Contamination (1980)
Posted on May 21, 2007
Filed Under Italian, Monsters, Movies, Nasties, Sci-fi
Considering how closely intertwined science fiction and horror are, it’s surprising how few films successfully keep one foot in each genre. Most people would agree that Ridley Scott got the hybrid formula down to a tee with Alien; at the very least, director Luigi Cozzi thought so, which goes some way towards explaining why Contamination turned out the way it did.
I don’t normally mention DVD extras in these reviews, but Contamination comes packaged a pretty engaging 20 minute interview in which Cozzi, clearly on the defensive, explains how pretty much every aspect of the film is a product of compromise, commercial considerations and interference from the producer. It was the producer who wanted “an ugly woman” to play Colonel Stella Holmes, hence the casting of Louise Marleau, which seems slightly uncharitable. The production company was based in the office next to the company who made Zombie Flesh Eaters, and hearing how much money that film made, they decided to get the same cast – to find that only English thesp Ian McCulloch was available. Budgetary constraints meant that huge chunks of the film were made in a studio in Rome, which explains why it boasts some laboratory sets that even the 60s Batman series would wince at.
Cozzi – or Lewis Coates as he is credited – is keen to give the impression that as an artist, his main motivation was to pay tribute to the science fiction films he loved, particularly Alien. In practice, he achieves this by liberally helping himself to much of Scott’s iconography. The chest bursting scene is present and correct – replayed a dozen times, in fact – as are the green eggs, which vary between being close-ups of olives and something resembling a rubber bath toy. The massive alien Cyclops, meanwhile, harks back to the B-movies of the fifties in both design and direction, whilst the opening ten minutes are pretty much identical to the opening ten minutes of Zombie Flesh Eaters.
So far, so derivative, but is Contamination entertaining? It is to start with. The first forty minutes are pretty good fun as long as you’re prepared to look past the appalling scripting, wooden acting and flaccid direction. I’m not normally of the ‘so bad it’s good’ school – you either like it or you don’t – but it’s hard not to admire the gall of writing lines like “call it intuition – but I think they were going to put those eggs in the sewers!!” as late as 1980. The early scenes try to feel so epic – complete with budget-busting helicopter shots of New York, to desperately try and sell the idea that the whole film was made there – that it’s hard not to get swept along, and your patience is rewarded by an exploding man less than 12 minutes in. The music (by Italian horror stalwarts Goblin) is great too, all farting synths and funky bass guitars.
Unfortunately it all falls apart at the halfway point, where Contamination turns into a terrible James Bond ripoff, complete with sabotage sub-plots and a secret base on a coffee plantation. Cozzi claims that this turnabout was forced upon him, but it’s pretty clear that he must shoulder the blame for some extraordinarily leaden pacing. The film almost grinds to a halt, and although McCulloch – brilliant as ever – does his utmost to lend some much-needed grit to proceedings, Louise Marleau and Marino Mase sleepwalk through their parts, including possibly the least convincing romantic subplot ever seen on screen.
All of which means that when the alien Cyclops does arrive, it’s a blessed relief – partly because it means the end is in sight, partly because it reduces the amount of inert acting we have to sit through. In keeping with everything else in Contamination, the Cyclops is a bit rubbish; apparently designed as a hugely expensive mechanical prop, it failed to operate on the day, meaning Cozzi had to film it in 100 different shots to cover the fact that it was being operated by hand. Suffice it to say that Mase’s death more resembles a terrible accident with a vacuum cleaner than it does consumption by an evil alien.
In light of these real failings, it seems churlish to criticise the script’s brave lack of logic – Marleau’s character in particular seems to alternate between making jaw-dropping leaps of logic to missing clues that are bleeding obvious – because if these were the film’s only problems it would still be a fun, ropey piece of trash cinema. Unfortunately, Contamination’s main crime is that it simply becomes rather boring, which is ultimately Cozzi’s fault. Apparently he now runs a film memorabilia store, which seems a far more apt way of paying tribute to his beloved sci-fi movies than this brave but ultimately unsatisfying effort.
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