Terminator 2

One can glean some indication of the quality of Shocking Dark from the fact that it was the final collaboration of Bruno Mattei and Claudio Fragasso, the latter having reached the end of his tether. That's right, the maker of classics like Troll 2 and Zombie 4: After Death finally found himself on a project he found an affront to his artistry. But to be honest, as far as plagiarism happy no budget Italian cack goes, Shocking Dark isn't all that bad, that is to say it might send you to sleep but it won't have you clawing your eyes out with frustration. Probably the earliest of Mattei's Aliens rip offs, its not quite as accomplished as his swansong Zombies: The Beginning, but as far as Aliens rip offs in general go its far from the worst of the pack, being certainly a whole lot more charming than the likes of the excremental Xtro 2. The plot has a bunch of Marines codenamed Megaforce delving beneath the remains of a post apocalyptic Venice to see why a colony there has lost all contact, and inevitably it turns out there are monsters afoot. The course of events is shameless in its pilfering from Aliens, scenes, characters are blatantly lifted as well as even the odd actual line. The audacity is amusing, and it also has the effect of giving the film a watchable structure and cosy familiarity, which is then pleasingly subverted in the finale when the film abruptly switches to ripping off a different science fiction favorite of the 80's. Of course the staging is nowhere near as effective and there are frequent spells of boredom, but things are frequently amusing and the second half musters some reasonable excitement. Most of the fun comes from the creatures popping up and dragging people off or throwing them around, the designs are typical rubber suit fare and suitably imposing, gnarly and slimy toothy beasts that spatter some pale ichor when shot, which in the latter half they frequently are. Lots of gunfire and running around, not enough explosions or physical interaction with the environment but enough gun blazing fun to keep amusement up. The cast, though possessed of little to no actual ability deliver their dialogue with gusto, frequent trash flier Geretta Giancarlo Field puts on a cool tough gal schtick, Haven Tyler is a reasonably appealing Ripley stand-in and Christopher Ahrens appropriately cold and crooked. Its all conducted with enough enthusiasm to keep the thing just about watchable even though currents of tedium snake through most of the runtime, and there's a depressing vibe to the smoky factory setting and lighting scheme of mostly blue, blueish green or on occasion deep red. The lack of any gore is a substantial minus as well, though after a while I got used to it. Altogether I can't possibly recommend this to anyone who isn't cursed to watch every available Bruno Mattei film, but for those that have to it's better than a poke in the eye with a wet stick. 4/10 from me, but a sympathetic 4/10

"SHOCKING DARK" (1989, Mattei) needs to be held accountable for a few things before it is applauded for anything.

1. It is a shameless rip-off of "ALIENS" (1986, Cameron), having look-alike actors, copied characters, and stolen scenarios, scenes, dialogue and themes. 2. Music is a blatant copy of John Williams' "JAWS" (1974, Spielberg), Jerry Goldsmith's and James Horner's scores for "ALIEN" (1979, Scott) and "ALIENS" respectively; other music is okay but not great. 3. The acting is really very bad and made worse when you realise the cast are often impersonating the cast of "ALIENS" but really badly. The little girl, our new Newt, is really irritating. 4. It was released as "TERMINATOR 2" and just when you settle into the "ALIENS" plot an element of "TERMINATOR" (1984, Cameron) is introduced. This Terminator is the most annoying Terminator imaginable. 5. The costumes worn by the protagonists are pathetic and the "mega force" is a childish sounding name. 6. There's virtually no gore whatsoever. 7. Awful final 20 minutes.

The good points: 1. It opens intriguingly. 2. The monsters are really very good. Not "ALIENS" good but good.

Wow. I'm kind of surprised by its decent rating on this site. But, talk about plagiarism. "Aliens" is what it wants to be. And "Aliens" it is not. It blatantly lifts scenes, dialogues ("Please, kill me"), characters, story arches and ideas. It's that obvious… you'd be in amazement. Yeah, you could probably play a drinking game with what it tries to squeeze in. It simply becomes a waiting to see what they rip- off next. And throw in a touch of "Terminator". Especially within the film's dying stages and misplaced climax. Well in some countries it does have the title "Terminator II". Wonder what James Cameron would have made of it? Director Bruno Mattei and writer Claudio Fragasso are no strangers to trash, and the grungy "Shocking Dark" is no exception to the trend. Too bad it's not as exploitative in its visuals. Even though it's on the cheap, daft in every sense, the plot doesn't make a lick of sense and junky as it can be… what killed it for me was how flat, sluggish and meandering the action and story came out to be. No great shakes that the acting is wooden (and that constant screaming from the Newt character gets truly unbearable), the genetic monsters look completely goofy and the thrills are more silly than rousing, but it's not as fun as it could have been. Good idea of the setting; a polluted Venice, despite most of the time is spent in dark, dingy and long underground corridors, which is caught by murky photography. Lame-brain, but it gets bogged down too often and doesn't let its outlandish nature implode.

Shlock ripoff of Aliens and The Terminator. Must be seen to be believed. I laughed, I cried laughing and it is glorious. Watch with friends and cocktails.

This movie is not actually a sequel to the 1984 James Cameron movie, but more or less a remake of Cameron's 1986 movie ALIENS. The major difference between this movie and Aliens is... well, almost nothing actually.

The plot, lines of dialog, situations, etc. are all completely identical to those seen in ALIENS, such as the mischievous android who more or less plays the "Burke" role up until he gets damaged a bit, then he goes on a TERMINATOR-style rampage chasing after the woman and the young girl.

The actual Aliens here are more like genetic mutations, and they don't really look that bad considering they're just guys in monster suits. Whatever they have to do with the plot is negligible since the movie seems to be more of a post-nuke film having to do with soldiers unlocking some government conspiracy deep in the bowels of a futuristic ruined Venice.

The cast is uniformly awful, with several Americans (some with South African accents) in the cast who appear to have little or no prior acting experience, sort of the same situation with TROLL 2 or CRUEL JAWS where I think the production company just wheeled through K-mart asking people if they wanted to act in a film. Only Fausto Lombardi comes across as anything resembling good, though Chris Ahrens and Janna Ryan are pretty amusing bad movie veterans.

The musical score for this picture I believe was liberated from a number of other 80's films, including Blade Runner and Miami Cops. Much of the footage (with the explosions, etc.) is taken from Mattei's earlier DOUBLE TARGET too.

So bad is this film, in fact, that writer/co-director Claudio Fragasso refused to make any more movies with Mattei afterward - and that's saying a lot. I have to say that I enjoyed it to a certain extent, though it's more fun to wonder how they managed to avoid a lawsuit than it is to actually sit down and watch the movie in one sitting. A little too depressing and dull to be unintentionally funny - though it does certainly have its moments.