Alien 2 on earth

DVD
Midnight Legacy
2011

In the early 1980's there was a small trend in Italian horror movies to give them titles that might imply they were sequels to much more known (and larger budget) non-Italian horror flicks. This is one such case, but trust me this film is no relation to Ridley Scott's 1979 film "Alien" although this film does "borrow" some ideas from "Alien". The agonizingly long opening scene uses lots of stock footage and we are told of spacecraft returning to earth mysteriously missing it's crew. Meanwhile shiny rocks are popping in California. Our main character Thelma is haunted by something, but it's all so oddly done that we don't quite know what's bothering her. Eventually she and a bunch of colleagues head outside San Diego to explore caverns where these shiny, blue rocks have showed up. Since most of these colleagues have not been seen until now so we know they are destined to be Alien bait. Indeed that's exactly what happens. One explorer finds a rock, it begins to pulsate and something resembling a wet,red sock puppet attacks her. Later is she is found laying still. The camera pans over her and a more impressive red alien bursts from her..face (I'll bet you were thinking stomach. Actually this effect is decent. After this shiny rocks start shaking all over the place and red aliens began bursting out of the rocks. Soon the cave explorers very slowly get killed off. Some of the death scenes particularly a decapitation are fairly well done. It's just that the film has likely lost your attention by this point. I won't spoil the ending except to say it's rather unspectacular. The writing is all rather scattered. Many scenes seem overlong as the camera spends way too much time focusing on a still boat or a closing garage door. Maybe they thought this was artistic or perhaps they were just trying to add time to the film. The pacing is dreadful and will make you feel really tired about halfway through. How does it look? Now that's where this movie succeeds to some extent. The transfer is beautiful with all the colors looking perfect particularly in the cave scenes. The audio however is not quite as consistent. Not a great film by a long shot, but a good job by Midnight Legacy in making it look very presentable. Special Features include a Dutch VHS trailer and special effects outtakes.