Biohazard

My review was written in August 1985 after watching the movie on Continental video cassette.

Made in 1981 and just released on video cassette, "Biohazard" is a silly horror film that slavishly imitates (as have many other low-budgeters) the monster effects in the 1979 hit "Alien". Ironically, pic made for 21st Century release retained its moniker though 20 Century Fox reportedly tried to buy the name to affix to its recent "Warning Sign" film. Postscript is that 20th Fox is itself back in production with the Sigourney Weaver-starred sequel "Aliens".

Thin story has Dr. Williams (Arthur Payton) experimenting in his remote desert research lab on matter transfer, not the process used in the Fox classic "The Fly" but rather bringing objects here from another, unknown dimension. One such foot-long object has been materialized and is being shown to military observers led by Gen. Randolph (Aldo Ray). The object is stolen by a journalist who wishes to write about it, and it opens, releasing a series of monsters that go on the rampage.

Mitchell Carter (William Fair) of the Army tries to track down the monsters, using a geiger counter (they are radioactive). He is aided by Lisa (Angelique Pettyjohn), an ESP-sensitive who has been instrumental in Dr. Williams' experiments. Climax has a leading character revealed to be one of the monsters.

Spectacle of seeing the "Alien" monster imitated in each of its guises is a sad excuse for a film, loaded with gore and in-jokes (at one point a monster angrily tears up a poster displaying "E. T."). This short feature ends ludicrously with the director audibly yelling "Cut!" from off-screen, followed by nearly 10 minutes of outtakes as padding. Funniest bit is when mature bombshell Angelique Pettyjohn's platinum blonde wig slips off during a sex scene, duly recorded in the outtake section.

Biohazard (1985) is a movie that I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline follows a science experiment gone wrong that creates a monster with psychic abilities that can reproduce quickly. Can the scientists survive the creature and stop it before taking over the planet?

This movie is directed by Fred Olen Ray (The Phantom Empire) and stars Aldo Ray (We're No Angels), Angelique Pettyjohn (Repo Man), Bret Miller (Some Are Born), David O'Hara (Nightingale: A Melody of Life) and Art Payton (Never too Young to Die).

The costumes, sets and props are a lot of fun and classic 80s. The alien is a man in a costume and looks like it, but it's still fun to watch. As you would expect in this picture there's lots of flashes of topless scenes and the ladies are absolutely gorgeous. The cast delivers strong performances and the dialogue is well written with some fun comedy and zings. The horror special effects are limited and the kills are fairly mediocre, though the baby creatures were entertaining. There is a nice twist at the end.

Overall, this is an above average addition to the science fiction horror genre that I would score a 5.5/10 and strongly recommend.

If you're watching this movie, you're either a Fred Olen Ray fan, you found it on the $4.99 shelf at Suncoast and thought "what do I have to lose?", or you spun around the video store with your eyes closed and rented the first movie your finger touched.

This movie is hysterically bad. It's got everything a terrible movie needs: a screenplay featuring jaw-dropping dialogue and baffling detours in the plot, wacky science involving psychics and other dimensions, continuity that seems to travel through wormholes in time and space, actors that are not only wooden, but seems to border on befuddled, gratuitous nudity (not all of it is what you necessarily would ask for), and of course, a 5' monster played by what I assume is Fred Olen Ray's kid.

Underneath it all, however, there is something resembling heart -- as if Mickey & Judy decided to get together all the kids in the neighborhood and make a monster movie (hey! my dad can direct it! yeah! We can use red paint from my johnny's dad's hardware store, and I know this ex-stripper who can act in it!).

Watch for the blooper reel over the credits -- you get to find out why the final cut of the movie was so crappy.

Incidentally, Biohazard II...the Alien Force is also worth a look, but doesn't have the same enjoyably crappy veneer this one does.

Well, movie fans, it is not a question of whether you like or don't like this movie - it is simply a question of wether you are into trash or not. Should you be one of the happy movie goers who have cultivated the watching of trash to an art form you definitely won't be disappointed with Fred Olen Ray's masterpiece of fun trash - BIOHAZARD! The first time you see this movie you may ask yourself why someone gets money to do such a film. On the other hand, if you really can't help stopping to laugh about what is happening on screen, you probably know how well the money was spent on this project. But I must warn all you trash lovers: BIOHAZARD will make you an addict to this film genre. Since having watched BIOHAZARD for the first time several years ago I probably must have watched it ten times or even more at least! And it still gets me laughing out loud! Be sure to invite some of your friends for a DVD session of this film - you all will have a really great time! Make sure to provide enough pop corn, though!

Some Typical Scientists are up to ridiculous things in "Biohazard". Working in isolation in rural America, they're experimenting in transferring matter from other dimensions. One object that they successfully transfer is a container; said container just so happens to have a creature inside it. Naturally, the creature gets loose, and slaughters various unlucky dummies. Supposedly the creature only does this out of fear, but who knows? The hero on the case is the intrepid Mitchell Carter (William Fair), who hooks up with Lisa Martyn (sexy Angelique Pettyjohn), a psychic working on the project.

This offering from the prolific B movie veteran Fred Olen Ray was two years in the making, as hard as that may be to believe. It looks like it could have been cobbled together in a matter of days. It's *that* cheap and *that* inept. Still, like so many other movies of this variety, it entertains in its own stumbling way. A lot of the elements required for such a lark are present and accounted for: laughable acting across the board (star attraction Aldo Ray, who's actually barely in the thing, is visibly drunk), a serving of bare breasts, an utterly horrid rubber creature suit (worn by the directors' son Christopher, who was just five years old at the time), wonderfully tacky gore as the monster mutilates its victims, a delicious synth score, a respectable amount of cheese, etc. That's Carroll Borland from Tod Brownings' 1935 film "Mark of the Vampire" as local woman Rula Murphy.

The ending is sudden, VERY silly, and unsatisfying, and it does lead one to believe that the production just ran out of time and money. After that, we get a very protracted end credits sequence that's padded out with plentiful outtake footage - which isn't all that funny.

If you adore bad movies, you might like this one, but fair warning: there's often more talk than action, and sometimes it's kind of dull. It does have one hilariously stupid moment involving an "E.T." poster.

Ray and assistant director Donald G. Jackson play the medics.

Five out of 10.