Alien from the Deep (1989)

Director - Antonio Margheriti

It's been over a year and a half since my last serious review. And I really use the word "serious"...well not seriously. Watched this movie last night and felt compelled to put it up on the Mondo. It's a great (terrible) movie and from a new DVD releasing company that should be brought to more people's attention. Also it's suuuuuuuuuch a shitty movie, so it's right at home here. Boom.

The box promises what looks like a super cool mega robot/alien hybrid with a huge ripper-claw capable of puncturing the soft DVD case and destroying your brain. What's actually given to the viewer is (no joke) a full hour of pure misery and then a kinda sorta alien thing shows up. I will from here on out judge a persons survival instinct well if they tell me they've sat through this whole thing. You will be cool. Um, I'm going to skip the plot breakdown as it is completely dumb and just move on to the good stuff.

(Marina Giulia Cavalli AKA "Julie McKay" actually American and actually a total babe)

Babes. Not a lot of female characters here. Actually you wanna get real? I believe there is only one female on screen in the entire movie. There are a ton of extras, and a lot of shitty characters that offer up either meaningless dialogue (Charles Napier drops in for a head scratching appearance. Awesome.) or they get killed off really fast, but make no mistake none of them are women. I guess no other chick is hot enough to star opposite Marina Giulia Cavalli as she is just a complete fox and makes me wish I had known about her sooner. I haven't seen her in much else before this but oh my god. She's super hot, and other than that she total sucks in this movie. Disclaimer. She does not get naked in this flick, but she does have a Red Shoe Diaries in her credit so there is hope. I will report back as needed.

The movie has an overwhelming Bruno Mattei vibe to it. It looks like one thing (cool) and gives you something completely opposite (crappy). A good chunk of it takes place in the jungle. The effects are just so god awful as is the music. So it would make sense that Franco Gaudenzi would be the producer here, having produced some of my absolute favorite Mattei flicks. Not a usual for Margheriti but interesting to note none the less.

(she was touched by that...uh..alien claw thing! quick, to the "decontamination chamber!" leave the white shirt on!")

So the best thing about the plot is how the alien aspect just completely sidetracks from the main (real) plot of the movie. The first two acts of the movie go along and it's pure italio-jungle adventure. Think Massacre at Dinosaur Valley ( 1985), or Cozzi's brilliant Contamination (1980) with a dose of environmental terror ala the Spanish/Italian co production The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue (1974). Throw in an Alien (1979) rip-off for the last 30 minutes of the movie and now you've seen it.

And when I say Alien rip-off I mean two idiots running around an E-Chem biological complex (abandoned rock quarry) fending off a big claw that pops up from the ground from time to time. It's seriously not even an alien, it's a claw or...arm for the whole bit until the last five minutes when it finally mutates into a totally fucking rad gigantic alien that is obviously hoisted up by a crane and fought off by a yellow forklift (couldn't afford a powerloader). As soon as it gets good, it gets over and the credits are rolling. It's pretty rad.

(it's sooooooo crappy looking)

So One Seven Movies put this out, and it's a part of of the initial four DVDs they've released this quarter. Hell of a way to start up a DVD company in my opinion. This isn't their first rodeo though, One Seven was started by a founding member of the No Shame/MYA DVD folks, so you get the idea. I picked up another one of theirs, The Sins of Madam Bovery (1969) mostly for Edwige Fenech, but it was cool to see this new company put out some good exploitation/euro erotica that otherwise would not have been released here. So thank you, One Seven Movies.

(AUGHHH THIS MOVIE IS NOT AS GOOD AS ALIEN! LET'S ROCK! THIS TIME IT'S WAR!)

If you see this movie you'll be mad at me so just read this, watch the trailer and you'll be good. Oh yeah there are two, count em TWO shower scenes in this movie.

RIP Antonio Marghereti.

5/10