Alien Predator

BREAKING AWAY and DON'T CRY IT'S ONLY THUNDER showed what a great actor Christopher is. So why has he only been given junk like this in the past few years? It's a worthless film in every regard, and wastes Christopher's talents. The only good think about it is that this movie finally broke FVI Films - makers of similarly crappy films.

My review was written in February 1987 after watching the film at Cine 42 on Manhattan's 42nd St.

"Alien Predator" (that what it says on screen, despite confusing ads which spell it "Alien Predators") is a truly stupid horror film shot in Spain in 1984 as "The Falling". Initially aimed at release along with two other Helen Sarlui productions by Film Ventures International, pic went on the shelf when that company experienced financial problems and surfaces instead via home video firm turned theatrical distributor TWE. A lawsuit or at least stern warning should be in the offing from 20th Century Fox, since new title not only intones the likes of Fox' "Alien" and "aliens" hits, but also Fox' upcoming Arnold Schwarzenegger-starrer "Predator". TWE also cut corners by virtually duplicating the poster art here from its 1984 flop "Creature".

It would be difficult to come up with a more obnoxious triumvirate than leading players Dennis Christopher, Martin Hewitt and Lynn-Holly Johnson, smirking, flirting and pouting as three squeaky-clean kids on a vacation in Spain in their massive recreational vehicle and dune buggy. Too bad for them that Skylab crashed nearby in 1979 and five years later, Spaniards are being exposed to the result of an experiment conducted on Skylab involving living microbes found on the moon from the Apollo 14 mission. These microbes result in an alien critter (shown only briefly as an imitation of the small, early forms of the monster in "Alien") that inhabits a human host, drives the human crazy and in 48 hours pops out in time-honored chest-burster fashion to begin the process again.

Tedious presentation actually apes Michael Crichton's "The Andromeda Strain" (filmed by Robert Wise in 1970) with a NASA scientist Professor Tracer (Luis Prendes sporting an incongruous Spanish accent) comin gu unbelievably with an instant antidote using himself as guinea pig. As in "Strain", there is a multi-leveled, underground complex.

Deran Sarafian's direction is sluggish, relying on pointless car chases to try and drum up excitement. His script is worse, filled with mushy speeches by the three young leads and a series of idotic references to Rod Serling's "The Twilight Zone". Special effects are weak and audiences will be very angry at the nonappearance of the expected, full-grown title monster.

Seen this as a kid in the 80s. NO one believed me there was a movie called Alien Preditors. Thought I was making it up. Thank god for google. Even though the kids who said I was full of crap will never read this Im just gonna say after all these years..Here it is. Suck it. Oh and the movie is cheesy as hell...I'd still watch it again and again though. Out of spite mostly now. Kids on vacation in Spain come across some old lab that fell from space that contained a little monster. It infects the locals and terror ensues. If you like monster,80s horror with a slice of science fiction thrown in, you'll love this movie. Has the 80s gore we all love and miss and just enough plot to follow but not enough to make too much sense.

The plot is a bit far-fetched, especially finding the three main characters were never infected despite having been in close contact with some many others that were, and badly dated. The characters are interesting but the actors were unseasoned and the performances were not worthy of Oscar contention. Some of the effects, both on-screen and on the soundtrack, were sometimes interesting and some of the scenes were very original, especially the opening scene involving the dogs. There was a lot of lag time in my opinion. In places, the movie could have moved on a little faster, but in others it was worthy of attention. I watched this movie as my attention was focused on a bit of paperwork, but at times, I was compelled to fix my eyes on the screen. It is not one I would suggest buying on DVD or even renting from Netflix, but it was showing on the MGMHD channel. If you run across it on your TV schedule and find there is nothing else to watch, you might find a bit of enjoyment in watching this film, but if CashCab is playing on the Discovery Channel, you should watch it instead. I'd put this one on the level with most of the movies you find premiering on the SciFi Channel.

The Falling (1985)

* (out of 4)

Three American teens (Dennis Christopher, Martin Hewitt, Lynn-Holly Johnson) are traveling through Spain in their RV when they cross paths with an evil alien or something meant to be an alien. Producer Carlos Aured began his career as a director doing a number of Paul Naschy films but he turned to a producer in 1984 with MONSTER DOG and this here turned out to be his second and last job. Apparently the bad production of this made him walk away from producing and it's easy to see why. This entire film is a pretty big, worthless mess that has very little going for it. In fact, the only reason this thing doesn't get a BOMB rating is that there are thankfully some really bad moments that are so bad that you can't help but laugh at them. A perfect example of this comes from the performance of Johnson who clearly wasn't meant for this role. She's a very cute girl but sadly her acting is just downright awful and especially during a sequence where she freaks out after one of the guys say something sexual towards her. I'm really not sure what was going on during this scene but it seems like Johnson was trying get show "anger" by doing some sort of karate moves with her hands. Both Christopher and Hewitt aren't much better as the two of them pretty much sleepwalk through their roles. The entire film is incredibly boring thanks in large part to a screenplay that simply doesn't have anything going. There's no excitement, no energy and there's certainly no tension during the horror scenes. The only thing this has going for it outside the unintentional laughs are some mild gore effects but once the creature shows up you'll be asking yourself WTF. THE FALLING is a bad movie from start to finish and one that most are going to want to skip.