The Alien Within

In the year 20XX, the surface of the earth is exhausted. Now we must exploit the undersea resources. In the process of mining, an alien vessel has been found. And what do vessels hold? Yep, you have just guessed the whole movie.

Other movies and books of mind controlling aliens abound. Close your eyes. You are getting sleepy. You will bypass this sub-par movie.

Aka "The Alien Within" (1995) TV movie was cheap in production and acting. Even if you know the story, sometimes the execution can be fun; this one is not. If you must watch this keep your finger on the fast forward button as you will not miss anything.

The Alien Within (1995)

* (out of 4)

Executive producer Roger Corman was behind this "film" taking place in the year 2020 after Earth's resources have been used up. We're told corporations went below the sea to try and find new resources and this is when we meet our mining crew and before long they pick up some sort of parasite from a nearby Russian crew. THE ALIEN WITHIN, also known as UNKNOWN ORIGIN, is a pretty poor rip-off of THE THING and in fact it's so close to the John Carpenter film that I'm really shocked Universal didn't go after them. I mean, we've always had rip-offs of popular films but not many of them rip this closely to the original source. Perhaps the studio just didn't care because they figured no one would remember the film after it originally played because it was simply so poor. There's really not too much going on here and at just 75-minutes it's really amazing to see how boring it is in that time. If you've seen THE THING then you're not going to be shocked by anything that happens here and it's a pretty direct copy of that film, although there's no character development, suspense or anything like that. Each scene just seems rushed, the special effects are laughable but they do add some camp and you can tell that the actors are just sleepwalking for their paychecks. Roddy McDowell plays the main scientist and we even have William Shatner's daughter Melanie playing a supporting role. THE ALIEN WITHIN is sci-fi at its very worst and unlike most of these Corman films, this one here features no exploitation, no nudity and it really doesn't have anything in it to make it worth viewing.

If you have never heard of John Carpenter then you might enjoy this. This is a near shameless, word for word ripoff of his 1982 remake of The Thing. Those of you who have seen the 1950 version of this movie might consider yourselves purists, but Carpenter remains most true to the original story by John w Cambell Jr, "Who Goes There"(1938).

While John Carpenter has admittedly put out a lot of crap, "The Thing" remains one of my top 10 horror movies and still stands the test of time. Enjoy this remake for it's schlock, but appreciate the truest version of this story. Sleep should come hard to those that watch "The Thing" alone.

In the process of recovering from a heavy cold I have had trouble sleeping, haha! I thought lets catch up with some cable movies. So in the early hours I stumble across 'Origin Unknown' ('The Alien Within' US Title). Ah, Roddy McDowell nice surprise, NOT. This is a cheap made for TV pile of alien vomit. Why is the picture so dark? I ask, to enable a spooky atmospheric setting? NO, because the budget did not stretch to any set.

Have I not seen some of these plot lines before? Yes the entire Alien series is ripped apart by this shoddy waste of time and effort.

Avoid like the plague. 0.5/10

OK this movie does borrow from The Thing, heavily. In fact it is more like a cross-breed between Alien and The Thing. Despite Its un-orginality and a bit of wooden acting overall it is a good B-Movie and well worth a watch if you are into this sort of thing, mind the pun.

I'll give it a *** out of 5