Dark Breed

1996 was a busy year for the protagonist of this film as its leading star, 1980's TV heartthrob actor Jack Scalia, a Brooklyn native of Italian descent, featured in not one but two somewhat obscure sci-fi films; 'Dark Breed' and 'The Silencers'. Both of these films suffer from the same problem, that is of having an interesting concept for the story and narrative but which are adapted amateurishly on film.

The plot's tagline for this film is: 'Six astronauts are infected by an alien organism.' Doesn't that sound cool? Well, yeah, but what we have in 'Dark Breed' is anything but. Despite featuring a number of handsome and pretty actors and actresses in its cast, this film never manages to bring out the potential of anyone of them. The editing is poor, and while there are some effects, they do not look at all convincing. The thing is, despite all of this, I do not think that 'Dark Breed' is horrible in any way either. It is certainly mediocre, sure, but I reserve the title of terrible or horrible for films which insult my intelligence or which make me want to stop watching. At least I watched this film until the end and nothing about it was insulting.

'The Silencers', Jack Scalia's other sci-fi film of 1996, is better than this one because for all its mistakes, at least it was not as tedious as this film. With better editing, 'Dark Breed' could have been a memorable sci-fi film, but as it is, it is nothing better than a mediocre and forgettable sci-fi film which, while not terrible in any way, is nothing if not mediocre.

This is an Alien copycat that doesn't have scary monsters and the plot is mixed up. The astronauts inhabited by aliens for some reason are only inhabited part of the time. Why? I don't know and it doesn't matter. You know they are inhabited because they all of a sudden speak in a stupid computerized "scary" voice that isn't scary. The astronauts go places, but it doesn't matter. Then, they rip off the Terminator by having another alien that can kill them. By this time you are extremely bored and don't care. There are, however, lots of explosions. And there is the obligatory "man running away from large explosion just ahead of the leaping flames" scene. Yawn.

Starts out with a space shuttle crashing into the water, the military stands by and getting ready to rescue the people inside w/ a fear of contamination. The guys that crashed jump out of the water (infected by the aliens) and starts killing, jumps into vehicles and the military chases after them - car crashes and things explode during the high speed chase! Next the military are after them for the rest of the film and there are scientist/doctors that want to check out the men infected.

The infected men will go back to being themselves and then the aliens will take them back over again - so there is some back and forth with that going on.

We have no idea why the aliens are wanting to take over earth... but they have eggs to hatch to "raise" an army of their own to do so. Maybe the earthlings made them mad to begin with by trying to take there eggs.

Lots of cheesy 80s action going on in this 1996 film... if you like that and aliens then you might like this movie!! 3/10

Remember Mad Libs? I just know that they have one where you insert the names and they crank out canned dialog that is appropriate to movies like this. Sorry, Richard, but you need to stay on strike as this script is atrocious! The only good thing about this movie is the special effects and the fireworks. There was lots of loud explosions and numerous bullets expended in the making of this film. There were some really neat effects as the parasites took control of the astronauts. The creatures were nifty. That's it, folks.

If your toenails are clipped and you've nothing else to do, it will pass for some excitement. Just don't listen to the crappy clichés throughout. They'll make you groan.

Actually, things explode a lot! Much of the film's budget must have gone on explosives, cars explode, buildings explode, everything explodes at some point....

The special effects are pretty well staged for a low-budget,straight to DVD/video but the plot gets a bit lost in all the smoke. And I couldn't help feeling there was a really good story trying hard to get out along the way. I would have preferred the film to concentrate on the characters a bit more rather than just sketching them as one dimensional stereotypes. The film was at it's most interesting when it went into 'conspiracy theory' territory.

Sadly, most action films are judged on their special effects these days and if you want a film with lots of action, albeit it all a bit pointless at times, this will suit you fine.

If there is ever Dark Breed 2, be nice to have more story and less explosions.