(egg) box frenzy

From writing for the famous Italian movie magazine Galaxy and co-authoring Four Flies on Grey Velvet to directing such 'classics' as Lou Ferrigno's big screen debut Hercules, Dario Argento's contempary Luigi Cozzi's career trajectory has been nothing if not interesting.

Three films in particular stand out from his resume, the fucking abysmal Caroline Munro starring Argento/Three Mothers sequel/tribute The Black Cat, the Caroline Munro (again, does he have dodgy pics of her stashed away?)/David Hasslehoff space fantasy Starcrash and...

Contamination (AKA Alien Contamination, Contamination: Alien on Earth, Toxic Spawn. 1980)

Dir: Luigi Cozzi (AKA Lewis Coates)

Cast: Ian McCulloch, Louise Marleau, Marino Mase, Carlo De Mejo and a big green jelly.

Opening as most 80's Italian horror movies do, with aerial shots of New York and an ominous synth score (this time supplied by Italy's finest prog rock legends Goblin), Contamination begins with a mysterious 'ghost ship' approaching the harbour. Where is her crew? why did no-one finish their meal? and what is really stored in the hold?

New York's finest, Lieutenant Tony Aris (played by the fantastically tanned Marino Mase) calls on the bizarrely out of (lip) synch Dr. Turner to explore the ship with him and a group of faceless (literally, they're all wearing bio-hazard masks) cops, who after wandering around in the dark for ten minutes come across the bloodied remains of the crew.

Turner is shocked, it appears that everyone on board either:

A. was replaced by shoddily cut up shop window dummies covered in cow intestines and jam.
or
B. exploded.

"Shite in mah....oh".

After depositing their lunch over one of the corpses (as you do) our intrepid band carefully creep into the ships hold, only to discover boxes upon boxes marked 'cafe' and what sounds like a tuba player with asthma.....oh and a big green glowing egg under a pipe.

Poking it with a pencil, Turner is shocked to see it burst open, showering him and all the team (save Lieutenant Aris) with what looks like a mix of PVA glue, green poster paint and KY jelly. Suddenly the team's stomachs explode! (did you guess right?) leaving Aris looking slightly bewildered and the audience ready for 90 minutes of pure terror.

Probably.

How'd you like your eggs luv?

Aris is whisked away to a top secret military base run by the, um, 'lovely' Colonel Stella Holmes, who after stripping him naked, giving him an old blanket and locking him in a big fish tank explains that the eggs he found are a wee bit dangerous and that she runs a special operations unit (Section 5) specially set up to combat the menace of scary eggs and stuff and would he like to join?

Meow!, Ding dong!, You would etc.

Aris jumps at the chance and, clad in a pair of Ghostbusters overalls, accompanies Colonel Holmes and co. to a warehouse 'downtown' where they find what looks like jive talking Italian 'B' god Bobby Rhodes guarding hundreds of the killer eggs!

As the soldiers advance Rhodes bursts one of the eggs causing him and his buddies stomaches to explode (this leaves the eggs free to be destroyed by flame thrower equipped soldiers so I'm really at a loss to explain the logic in his plan).

"Scarper it's the parkie!"

Back at base Holmes deduces that these eggs could only have come from Mars, brought back by astronauts on the last mission.

You see, it appears that one of the crew, Hubbard (played to ginger haired angry perfection by Italian horror veteran Ian McCulloch), had been ranting about finding a cavern full of big green tuba playing eggs on the red planet, but his usually jolly and humorous co-pilot, Hamilton, had calmly (some would say too calmly as if possessed) told everyone Hubbard was a mentalist so Colonel Holmes had him locked up!

"Can you see what I see?" "Shut up you mentalist!"

There's only one thing she can do....go round to his house, slag off his sexual prowess apologise for calling him mad and ask him to join a secret mission to South America to investigate the company exporting the eggs.

McCulloch sighs, swigs some more Heineken and slaps the colonel round the head before agreeing to go too (well, he is out of booze and it's carnival season down there).

Cue stock footage of a plane, mixed with shots of holiday makers, children in big hats smoking cigars, Aris in a pair of obscenely tight trousers and white socks and we're off to the hotel.....but our heroes are being watched....Hamilton didn't die in a mysterious plane crash (I forgot to mention that sorry) but is in fact running the alien egg export company and his got something big, throbbing and slimy just for Colonel Holmes.....

"Hello, I'm bad."

It's a race against time to rescue the showering Stella and save the world! will they discover the secret of Hamilton's link to the eggs? Will Aris get his leg over with Holmes or will his quickfire one liners fail to ignite her passions? Why has Hubbard stolen a plane without telling anyone (to find more Heineken apparently)? and will they survive an audience with the pant wetting terror that is 'the alien cyclops'?

"Laugh now!"

Shoddily edited, inanely plotted and with a cast that appears to be sleep walking (yes my friends even Ian McCulloch), Contamination is still a must see classic of early 80's Italian exploitation.

It not so much as pays homage to Alien than breaks into its house, strips Ridley Scott's classic naked, bundles it in a cupboard and sticks its toothbrush up its arse.

For all it's faults tho (and they are legion) I'd defy you to find a more enjoyable egg based, exploding chest filled Eurohorror than this one.

It wears it's heart on it's sleeve (well down the front of it's shirt) and it's influences on a big neon billboard held aloft by flying pixies.

The effects are far too quaint to be called stomach churning and the scariest thing about it is the fact that it was once banned as a video nasty....that's right, you could be prosecuted for owning this back in the day.

But luckily not for making it.