Alien 2: On Earth B-Movie Review

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ALIEN 2: ON EARTH - 1 Slime

Not Rated

Reviewed by Andrew Borntreger on 24 January 2012

The Characters:

Thelma - An attractive female clairvoyant spelunker! What are the odds?
Roy - It appears that one of the Gibb brothers hated music but loved caves.
Maureen - Come on Maureen; you know what it means when the stalagmites grow fangs and do dirty things. It means everything.
Burt - Maureen's beau, which means he becomes single when the aliens eat her. Poor Burt has zero time to enjoy his newfound freedom, because he also becomes alien kibble. Proving, once again, that people in relationships live longer.
Phil - His name might be Bill, but it is hard to tell. What is not hard to tell is to which side he hangs, because his jeans are too tight. Way too tight.
Cliff - He falls victim to a fleshy chandelier.
Jill - The first to be eaten by a killer rock.
Rod - He loved spelunking almost as much as he loved Jill, and that's about all I can say about Rod.
The Alien Creatures - Weird little buggers that incubate inside of rocks before hatching into deadly snake-like creatures that are all fangs and goo.

The Plot:

Here is an unauthorized Italian "sequel" to Ridley Scott's science-fiction/horror classic "Alien." My experience with Italian science fiction and horror is that they are prone to convoluted plots, bizarre editing, and schlocky gore. This is a near-perfect example of that stereotype, so it is a near-perfect setup for a lot of entertainment.

It bears mentioning that Italian zombie films are my wife's version of kryptonite. She is not particularly fond of any ridiculous science fiction or horror movie from what was once the center of Western civilization, but the zombie films really get her goat. Diu vivere Italia zombies! Eh, it's a poor translation and one word has no Latin equivalent, but apparently the Romans never found it necessary to speak at length about certain abstracts.

As the movie begins, two important events are taking place. The first is that a space mission is returning to Earth, while the second is that Thelma is being interviewed by a local television station about spelunking. These two things would appear to have absolutely no connection at all (not even quantum), but in the ways of Italian science fiction they are inextricably entwined. During the interview, Thelma experiences a psychic occurrence that requires the station to quickly cut to a commercial so they can line up other programming. The psychic event is nothing impressive. In fact, all that happens is that Thelma completely zones out on the interviewer. On the other hand, the news coverage of the space capsule returning to Earth does end with an unexpected twist. The capsule is empty.

After the disastrous interview, Thelma and Roy join their friends at the bowling alley, where everybody shares a big can of pineapple juice. However, not even the fun of bowling nor the tastiness of canned pineapple juice can keep this bunch from their weekend plans. After the last juice is drunk and the final frame is tallied, the group climbs into Roy's Jeep Wagoneer. They are off to the mountains to go spelunking!

I used to roll with a wild and crazy bunch, but we never combined bowling, pineapple juice, and spelunking in the same weekend. That would have been taking things too far.

En route to the cave, the Wagoneer makes two stops. The first is a store by the beach so that Burt can pick up some candles he ordered from Italy. While Burt is collecting his candles, Thelma takes a short walk along the beach. She has another one of her episodes and freaks out a little girl and her mother. After the spelunkers depart, we watch as the girl discovers a strange rock. When the mother finds her daughter, the little girl is sitting on the sand, facing away, quietly crying. As she turns, the mother screams in horror. The little girl's face has been torn away!

Making any kind of identifiable sound would be nearly impossible when your face looks like uncooked beef, but am I supposed to believe that little Lucy would sit there crying after something ripped her face off? We have three children at home who are all eight and under. They are normal kids, which means I've seen cuts, scrapes, bruises, bee stings, and fingers and toes caught in doors. There are sounds kids make when something hurts, and then there are the sounds kids make when something really hurts. It is not gentle crying. It is not loud crying. It is a pitched scream that quickly rises to maximum volume and then remains there - except for the small oscillations that are required to quickly refill the lungs with air so the scream can continue unabated.

They (kids) also do not stay in one place making that world-destroying scream. They move as rapidly as possible towards wherever they think either Mommy or Daddy is currently standing. Standing, because no matter what a parent is doing, that scream will immediately cause them to get to their feet to seek out the wounded child. Not the least reason for doing this is that the "as rapidly as possible" part of the little one's travel means "as rapidly as possible" and not the more prudent "as rapidly as safely possible." Several times I have watched one of my screaming progeny, injured limb held high in the air as if it were the Olympic Torch, run toward me, only to trip over a wayward toy and fall on even more toys. The result was even more screaming.

But I digress...

The other stop made on the way to the cave is at a little desert general store where the spelunkers pick up some supplies, use the toilet, and change into their spelunking gear. That is where Burt discovers a strange rock (like the one that poor little Lucy found) that he gives to Thelma. She stuffs it into her backpack. <---PLOT POINT.

Once the spelunkers arrive at the cave where they intend to spelunk, the movie becomes nearly unbearable. Why? Because we watch people spelunking, at great length and in sordid detail. Have you ever seen the MST3K episode with the rock climbing? Well, this is exactly the same situation, but with spelunking. The audience is forced to watch the characters for more than ten minutes as they crawl around inside of, talk inside of, and make camp inside of the cave.

Gaaahhhrrk!

Well after the boundary of human endurance to spelunking is reached, Jill notices that the rock in Thelma's backpack is breathing. Then it (the rock) bites her, causing all heck to break loose. This is because Jill, distracted as she is by the purple pebble that is chewing her nose off, stumbles over a ledge and falls. Thelma, who is the only person to witness the attack, tries to explain to the rest of the group what happened. Words fail her, meaning nobody understands that a rock bit Jill's face off. Now we are subjected to another ten minutes of watching the group perform a spelunking rescue in every detail. Once Jill's inert body is hauled back up, the only person at the top is Rod. He starts the process of rigging the ropes so the others can ascend. Unbeknownst to Rod, the camera is slowly panning back through the cave and up Jill's body to her face. This takes an additional four minutes. So, for the last twenty-four minutes the only thing keeping my attention has been complaining about the complete lack of anything to keep my attention.

For those of you who are cinema masochists, the DVD contains some extras. One of them is the slow pan from Rod to Jill's body, but this version is even longer.

You have got to be freaking kidding me.

When the camera finally gets to Jill's face an alien pops out and attacks Rod. It latches onto his throat, causing him to fall off the ledge and hang upside down above his terrified friends. Rod screams and sprays blood all over the place. Then his head falls off, which is the breaking point for the panicked spelunkers. They take off running into the darkness. Thus begins a portion of the movie that is entirely comprised of the spelunkers wandering through the cave, looking for a way out.

From what I can tell, the aliens lay their eggs inside of rocks. They also reach sexual maturity in about thirty minutes. Thelma and her friends are trapped inside of a cave. They are as good as dead. It is not long before Maureen and Burt stumble into the middle of a hatching nest of aliens that turn them into bloody corpses (I never knew there was an artery inside the human eye). Shortly after that Cliff is surprised by a tangle of tentacles that drop on him from above.

Looking at it from a purely reproductive standpoint, the aliens are some weird critters. The only other creatures I can think of with such a quick and unlikely reproductive cycle are those darn Sno-Bees from "Pengo."

Thelma and Roy encounter Cliff after his unfortunate close encounter. He walks slowly towards them, eyes glazed. Alerted by her psychic spelunker senses, Thelma knows that what she is seeing is not really Cliff. Her hair goes "Firestarter" as she uses her mental powers to burst the doppelganger's head apart, causing tentacles to erupt from the bloody stump. As Thelma and Roy flee, poor Phil gets et by the very annoyed alien monster.

The last two spelunkers find a way out of the cave, only to discover that everywhere they look is deserted. Since that is not unusual for the desert, they drive to San Diego. Upon arriving at the city, Thelma and Roy go to where people go to when they need help: the bowling alley. Yes! After watching numerous friends killed by alien monsters that hatch from rocks, the first place that Thelma and Roy visit is a bowling alley. Wait, it gets better! The bowling alley appears empty, so Roy goes behind the bowling machines to see if anyone is around.

Well, Roy gets et. Thelma is then chased out of the bowling alley by the alien esophagus cam and the movie ends shortly thereafter.

The dialog throughout the movie is absolutely priceless (there is a fantastic discussion between Thelma and her psychiatrist around the twelve-minute mark), but the last half hour is the real reason to watch it. As nonsensical as the final thirty minutes of the film might sound, after Rod meets his loud and messy end the movie finally delivers a measure of entertainment. Most importantly, once Rod dies the focus on realistic spelunking goes out the window. After Rod is gone, the story is all fake blood and gore and people running around scared that they are about to become an alien entrée. Almost every character's death is gory and comical due to the copious amounts of bright red stage blood used.

Things I Learned From This Movie:

Spelunking is an important branch of physics.
Everybody in San Diego owns an SUV because the roads suck.
The best part of living on a boat is not having to worry about Jehovah's Witnesses.
Spelunking involves more PVC and rubber than any sexual fetish known to man.
During the 1970s the only way to tell the difference between a man and a woman was the beard.
Stalagmite is Latin for "stone penis."
A sprained ankle takes at least 15 minutes to heal.
In case of emergency, please remain calm and report to the nearest bowling alley for further instructions.

Stuff To Watch For:

2 mins - Punch buggy yellow!
5 mins - Punch buggy blue!
6 mins - Punch buggy yellow!
11 mins - Avery Schreiber?
20 mins - "I screamed 'No!' at her little girl, and she asked me what I wanted. Isn't that weird?"
31 mins - This is the worst music video ever.
33 mins - RANDOM GRATUITOUS BREAST SHOT!
55 mins - Even movies about caves don't have this much cave in them.
74 mins - Everybody must be at the movie theater watching "The Empire Strikes Back."
76 mins - The whole city is deserted...except for that VW microbus, and all of the other cars that are driving in the distance.

Audio clips in wav format

SOUNDS

Starving actors speak out

	File	Dialog
	aliensulla1.wav	Roy (to the TV interviewer): "You know Thelma is telepathic and if something happens she senses it, even at a distance." Roy (to Thelma): "Feeling better now?" Thelma: "Yes."
	aliensulla2.wav	Thelma: "Why? What is it?" Jill: "The stone's moving." Thelma: "What are you talking about?" Jill: "The stone's moving!"
	aliensulla3.wav	Maureen: "What's the matter?" Thelma: "It's horrible! It's that piece of rock Burt's got!" Roy: "Where is Jill?" Thelma: "She's fallen!" Roy: "What do you mean 'fallen?' Where is she?" Thelma: "I don't know! Her face is gone! It's gone! I ran away!"
	aliensulla4.wav	Thelma: "It seemed like a mineral. Yet, it suddenly came alive. Poor Jill." Roy: "Probably what saved you was that it must have sensed you have a stronger mind."
	Theme Song	Listen to a clip from the soundtrack.

Click for a larger image

IMAGES

Scenes from the movie

Watch a scene

VIDEO

MPEG video files

	aliensulla1.mpg - 5.7m
	Maureen and Burt get munched by killer rocks.