Alien 2: On Earth

The budget in this one is VERY VERY low, the colors are not right, and the gore is not very bloody and FAKE looking. The blood almost looks like paint and the aliens make me laugh. For an Italian horror film, this one ranks as one of the worst. I purchased the UNCUT Japan release thinking I was going to see some cool Italian splatter. Boy was I disappointed! The acting of course is bad (It's ITALIAN after all) and the movie pretty much all takes place in a cavern-like place. As far as Italian cinema goes, there are plenty of better and more violent horror/sci-fi pictures than this, including SHOCKING DARK and CONTAMINATION. I would seek those out instead of this piece of trash.

Rating: 3/10 because of some LAME but bloody not-so-special F/x.

The first hour of this film is so painfully slow that it took me over 10 years to finish it. I'm not kidding. I've had this on VHS since the mid-90s and every time I tried to watch it, I would give up. 1980 was a banner year for Italians doing ripoffs as the film world received ZOMBI 2 (aka ZOMBIE) and this "sequel" to ALIEN. Of course, the Italians wisely set it on earth, something the ALIEN series has been trying to do for almost 30 years now.

Three astronauts return to earth in a space capsule, but are all mysteriously missing when the device is recovered at sea. For some reason, this doesn't sit well with psychic Thelma (Belinda Mayne) but it doesn't prevent her from going spelunking with her friends. Along the way to the caves, Burt (Michele Soavi) picks up a curious looking rock which is actually an alien lifeform that spread over the desert upon the astronauts' re-entry. The group heads into the caves and, before you can scream THE DESCENT, find themselves getting bloodied up by our rock monster.

The last half hour or so is decent when the space monster finally attacks. Director Ciro Ippolito is someone whose work I am unfamiliar with. He certainly throws the gore around in parts but I can only imagine what a seasoned Italian exploiter would have done with this in the first hour. For some reason, Ippolito is intent on trying to make a bowling alley the scariest place on earth in the finale. He fails. The film does end on a grim note and the scenes of the lead actress running around a deserted San Diego, CA are pretty effective. The film concludes with the on screen line "...you may be next!" Gutterball.

If you have ever wanted to visit Italy's incredible Castellana Grotto, here is your chance to see the caverns. This gorgeous cave was discovered January 23, 1938, by Franco Anelli and Vito Matarrese. The photography of the Grotto is spectacular. Unfortunately the movie "Alien 2" is not so spectacular. It opens with stock astronaut splash down film footage, moves on to a bowling alley, then a beach, and finally the cave. Blue rocks that somehow turn into sock puppets are the "Aliens" that attack the group of spelunkers. Like I said, if you want to see the caverns, this is your movie. Simply ignore the ridiculous, boring story. - MERK

HOW did Kevin M Gates, who wrote the opening critique here NOT win the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for his "essay" on this eminently forgettable ALIEN rip-off. How did he WRITE so many words I want to know? How long does it take to scribble "puerile rubbish?" And yet...he's right the flick is so bad its almost fascinating.

Here in Australia, I bought a BETA copy of this flick in 1986. It still plays unfortunately! (on the only one of five BETA machines we have that still work) Here, it was simply titled ALIEN 2 and long before the IMdb came into existence I used to win a fortune from friends betting them that there WAS a film called ALIEN 2. After I'd scooped the cash up, I'd play the flick and laugh in their faces!

Cute touch that....."Directed by Sam Cromwell" sounds major league Hollywood. Cromwell it turns out is Ciro Ippolito...just a few rungs below Ridley Scott!

Anyway, I digress. Read Kevin Gates' plot summary and you'll have some idea (not much) what to expect. As he says, the special effects consist of whatever offal was left at the abattoir the day they were filming. Ah, Belinda Mayne, still I dream of you!

This massively incoherent, dumb, cheesy and amateurish Italian early-eighties "movie-thing" rewards itself with the title "Alien 2" but there's very little, even no relation with Ridley Scott's Sci-Fi masterpiece that single-handedly altered the status of the genre. This is written and directed by Ciro Ippolito. Who, you say? That's right, even in the gigantic world of Italian rip-off cinema he's an absolute nobody, and then still "Alien 2" appears to be his best work. Poor guy… Anyway, this definitely isn't the most blatant& shameless Alien imitation we've ever seen, as Ippolito actually just stole the claustrophobic setting aspect as well as the idea that the extraterrestrial perpetrator initially requires a host-body to grow in size and appetite. The story opens with reports from a spacecraft having encountered severe 'problems' on their way back to earth. Next thing we know the ship crash-landed in the sea and the nearby area lies strew with intergalactic blue stones. Meanwhile, an 8-headed group of young amateur-speleologists descends a cave with one of them blue stones in their backpacks. Naturally, it isn't just a stone but an alien's egg, and when the critter emerges from it, it goes straight for attacking the face. Oh, and did I mention there's a cautious attempt to a sub plot about one of the lead girls being telepathically gifted and trying to communicate with the alien? Okay, the cave-setting admittedly was a nifty idea and it's much more original than other Alien wannabes like, say, "Inseminoid" and "Forbidden World". But the script is so damn stupid and the first 40-45 minutes are dreadfully boring. The gore is good and rather repulsive to behold, but there nearly isn't enough of it! The schlock-highlights include someone's head slowly getting separated from the rest of his body and, a couple of minutes later, another guy's head gets blown to pieces. That's pretty much it, apart from a few cheesy images of human faces reduced to messy bits of pulp. The ending is fairly atmospheric and tense, even though it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense like so many other parts of the film. Don't expect to receive any explications, neither, because you just get cool-sounding warnings at the end, like "You May Be Next!". Next for what? To have my face chewed off by a blue stone? The Angelis Brothers' music is surprisingly good & catchy, albeit quite overused, and there's a nice bit of totally gratuitous nudity as well. "Alien 2" is a truly bad film, but there still are far worse ways to kill 80 minutes of your precious time.