The source tape was in good nick and this is a nice capture, a bit saturated in the colour stakes, but its not to bad. Its a bit dark at times, being set in a cave, but that's potholing for you. Remarkably, apart from the opening stock footage, the film has a rolling letterbox that averages looks about 1.66:1

	Rating Out Of 5:
Video Quality:		3
Cheese:		4
Film:		2
Specificatons: Duration: 01:21:30 (122,245 fr) Video Codec: DivX 5.0 Resolution: 512x336 (1.52:1) =32:21 Bitrate: 1022 kb/s FPS: 25.000