Year Of The Knockoff! Message from Space (1978)

No robot that sounds like a cowboy? I am ou- Wait, is that an actual Space Ship? I am back in.

As we just dug deep into talking about Star Wars (before it was called A New Hope) and its Italian knockoff, Starcrash (it was always called Starcrash) on our most recent episode, I figured there had to be other efforts out there that tried to find the magic that made Star Wars go right or the lack there of that made Starcrash go so wonderfully wrong. 1978's Message from Space rests in the area between the two.

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com listing.

I will start off trying to explain the context in which Message from Space exists. If you are more than a passing fan of Star Wars, you know that George Lucas was heavily influenced by Japanese cinema, especially Akira Kurosawa's The Hidden Fortress (Someone much more knowledgeable than myself has taken the time to write about these influences and connections, I would suggest checking that piece out). So when Star Wars became the biggest movie at the time, everyone wanted a piece of that action and attempted to make their own star war. Enter the Toei Company. They are a hugely successful Japanese film and TV production company that are responsible for creating and/or distributing a lot of popular live action super hero and fantasy fare (they did do that odd Japanese Spider-Man series where uses a large robot to fight his enemies, and they have had their hand in some of the Power Rangers productions to name a few).

So in a very basic nutshell you have a well known Japanese Production company that has a solid background in fun live action cinema doing their take on a Ameriance made property that was heavily influenced by other Japanese films. The snake really does start to eat itself at this point and it is easy to argue that Lucas made a knockoff of The Hidden Temple and that Toei was just taking back what was already their's. I can see that argument. My counter point to that is that Message from Space would have never been made had Star Wars not been made first.

We start off on the Planet Jillucia, in another galaxy (far far away), which has been conquered by Emperor Rockseia XXII of the Gavanas Empire. The Jillucians do not want to surrender to the empire and decided to use their last hope for survival. The elder leader of the tribes sends out 8 Liabe Seeds that will seek out 8 people destined to help them fight back. The elder then tasks his granddaughter, Princess Emeralida and the warrior named Urocco to follow where the seeds go and bring back the 8. 

Their mode of travel is a space... ship.  I couldn't find a good screen capture of it from the film, but below is some concept art.

Does this mean there is a space Long John Silver's with space Hush Puppies?

I knew I was down for whatever Message from Space was going to do heading forward because there is something so weird and wonderful about seeing the Jillucia space boat setting sail to head out on a desperate mission.

The Emperor sees this last ditch effort to defy him and sends his own ship, which looks a lot more like Star Wars, to track down the Princess and bring her back. 

Darth Vader ain't got nothing on Emperor Rockseia XXII.

The story then shifts to Earth where we meet a number of people that may or may not have been chosen by Liabe Seeds to assist the Jillucians. Here is a quick breakdown of each:

• Shiro and Aaron: two 'roughriders' that basically are space drag racers that just want to have fun and avoid the space patrol. They owe money to a mobster because they took a loan out to work on their ships. 
• Jack: a friend of Shiro and Aaron. He is always dressed stylish and really only looks out for himself when push comes to shove.
• Meia: a rich girl who befriends Shiro and Aaron after they buzz her ship while racing. She knows they need money and she wants adventure. 
• General Garuda (played by Vic Marrow): a long serving military man who suddenly retires because he disagreed with the government's mandatory decision to deactivate his years long faithful robot companion. He decides to wear a pimp jacket and large hat and spend the rest of his days drinking.
• Beba-2: the new robot companion for Garuda. He is quick with a joke and warns Garuda to not drink so much.

Meia, knowing that Shiro and Aaron need cash quick, asks them to take her back to the asteroid belt where she first saw them at as she wants to go collect 'fireflies' which is some kind of radioactive phenomenon in space. It's as weird as it sounds. 

All you need to survive in space is a face mask and the ability to swim.

They soon find the Jillucian space boat and see that the Princess Emeralida and Urocco are hurt. The Emperor's ship soons arrive. Shiro, Aaron, and Meia decide to rescue them and take them back to Earth. 

Soon, some of them start finding Liabe Seeds that seem to be seeking them all out specifically. They show up in odd places, like Shiro's ship, Jack finds one in a tomato he bit into, and Garuda finds one in his drink. 

I thought this drink tasted a bit glowy.

The princess and Urocco try to convince the Liabe seed chosen that they are needed in order to help their people fight and defeat the empire. After some discussion, most of them don't really believe that this is a sign of fate and don't want to get tangled up in a fight that's a whole galaxy away. The princess decides to keep on trying to find the remaining four seed holders, believing they are on Earth and that they will help.

Jack double crosses her and sells her to an old mountain woman (witch?) and soon the Empire finds the orincess and takes her and the witch back to Jillucia. Here the Emperor scans the old woman's mind and discovers the beauty of Earth. He decides that Earth would be the ideal location for his throne from which can rule the galaxy. He then orders that Jillucia be turned on, as it is now revealed that planet has been turned into one large ship/weapon, and head towards Earth.

Once the Emperor arrives, he gives Earth three days to surrender. The Liabe Chosen start to realize that the fight has come to them and they have to make a decision. The roughriders and Meia decide to fly to Jillucia and try to rescue the Princess but get side tracked (Meia's Liabe Seed explodes and bounces all over the ship causing them to crash land on a different planet... it's weird) and meet what appears to be a Gavanas warrior. They soon find out that this warrior is not like the rest of the Empire and was the original heir to the throne but was pushed out of power by Rockseia. Prince Hans, with his own Liabe Seed, joins their team.

Prince Hans is played by Sonny Chiba. The badass score of Message from Space just went up a billion percent.

Is that a Space Hattori Hanzo sword he is carrying?

On Earth, the Earth Council reaches out to General Garuda, asking him to be the envoy on behalf of Earth, to speak to the Emperor. Garuda agrees to do this as he has always defended Earth and as he has a Liabe Seed, he knows it is his destiny. Garuda's secret assignment is to buy as much time as he can so that Earth can get its defenses in place to the challenge the Empire.

And to look dapper AF while doing it.

The Emperor calls out Garuda and his plan to stall for time. He decides to show Garuda and Earth that he is deadly serious in his intention to take the Earth by using a show of force.

...by DESTROYING THE MOON.

Werewolves everywhere cried out in relief.

No one really understands that by having the moon destroyed that the Earth is pretty much screwed anyway, but hey if there can be space boats and space seeds of destiny, then I guess the Earth doesn't need the tide cycle of the oceans to survive. 

Soon, all of the main characters (and the identities of all the 8 seed chosen) are on the surface of Jillucia, and trying to come up with a plan to defeat the Empire. They figure out that best way to win is to destroy a portion of the engine that is inside the planet. The only access point to this part is through a narrow corridor and only a crazy person would try to fly a ship in there. Shiro and Aaron are just crazy enough to try it. While they are completing their task, Garuda and Prince Hans challenge the Emperor and his men in order to distract them from the princess rescuing her people and getting them safely onto the space boat and off the planet. 

The leads to a badass showdown between Prince Hans and Emperor Rockseia.

There is so much awesome going on right now that no caption will do it justice.

Do the heroes win? Does the Empire lose? I am pretty sure you know how this ends. The only big thing left unaddressed is what is Earth going to do without a moon. I mean that really bothers me, because I have seen what happens when the moon is destroyed.

I really enjoyed Message from Space. It has the heart and story telling that Starcrash did not have while still having some silly effects that the 'limited' budget (it cost between 5-6 million, which at that time was the most expensive Japanese film ever made... Star Wars had an 11 million dollar budget by comparison) could not overcome at times. That does not mean that this film doesn't look big in scope and is not epic in its own ways. I would argue the some of the costume designs, especially that of Prince Hans and Emperor Rockseia, are on par or better than some of the ones in Star Wars. Even the more official dress worn by General Garuda was a great choice, it gave his role more weight as he negotiated with the Emperor. 

I want to mention the model work and the action set pieces as well. The model work here wasn't as ground breaking as Star Wars, though it was pretty damn close. The gif below is a quick segment of Shiro and Aaron drag racing in the asteroid belt. The shake of the camera and the use of the asteroids flying by in the background give these ships a sense of speed that Starcrash just never had. The effect looks more realistic to me than even some of the X-wing and Tie fighter movements in Star Wars. Message from Space's spaceship action worked way more often than not and it is something to see. 

DANGER ZONE!

I also want to speak about Vic Morrow for a moment. The cast in Message from Space is quite large and he is not always in the forefront of it. However, when he is on screen, his disillusioned and jadedness can really be felt. He served his country and planet for years and feels that it has gotten him nothing but frustration and the bottom of many bottles. When he is given a purpose again, he lights up just as much as the Liabe Seed that chose him. It's a great performance from a man that was coming into his prime at a later stage of his career. It is shame he didn't get a chance to do to much more work. 

My opinion of this film may be a little skewed as I went from never knowing this film existed little under 24 hours ago to diving deep into what I could find out about its production (sadly there isn't much out there at first glance, at least for a US audience) and being charmed off my ass while watching it. I have been entertained by all of the Year of the Knockoff films we have watched for the show, but usually it is in what they fail to do or in their failure of execution, but Message from Space is that rare gem I had hoped to find in my journey this year: a film that takes what was successful before it and then takes it into a different enough direction that makes it its own. 

If you consider yourself a fan of Star Wars and can watch a film that doesn't always take itself so seriously, I would recommend you see out Message from Space. Give it a few minutes and you will want to go on that space boat ride with it.

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I will give Message from Space an 8. Here are the things that it has in common with Star Wars:

• An evil empire bent on domination with its leader all clad in black.
• A planet sized weapon that can destroy other planets a moon.
• Light saber-ish weapons. There was a laser whip at one point and Prince Hans's sword would emit energy every so often.
• Cocky flyboy pilots that took chances and owed money to organized crime.
• a club full of weird costumed people and robots with music playing.
• A princess dressed in white that was seeking out others to help them fight the empire.
• Force like powers of destiny in seed form.
• A hologram like projection of the Emperor.
• A trench run with small spaceships in order to access the one weak spot of the large planet sized weapon.
• A robot that makes jokes.

The only reason I am not giving it a ten is because it does enough on its own that is great that it should be recognized as such but the Star Wars influence is super heavy here.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Ator is more fun for its low budget restrictions and story decisions but Message from Space is just a better film that is a joy to watch. 

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?

In a heartbeat. If you have any interest in heading off the beaten path even just a little bit, this film is a big recommendation to anyone that loves fun movies. 

Bonus:

The score of the film is quite nice and very John Williams like at times and other times it has the horns of a spaghetti western. Not all of it is a winner (the modern dance club portions are not great). Worth a listen at least for the intro theme.

Bonus Bonus:

The whole film is up on Youtube. Not the best quality version but certainly very watchable. 

If you guys have any other suggestions for knockoffs that Steve and I should watch, let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page. 

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Year Of The Knockoff! Saturn 3 (1980)

Farrah Fawcett looks like she knows she made a huge mistake. Kirk Douglas looks like he just doesn't care.

I know I just covered an Alien knock off, but I had forgotten that 4.26 was Alien Day, so I figured why not jump right back into the Alien pool with another 1980 quick cash grab attempt that had a higher budget than Contamination, but somehow has a plot that makes less sense. Let's take off for the land of weird sex urges and tiny headed robots, Saturn 3.  

One of the few occasions where the trailer 

tells you more story than the film did.

Here is the wikipedia page, and the imdb.com listing. 

The film starts off with Captain James running late to his shuttle to start his mission on Saturn 3. While in the locker room (?) changing, Captain Benson (Harvey Keitel.. in face only, he wouldn't change his Brooklyn accent, so he was overdubbed the entire film) is upset he wasn't given the mission as he had failed a mental exam and decides to do what any stable person would do: open the roof of the locker room to space and let Captain James get shattered/torn apart.

I don't think gravity or anything at all works like that.

Shortly thereafter, Benson is on his way to Saturn 3 with some very specific cargo. Once he lands, he is met by Adam (Kirk Douglas) and Alex (Farrah Fawcett). Saturn 3 is an 'experimental food research station (this facet of the film and story is never mentioned again and it makes me wonder why it was needed at all)' and they are the only two on the station. Well them and their dog. Also, Adam and Alex are a couple. I mean, there isn't too many other options on a space station with two people. 

They also have a control room that looks like it would be the coolest pinball parlor in the whole solar system.

Benson is very agitated by their lack of productive research and is there to help them start getting results. He immediately sees Alex and asks if he 'can use her body for pleasure'. That's how he asks it. He states that on Earth, people use each other all the time for pleasure. Since that sounds really sexy, Alex says no. Benson will not let go of his fixation on her. Adam doesn't see Benson as a threat as we all know that Adam is just secretly playing himself and Kirk Douglas is not afraid of any man. 

Benson's cargo is soon revealed to be a robot. Not just any robot, a new 'Demigod Series' robot named Hector. Hector looks to stand about 7 feet talk, with large legs and a hefty torso that holds a tube full of pure brain tissue (it looks like 10+ human brains all jammed together). He is intended to learn the roles of Adam and Alex, increase efficiency and then replace one of them.

Two things to know about Hector:

1. Hector can learn on his own but his learning is accelerated when Benson takes over 'direct control' via a remote control port in the back of his neck. This has the side effect of Hector knowing everything about Benson, including his unhealthy attraction to Alex and that Benson zero gravity murdered that other guy earlier.
2. He looks like this:

Tiny head, tiny head, Hector's got a tiny head.

It is hard to take a film about a large and potentially killer robot seriously when its head looks like a rejected Erector Set project. When I learned that that this film initially had a higher budget but another film being made by the same company at the time was running over budget and caused this one to run short, decisions like the design for Hector kind of make sense. "Hey guys, I got the legs and torso built. This robot is going to be a hulking killing machine. Hector is going to be the new face of terror." "Bill, we have to tell you that we only have 15 more dollars for the robot." "Oh, I will figure something out that will look just as cool as what is in my head." I thought poor Hector was just the victim of money drying out...

...I then learned the Hector design at the time cost around a million dollars. "Bill, we gave you a million dollars for a robot, what did you do?" "Don't worry guys, I just won't build a head. Problem solved."

To be fair, Nintendo tried the same thing a few years later with about as much success.

Anyway, Hector is also attracted to Alex and tries to remove anything that stands in the way of it and her having a weirder relationship than the 32 year old Farrah Fawcett and the 62 year old Kirk Douglas. 

Hector tries to seduce Alex through the power of well played Chess.
He heard that Deep Blue got a lot of trim that way.

Alex is not interested in Hector, so he does what any robot that has been imprinted by a psychopath would do: He kills her dog and then proceeds to grab her and pick her up off the ground.

That's probably the right number of alarms for something like that.

So Benson gets trapped trying to save Alex and Adam runs in to save the day. Seriously, they make it a point through out the film to show how spry and in shape Kirk Douglas is (more on that later). Adam convinces Benson to dismantle Hector and for him to leave with the robot as soon as he can. Benson does as he is told, but as soon as he leaves the room, Hector somehow is able to use the other shitty robots on the station to reassemble him. Now that I think about it, Hector is just a shitty version of Ultron.

Hector is then back on the slowly moving rampage. Benson decides he has had enough of Alex not letting him use her body and decides that he is going to take her with him on his ship off of Saturn 3. This results in two amazing moments:

1. Kirk Douglas nude wrestling and choking Harvey Keitel.

You're welcome.

    

  2. Harvey Keitel getting dehanded by Hector.. and then Farrah Fawcett's appropriate reaction.

"Unhand her!" says Hector from the tiniest robot mouth ever.

Benson is then drug away, leaving Adam and Alex to figure out how to escape the station and Hector. As they run around the station, they discover that Hector is using all the cameras to track their every movement. They break the camera in their hydroponics lab and set the the ultimate trap...

...just kidding, they figure out that the top heavy robot is easily knocked over as if it were a badly posed He-Man figure.

Will robot on robot violence ever end?

Film over? No, then this is where it gets odd. As Adam and Alex try to escape, Hector somehow manages to free himself of the watery grave he was tipped into and destroys their escape ship and then subdues the both of them. They awake to find that Hector has taken control of the station and can now use their voices to communicate to the outside world. He tells a patrol ship that everything is fine and they say they will be back in six months. Soon it becomes apparent that Hector wants to take direct control of Adam's brain and keep Alex alone on the station.

They then find out the sorta gruesome fate of Benson as well. 

"Now you can call me Sorta Normal Head Hector."

Adam figures out a way to lure Hector out of hiding and sacrifices himself to save Alex by blowing up both him and Hector. 

Alex then heads to earth. Lessons learned?

The End.

So the question: what does this have in common with Alien? It is a remote outpost that makes travel to and from it difficult, so it does try have an isolation feel to it. Alien did have robot who went crazy, Ash, and Hector certainly did do that as well. The hallways of Saturn 3 had the grid/grated flooring like the Nostromo and later on Adam and Alex were crawling underneath it while Hector was stalking them from above. The shafts of light coming through were very Alien-esque. The one computer Hector used to initially 'talk' Benson make the same clacking sounds that the Mother computer made in Alien. It has a female lead who survives till the end.

Oh, and the title sequence attempted to ape Alien with how different parts of the letters appear to make the title of the film. (Last gif, I promise):

This is actually on of my favorite parts of the whole movie.
Too bad it is the very beginning of it.

Saturn 3 has no atmosphere and feels flat through out the entire run time. I know I showed some crazy/silly moments above but I think they exist due to the budget and the weird direction the script went. You can see that there was money spent on Saturn 3, the sets are pretty good and some of the imagery is interesting. I do think that as they budget started to fluctuate, the vision for this film did too. Not that it was the strongest to being with, but some of the ideas in it could have had some legs had better thought been put into it. I am not saying that a robot that is imprinted with the mindset of sex driven unstable man is high art, but it could have at least been a lens in which to have the Benson character see how he sees himself as it was projected through Hector. But this isn't what Saturn 3 wanted to be. It was trying to be exploitative by using the success of Alien to make a sci-fi vehicle that would flash Farrah Fawcett's breasts and Kirk Douglas's ass briefly, thinking that would somehow appeal to different generations of audiences. 

Saturn 3 is not a good film. It isn't a bad film (okay, it's kind of bad). It is a forgettable film which I believe is a greater sin. If you are going to have that weird of a robot design, Harvey Keitel being a creeper, and a pretty big budget, then go down swinging. Get weird. Have Kirk Douglas nude wrestle the robot or something for heaven's sake. Make Saturn 3 a trip worth taking.  

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I will give Saturn 3 a... 3. They got a little bit right but had I not known this was chasing after the success of Alien, I wouldn't have thought about it.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Like I said before, you can tell a decent amount of money was spent of this film, so production wise it is (tiny) head and shoulders above Ator. Fun wise though? Ator the Fighting Eagle soars above this.

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?

Only for people that have the patience of Job like I do to see what happens when money is spent chasing something that those involved don't quite understand why the original source worked. 

Bonus:

To show how weird this film could have been, here is a deleted scene showing Alex and Adam taking a drug (what they call a Blue Dreamer). Watch how fast Farrah Fawcett changes outfits. 

Bonus Bonus:

If you want to take the trip to Saturn 3, it is free(ish) on YouTube. Weird brief nudity and all.

If you guys have any other suggestions for knockoffs that Steve and I should watch, let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page.

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Year Of The Knockoff! Contamination (1980)

In honor of the egg related holiday weekend, I thought I would take a look at a not so egg-cellent unofficial sequel to Ridley Scott's 1979 masterpiece, Alien. Contamination feels like if Alien was written over and over again due to budget restraints but at the same time the plot got fuzzier and fuzzier with each rewrite. This is what Alien would look like it there was such a thing as an R-rated made for TV film.

This film, made by director Luigi Cozzi, fresh off his success (?) of the Star Wars cash in, Star Crash (don't worry people, that one is going to be covered on the podcast and we can't wait), wanted to make a direct sequel to the original alien. He literally wanted to call this film Alien Arrives on Earth. 

His producers changed the title against his will. I am not sure if that was a right or wrong decision.

The film starts off with a cargo ship, the Caribbean Lady, heading into New York at a great rate of speed with apparently no crew to be seen. Without explaining how, they get the empty ship to dock and a bunch of cops and science guys suit up in white decontamination suits and board the ship. Among them is Lt. Tony Aris. I mention Tony because he is in the rest of the film and I am not sure what purpose he serves. He and the rest of the investigators eventually find the remains of the captain and the crew. They look like something exploded from inside of them. Everyone takes this in stride, no big deal, all these dudes exploded. Mondays, right?

They discover that the ship is carrying nothing but boxes labeled as coffee. They dismiss coffee as the culprit as it wouldn't make people explode (but we know it can.) Soon, they find an open box.

I mean, I would drink some after it was ground up. I drink
  Monster and it probably has real monsters in it.

One of the eggs is near some pipes and is glowing. The guys that were just openly wondering what would cause all the crew to explode decide to do the rational thing: pick up the glowing egg that is making noise. 

It doesn't go well.

It explodes and its gunk hits most people, except for Tony. After a moment, they all explode. He freaks out, understandably.

Tony is taken into custody by the government and put in quarantine. We then meet Col. Stella Holmes, who is seen here, talking to some guy in a lab coat by the coolest computer ever.

Seriously, this thing could just make toast and it would still be the coolest.

She decides to keep Tony around as he saw what happened and because he is a cop, he may be able to help them find leads (or something, you would think the government would be able to do that part on their own). They then proceed to the rat destruction lab to show everyone what happens when you put the egg juice into a body.

No Patton Oswalts were harmed during the making of this gif.

They determine that the eggs are heat sensitive and once they reach a certain temperature, their contents become toxic. They also determine that they are not earthly in origin. This is when Stella remembers that there was a previously undisclosed mission to Mars in which one of the two men who returned was deemed crazy because he talked about seeing a bunch of eggs. 

Stella goes to see Commander Ian Hubbard, who is now a shut in drunk thanks to her assessment that he was crazy. She make him tell her about the mission from 'a long time ago.' So he starts talking about how all of this happened two years ago (I am not sure how he got there and back so fast). The film then flashes back to Ian and his partner, Hamilton, as they are walking on the north polar ice cap of Mars. They enter a cave that looks a lot like a mouth with gaping teeth and find a tunnel lined with eggs. A bright light starts to appear at the end of the cave.

Look at all of those peas, I mean eggs!

Ian seems to be not affected by the light but Hamilton is a little more so.

This is how Steve looks at me when I try show him anything about Overwatch.

Stella believes Ian is now telling the truth and recruits him to go with her and Tony to South America to investigate the coffee production plant. He reluctantly agrees to go. This sets up a forced love triangle between Stella, Ian, and Tony. It does not serve the film well. 

I should also mention that Stella, a high ranking official in the government, lets Tony slap her across the face during an argument and she lets it go. It was a bit off putting to see it almost be forgotten as fast as it happened and how suddenly she started to respect him more. Go go awkward work place sexual politics. 

Then the gang flies to South America to Scooby Doo around the coffee place. 

This is about the halfway point in the film and for as silly/gory/goofy as it was heading into this point, it had some energy and I was enjoying it. The wheels fall off suddenly as the movie grinds to a halt as there is a prolonged sequences of driving around the country, everyone getting settled into their hotel rooms, Ian and Tony bickering over Stella, and then Stella taking a shower.

The film tries to up the ante by having a mysterious stranger put an egg in her bathroom with her. She notices the pulsing egg (that is supposed to react immediately to heat but seems like it is not bothered by the steam from her shower) and does try to escape the bathroom. Of all the bad decisions this film makes, I can't forgive her for never trying to cover the egg up. She knows it can explode at any moment and that it reacts to heat, but nah, I am just going to try to jimmy the lock open and then sit down with my back against the door. Maybe she was worried she would get charged for using extra towels.

After she is rescued, they investigate the coffee plant. They discover that Hamilton, Ian's Mars mission partner, was compromised by the light in the cave and is now doing the will of 'The Cyclops.'

The big plan was to get its eggs all over the world... for something. It is never clear what the eggs do other than make people and rats explode. Maybe it is just an angry disapproving alien and wants to make everything explode.

Or that it is angry to be in this film.

The Cyclops is kept in the lower floors of the plant and doesn't seem to move much. It does mentally force people to walk towards it so that it can eat them. I wish I had that power with pizza rolls. Tony exits the film by being sucked into The Cyclops, where he can't slap anyone anymore.

The design of The Cyclops looked familiar.

Don't blame me, I voted for the other one.

It makes me wonder if the people behind the Simpsons saw this film and was inspired. If so, kudos (kodos?) to them.

Eventually, Ian and Stella stop The Cyclops, Hamilton explodes for reasons and they world is safe...

...until we see a busy street in New York in which an egg is somehow mixed in with the trash and it explodes. 

The end?! 

So it is clear what elements were taken from Alien:

• A empty ship that happens to be full of eggs.
• Eggs lead to explosions of body parts.
• A tunnel full of eggs that tries to somewhat ape the style of H.R. Giger.
• A female lead that has to face off against the alien at the end.
• The final showdown being in a room that is darkly lift with metal grating on the floor so that shafts of light can come through to mimic the look of the corridors of the Nostromo.

Not even trying to hide it.

Contamination is not the worst film I have seen. It just does nothing with its premise to make it stand out enough to be its own work. Had there been a little more thought put into place about what The Cyclops's plan actually was and showing the eggs doing more than just killing anything they touch, this could have been a cheap throwaway late night cable flick that would be a guilty pleasure. Overall, there are only two things that stand out to me from my time with Contamination: the score and the added 'elements' that the person who put this film on YouTube decided to include.

The score is done by Goblin. This is a band that I have known of but have not really crossed paths with during my horror movie watching but I now look forward to whatever I find that they are associated with. No matter the quality of the film, their music will likely carry me a long way towards enjoying it. Their prog rocky synth and guitar sound is amazing. It feels like they lived next door to John Carpenter and they would have the greatest jam sessions and drive the rest of the neighborhood crazy.

Check it out below. Doesn't it make you just want to go explore the streets of late 70's New York via Rome?

The other thing about the version of the film I liked had nothing to do with the film. The person who uploaded this to YouTube decided to add some vintage 1980's commercials in the middle of it. Moments right after Tony slaps Stella, the film cuts away to three commercials: one for the new Ford Granada!, one for Wendy's with employees way to happy to be working at Wendy's, and Jame Garner selling Polaroid cameras. It was great and weird. I was not expecting it and oddly made me start paying attention to the film more. They even add another car commercial at the end just as the credits start, just to show you they did this on purpose. Hats off to you, internet guy.

Or as my wife thought it said 'New Ford Grandma.' I like her name better.

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I will give this a 5. You can tell what they wanted to do. Budget limitations and not the most creative thinking held them back. They understood that pulsing eggs were creepy, bodies exploding (the gore in the film was pretty good for what it was) are off putting, and the final location did look kind of like the dark interiors of the ship from Alien. Having the film transition to South America made it feel more like a cheap action film than a cheap science fiction film, though.

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator?

Production wise, better than Ator. Fun wise, Ator is still a more enjoyable watch. Contamination has a better score, Ator has a better end credits theme song. Ator will always have a better end credits theme song. Always.

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?

No, unless you love the original Alien as much as I do and want to see how something so right can go so horribly wrong (and boring).

Bonus:

The whole film is available to watch for free(ish) on YouTube if you want to watch. I made sure to link the version I watched with the commercials added into it.

In space, no one can hear you yawn.

If you guys have any other suggestions for knockoffs that Steve and I should watch, let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page.

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Year Of the Knockoff! Evil Clutch (1988)

In honor of Ash vs Evil Dead season 3 kicking off, I figured I would take a look at a knockoff of the original Evil Dead film, 1988's Evil Clutch.

The film starts off with a three minute long credit sequence smash up that swings from lighthearted music with a series of polaroid photos showing a happy couple on vacation in Italy to ominus music that just lists the cast and crew. It is trying to set a tone of fun and dread but doesn't really land either. 

Then there is the title card itself. 

Rawr! claw claw claw!

This font/color scheme reminded me of another infamous knockoff. 

Who would have thought people would be upset at a professional
sports team treating mental illness lightly?

After the credits, the film shows a man, I believe his name was Fango (which is either the greatest or worst name ever, I can't make up my mind), being inexplicably drawn to a run down structure to see a woman, Arva. There, Arva seduces him and suddenly, mid passion, she turns demonic/gothy and a 3 talon claw emerges from between her legs and rips Fango's crotch off. He staggers away, now fangoless, and dies. 

And then we get this.

Just in case you didn't know that movies often tell their stories in sequence.

The film picks up with the happy couple we heard in the opening credit sequence. Cindy is an American and Tony is an Italian and I appreciate that the film let them keep their accents even with the Italian overdubbing process. They are driving into the mountains to spend some romantic time alone. Arva, with her clawgina put away and ungothed, appears alongside the road, distraught. The couple stops and picks her up and she tells them that she was being chased by someone and they agree to take her to the nearby town. They become weirdly fast friends.

In town, they exit the vehicle to have Arva freak out at the sight of a goggled man on a motorcycle. She runs away and the man, whose name is Algernoon, asks the couple if they know her. Algernoon has to use a electrolarynx (one of those boxes people that put on their throat to speak if they lost their voice box) to speak. It doesn't add anything to the plot, but it does add a little weirdness to the proceedings. 

Algernoon tells the couple that he is a writer and goes on to tell them a story. He says his story is about them, but only that he uses Cindy and Tony as characters in it. As the film moves forward, I thought Algernoon was going to be telling them different stories, anthology style, but no. It is just this one story about a man killing his girlfriend only for her to come back from the dead and stalk him in his home. This story has nothing to do with the actual plot of Evil Clutch at all. It is just a 5-10 minute aside that is fully acted with gorey special effects that feel like it overall belongs in a different film (and who knows, probably did). The couple, obviously weirded out, leave Algernoon, and head onto the woods for their romantic getaway.  

Somehow they cross paths again with Arva and she convinces them to spend the night in a nearby location in the woods. Cindy is creeped out by the building (it was the same location seen by us at the start of the film) and goes to get some air. Arva offers Tony some cocaine which he promptly drops into a bucket of black goop that happens to be right beside them. The goop explodes in his face and Arva tries to seduce Tony. Turns out Arva is a witch and does weird witch things from that point forward.

The rest of the film is Tony being possessed or not, Arva being gothy witchy or not, Algernoon showing up to immediately get killed and then turned into a zombie, and Fango returning from the dead (evidently mad his junk got ripped off). Cindy spends the rest of the film screaming and running away from things, aside from the time she finds a chainsaw and rekills Algernoon. 

...this film doesn't make much sense, to put it simply.

But that's not why we are here. The question is: how much does it attempt to knockoff 1981's Evil Dead? The answer is: A LOT.

Before we get into that, I just want point out that Evil Clutch came out in 1988, while Evil Dead 2 came out in 1987. Evil Clutch stayed within the lane of the first film released 7 years previously. This film does not attempt to ape the sequel though, which I would think would have been the bigger target if your goal is to attract people that wanted to see something like that. It is a curious choice. I did also see that this film was distributed by Troma, but something tells me that this was after the film was completed, so any input at chasing the sequel of Evil Dead was probably not discussed. 

Evil Clutch used the fast moving, low camera angle that Sam Raimi used very effectively in Evil Dead. Here is the very end of the first film to give you a refresher. 

The story of how that technique came to be is really fun and interesting and well worth the minute to read about. 

Evil Clutch used the 'shaky cam' so much through the runtime that it is clear that they liked it and wanted to showcase it as much as possible. At first I really appreciated it, but as the film carried on, it was obvious they had no other way to pad out the run time of the film. This ruined any attempt at suspense as you would know that the shot/scene would long outlast its welcome. The ending of Evil Clutch is a 2-3 minute running shot of Cindy from behind as she is screaming through the woods that should be redone in a better film. Had there been any emotional connection to what she went through, it could have been painful and haunting, but moments before she rekilled Fango(less) with just the reflection of sunlight cast form a pocket mirror, so I wasn't really relating to her situation. 

Other 'nods' to Evil Dead included a shot of a wall clock with it hands spinning wildly and direct close ups of Cindy's eyes as they dart back and forth. It felt like Evil Clutch had to tick off those boxes as well and did it. If the shaky cam use wasn't so blatant, I might not have noticed those moments, but it was hard to ignore when Evil Clutch was trying so hard to look and feel like Evil Dead. 

Evil Clutch tried using the random possession idea that was shown more as a trap in Evil Deah. Ash couldn't trust his girlfriend or his sister as they turned into monstrous Deadites but he wasn't 100% sure they were gone because they would revert to their 'regular' selves and try to convince him they were the victims and they were okay now. In Evil Clutch, Tony was possessed, tried to rape Cindy, and then he himself was almost tree root raped (another rip from Evil Dead) and Arva tried to use her clawgina on him. Algernoon saves him (and then dies quickly after) and Tony is no longer possessed. None of it makes sense. Cindy just accepts him again. I am glad that got wrapped up so quickly.

The gore in Evil Clutch was over the top but just as directionless as the rest of the film. I would argue that the gore in Evil Dead doesn't always make the most sense either, but it (in my opinion) has a certain low budget charm to it. There is a moment in Evil Clutch when a severed head on a hook has the top of the head explode off as it was packed full of bottle rockets and them blood just pumps out (of a severed head... think about that) in garden hose streams. It felt like the makers of Evil Clutch understood that Evil Dead was gonzo with it's effects but not how to dole them out effectively. Even when a chainsaw is used, it is brief and lacking impact. 

I will give Evil Clutch small points for three gore effects that Evil Dead did not have:

• Tony getting his hands smashed off by Fango dropping a rock on them. The set up was easy to see coming, but it still looked wrong in the right way. 
• Cindy getting a fishhook in her cheek. Fango used a fishing pole to snag her at distance. It doesn't make sense but it looked like it hurt. 
• Fango shoving Tony's head into the spokes of an old wooden wheel and then turning the wheel to decapitate Tony. 

 

Evil Clutch is not a good film but you can see they loved Evil Dead, or at least liked it enough to think they could make money by knocking it off. They identified elements that make the original film what it was but didn't have a compelling story or characters to make it stand on its own. 

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I will give it a 8 as it did ape the camera work and shot choices of Evil Dead. It really caught me off guard at how much this film adhered to what Evil Dead looked like. Also, the score for the film isn't really like Evil Dead but is way better than it has any right being. Not amazing, but pretty damn good for an Italian Evil Dead rip off. 

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator? 

Cinematography wise, it was better than Ator. Entertainment wise, it's not even a film I would show to my friends on a lark. 

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?  

No, unless you can appreciate the time they took to mimic the style of Evil Dead. 

Bonus: 

The whole film is available to watch for free on YouTube if you want to watch it. I would not recommend it. But the terrible forbidden fruit is just a click away.

Bonus Bonus:

The narrator of the Evil Clutch trailer reminded me of this goldie oldie slice of internet. 

If you guys have any other suggestions for knockoffs that Steve and I should watch, let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page. 

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Year Of The Knockoff! Robo Vampire (1988)

After we just kicked off our Year of the Knockoff with our look at the wonderfully under budgeted and under talented Ator: The Fighting Eagle (you can hear our talk about it here), I decided it would be fun to dive into the wake of another successful film and see what was floating back there. 

Having just watching a midnight showing of Robocop, I decided to take a chance on a film that was suggested to me by Kevin (AKA the guy who was responsible for giving me the wonderful Year of the Western list), 1988's Robo Vampire.

First let's establish what people like about Robocop:

• It has a very dark sense of humor with its over the top news stories, commercials for products (the 6000 SUX can get 8.2 miles to the gallon), and its sexploitative older man saying 'I'd buy that for a dollar!' It is poking its thumb right in the eye of 80's decadent excess and capitalism. 
• The practical effects work of the Robocop suit itself and the brutally effective shots of violence (no pun intended).
• The ED-209 falling down a set of steps and then making animal noises. 
• Kurtwood Smith as Clarence Boddicker.  
• Peter Weller's performance. He is able to make your believe that he is part machine in the way he moves and interacts with others. 

For the most part.

Here's what we get in Robo Vampire:

• A plan from a drug kingpin to smuggle drugs in the coffins of vampires (specifically Jiangshi, Chinese hopping vampires. Check out El Goro's way thorough and thoughtful explanation of the Jiangshi. Highly recommended!)
• This same person gets mad that his smuggling business keeps getting interrupted by law enforcement, so he decides to train a special vampire to just kill the drug cops.
• Once the special vampire is trained (and is wearing a gorilla mask for no real good reason), the kingpin finds out that a ghost is trying to ruin his plan.
• This ghost was previously a girl in love with the vampire before he turned and they made a suicide pact in order to be together forever in the afterlife. The kingpin allows them to get married only if they agree to work for him. They agree and are wed.
• One of the drug cops gets killed and his team decides that they can turn him into android warrior in order to keep fighting drug lords. There is very little debate about whether they can or should do this.
• Somewhere along the way a robot cop will fight hopping vampires.  

Robocops? Hopping vampires? Gunfights? This film has to have some kind of a budget in order to make all of this work, right? Behold. 

I will give the filmmaker accidental credit for the music sounding like something out of Street Fighter and I appreciate the effect it took to make each robotic step sound like a thud (even while on the sand). 

This film is actually the combination of two films (Godfrey Ho, the director, seems to have a track record of doing this) with a lot of the drug smuggling and crime portions separate from the vampires, ghost, and robot cop portions. As much as it doesn't make any narrative sense, I kind of appreciate the bold no cares given approach of just terribly dubbing over whatever dialogue you want in a scene in order to make it connect to the next one. It doesn't make for the most satisfying film watching experience, but I don't think Robo Vampire cares if it makes sense. Just get to more of the sweet sweet badly edited fight sequences.   

I think I may have said this on the podcast but I want to state that I think I enjoy these out of left field trash heap films more now than I used to because I find it hard to be suprised by any mainstream film. This is partly my fault because as I am interested in what's coming out and so I read up on it and in the process likely spoil some of the initial discovery that should come with the first time you watch a film. I also blame the marketing as it does a great job of showing a few key things that should be held back to surprise the audience but want to make sure the audience knows what they should be excited about. A film like Robo Vampire has no footprint (outside of Kevin and a handful of people on the internet that have found it before I did) and so I can honestly be satisfied that I have no real idea where it was going. Granted, I don't think the film knew where it was going either, but it had just enough sparklers and bad edits to get to the finish line.

Steve and I asked this question about Ator: The Fighting Eagle, did it learn anything from the film it was trying to copy? I will give Robo Vampire a very small yes.

Here's what it kind of sorta got right from Robocop:

• Crime was so bad that law enforcement was desperate for anything to turn the tide.
• A fallen officer becomes the subject of an operation to turn him into a android.
• Robo Warrior has a brief flashback to his life before involving an argument he had with his wife. (Side note: this occurs as he happens to see the ghost and the super vampire start to consummate their marriage. He leaves them in peace. They then decide to attack him for.... reasons?)
• There is a lot of over the top violence that looks halfway decent at times (budget considered).
• A very abrupt ending. 

I am now going to use three metrics that I am going try to apply to this film and to any of the other films we cover during The Year Of The Knockoff:

On a scale of 1-10, how close did it adhere to the film it wanted to knock off?

I will give it a 3 as it did have a guy in a suit attempting his best to mimic the the slow robotic movements of Peter Weller. The crazy dubbed in sound effects kept me smiling the entire time. 

On the Ator Scale, was it better or worse than Ator? 

Production wise, this was way worse than Ator. However, it is rare for a film to make me laugh by myself while was watching it, and Robo Vampire did do that. At least 3 times I found myself busting up. Had I not been as entertained, this film would have been a complete waste of time.

Would you recommend this film to anyone else?  

There are only a handful of people I know that would go out of their way to watch a film like Robo Vampire. I can't recommend it for most people, but the few of you out there that are tickled by the idea of a guy that looks like a silver oven mitt that is supposed to be a robot fighting hopping vampires that disappear only with the help of a quick edit, then this is truly a feast to enjoy. 

Robo Vampire is a bad movie that badly tries to cash in on Robocop. None of it really works but that's probably why I like it. I like living in a world where someone looks at an incomplete drug trafficking film and says to themself, 'You know what this film needs? Shitty Robocop and vampires.'

Bonus: 

The whole film is available to watch for free on YouTube! 

You may still ask for your money back.

If you guys have any other suggestions for knockoffs that Steve and I should watch, let me know in the comments below or on our Facebook page. 

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