bowmanblue 'Alien' was a classic. It was also financially successful. Therefore, it stood to reason that a hundred other films would try to capitalise on its coattails. 'Alien' – sorry – 'Creature' is one of them. Only it's rubbish. So why did I sit through the entire ninety minutes? Probably because I was eager to see just how much worse it could rip off a superior film. And it rips Alien off quite well.Astronauts go into space (do you really care where they go or why they're there?) and meet an alien (sorry – CREATURE – I keep forgetting). It stalks them. You'll probably be able to tell who's going to die and when. That's about it. So why didn't I turn it off? Normally, I quite like films that are so-bad-they're-good. However, this isn't so much 'so-bad-it's-good' as 'so-bad-it's unbelievable-that-no-one-sued.' Seriously, it is so much like Alien it's a wonder no one called in the lawyers. I can only assume that Creature just didn't make enough money for anyone at 20th Century Fox to bother with.Actually, I quite liked the idea behind the whole story – I won't mention what it is as it's a half decent attempt to come up with some sort of original plot. But a slightly good overall idea doesn't really make it worth watching. You only really need to bother with this film if you've seen Alien and want to see how bad another film can copy it without getting sued.Also, there's a really weird bit when a creepy older man does his best to constantly sexually assault any female member of the cast and the rest of the crew just kind of let him off. Weird. And definitely creepy.A sad, carbon copy of Alien, but if you're a fan of the Ridley Scott's classic, you may find some strange enjoyment out of this. Maybe.

Bezenby Is that his real voice he's using on this one? Man, it makes him even creepier than usual, not only that, he's doing a Stuart Hall and feeling up the female crew of an...wait...getting too far ahead. Y'see what has happened is this - there's two rival companies, one German, one American, messing around on Titan doing mining and stuff, only something's gone wrong and the American's have to send a rescue mission out there, only to find an alien zoo where one of the creatures has escaped and seemingly wasted a German crew...except for Klaus, who makes himself known by grabbing the boob of one of the Americans. This creature can control your mind if it gets close enough to plant some sort of leech on your head (kind of like the brain slugs from Futurama!), and it promptly begins taking over the crew and killing them off in various ways. It's like Alien, basically, with some zombie types thrown in, but it's rather good!There's a few gory scenes to keep you going, from faces being ripped off, heads being bitten off, and a head explosion, and it must be said that the majority are right in saying that the film does slow down a bit towards the end, it's still worth it if you're into these early eighties films.

capkronos The director of the creature feature SCARED TO DEATH (1980) returns to familiar territory with this monster(s)-in-space flick; one of many similar films released in between the hits ALIEN (1979) and ALIENS (1986). Some time in the near future, rival corporations Richter Dynamics (out of Germany) and NTI (out of the U.S.) are competing for new materials to advance their manufacturing technologies. A geological research team stationed on Titan, Saturn's largest moon, runs into trouble in the form of a vicious alien creature, who makes short work of the team. Not long after, an alien-controlled ship flies directly into the space station Concord and blows it up. Suspecting an other worldly force is perhaps responsible, a seven- member group of volunteers from NTI - headed by corporate honcho David Perkins (Lyman Ward) - hope to make the archaeological discovery of the century by discovering alien life on Titan.Upon approaching their destination, Captain Mike Davison (Stan Ivar) is forced to crash land their ship, the Shenandoh. Suffering extensive ship damage and facing a quickly-dwindling oxygen supply, the crew set out to get help from a German ship stationed nearby but discover it littered with the corpses of the crew. A big, blood-thirsty creature soon pops in for a visit and makes short work of crew-woman Susan (Marie Laurin). And that large, somewhat awkwardly-designed alien isn't the only odd creature inhabiting the planet. Outside, they stumble across the remains of a crashed alien ship and it was hauling a collection of different alien life forms; some of which are still living. One species is able to use "collective intelligence" to impersonate its victims to lure the others to their doom, which mechanic John (Robert Jaffe) soon finds out first hand when the dead "Susan" pays him a visit and strips off her clothes. And then something truly weird and terrifying happens: Klaus Kinski shows up. Ahhhh!Kinski's character - Hans Rudy Hofner - is the sole survivor of the German expedition, and he acts extremely weird and hilarious childish and giddy as if he's not taking a second of this seriously explaining that the aliens have "vaited fer dem fer two tousan zenturres." I've watched three Kinski movies this past month and in all three of them he plays a character who grabs one of the female cast members and then squeezes their breasts! The victim this time out is Diane Salinger, who plays a potentially fun character - a tough security officer - but, like Klaus, she's not given enough to do and vanishes from a large portion of the film. Most of the action centers around the two male leads and the cute Wendy Schall (who now voices the mom of the animated series "American Dad"), who plays some kind of electronics expert.Overall, this is a watchable, albeit clichéd and wholly forgettable, movie. The script is generic but otherwise it's well-made, the cast, art direction and special effects are all competent and there's some nudity and some gore, including a face getting ripped off, an exploding body and a female doctor (Annette McCarthy) getting her head ripped off. But at the end of the day, it's really nothing more than a passable time waster. I guess there are worse things. Despite being pretty mediocre overall, this 750K-budgeted film ended up becoming quite profitable; making back its entire budget opening weekend alone in less than 200 theaters. As a reference point, Tobe Hooper's messy LIFEFORCE, released just a few months later the same year, didn't even make back half its huge 25 million budget in 1500+ theaters.

FireFan This show gives the audience an honest attempt at a crisis-type movie like: Airport, Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake, and others in outer space where it tries to imitate but only to a degree the Aliens theme. It has decent acting and convincing settings. There are harsh conditions successfully portrayed- ironically with too dim photography and low lighting in certain scenes (imagine how turbulent conditions would be on some planets) but this is a well-intended effect and not because, as some viewers claim, it might be a low-budget B movie. There is lots of edgy friction between the astronauts and scary suspense. Several mishaps put together including a surprise appearance by Klaus Kinsky, which is set as another angle to the story, happen to the crew that seem impossible to cope with in this show and holds the audience in tension. There are disturbing occurrences going on, in part because of the volatile nature of the planet Titan where this all takes place. There is a scene which eerily, although graphically, emphasizes a female spaceman's physique because of the bizarre occurrences happening in this unstable atmosphere of Saturn's moon. This scene is a realistic, yet important, attempt that the movie makes at demonstrating the possibly intoxicating effects on people of poisonous atmospheres that are there in space which the crew have to deal with--just as authentic and technically-minded as a science fiction story by Robert Heinlein might have been written. The enemy monster in this show is reminiscent of an alien villain monster from Gerry Andersen's "Fireball XL -5", a science fiction television puppet show in the 1960's. Same sinister approaching movements although these actions are blurred a bit, but this monster is made on a larger scale of course. Movies like this one often times succeed in making Outer Space appear as believable to viewers as a negative Utopia might cause one to have a persistent dread. Creature is probably an underrated, and maybe under appreciated, film for this science fiction genre. It is a show very much worthy of your trying out!