contamination

Contamination is sort of like what you’d get if David Cronenberg had been born in Italy, honed his craft slightly less assiduously, and elected to make an extra-gooey knock-off of Ridley Scott’s Alien, rather than Videodrome (the original working title was Alien Arrives on Earth, for those who chafe at any hint of mystery in their movie marketing). The 1980 sci-fi/horror hybrid is best described as a liquefied form of cinema; the bodily fluids are so tactile, it feels as if you could run your index finger across the screen and it would come away slightly sticky.  

A seemingly abandoned cargo ship drifts into New York Harbor. NYPD Lieutenant Tony Aris (a cheesy Marino Masé, who seems to be playing the character as some sort of winsome ladykiller, but has the exaggerated body language of an Italian Michael Richards) heads aboard with a team of scientists, only to discover a graphically dispatched crew and crates of Colombian coffee filled with pulsating, avocado-like eggs. When the eggs rupture, they belch a gelatinous fluid that means instant death… as we discover when the scientists immediately begin to paint the walls of the ship’s hold with their insides, their chest cavities bursting with impressive chunks of candy-red viscera.

At this point one might be sorely tempted to anoint Contamination a masterpiece of low-budget splatter, but this opening sequence generates a tone of gonzo fervor that the rest of the film frankly struggles to live up to. Aris, the lone survivor, is brought before Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau), who believes the eggs are extraterrestrial in origin and potentially connected to a recent expedition to Mars. Commander Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch, from Fulci’s Zombi 2) testified to having seen similar-looking eggs in an ice cavern, but when his fellow astronaut Hamilton (Siegfried Rauch) refused to corroborate the story, he was discredited and descended into a haze of alcoholic bitterness. Nonetheless, he reluctantly agrees to accompany Holmes and Aris on a mission to South America, where the cargo shipment’s been traced back to a coffee plantation that requires first-hand investigating.

Contamination was directed by Luigi Cozzi (credited under his less ethnically-threatening pseudonym “Lewis Coates”), who knows his way around a derivative piece of shlock. More drawn to science-fiction and fantasy than the graphic slashers that were in particular vogue in Italy during the 1970s, he eventually helmed the low-budget space opera (and rather obvious Star Wars knockoff) Starcrash, which remains his nominal claim-to-fame (a proposed sequel bankrolled by Cannon Films and starring Klaus Kinski failed to materialize). Cozzi’s hilariously blunt assessment of the Italian film industry - suggesting producers only care which successful film you’re aspiring to rip off - speaks volumes. And yet, even though he’s basically subsisting on cinematic scraps compared to his Hollywood brethren, there is a steady pulse of ingenuity to his craft. Having collaborated with Dario Argento early in his career (and having subsequently directed the stylish thriller The Killer Must Kill Again), Cozzi draws on his giallo influences, specifically when a terrified Holmes finds herself trapped in the bathroom with one of the eggs - throbbing like a translucent time bomb… a drawn-out sequence of deliberately calibrated suspense (upraised by a Paleolithic score courtesy of prog-rockers Goblin, because what self-respecting Italian film *didn’t* have a Goblin score back then?). ​

That particular set piece is a stand-out in an otherwise drowsy second act, but Contamination finds its footing with its deliriously gory climax… Cozzi unveiling his pièce de résistance - an alien cyclops that looks an awful lot like a sentient piece of broccoli (it's not exactly ripped from the imagination of HR Giger, but its particular shade of dark green rubber proves strangely reminiscent of the “Beastmonster” hand puppet that came with the Masters of the Universe “Fright Zone” playset, back in 1985). The creature (a not-quite-triumph of animatronics) is using its mental influence to distribute the eggs across the planet, as part of a larger, more insidious plot to wipe out humanity. Cozzi does his best to hold the frayed story together - producer Claudio Mancini reportedly insisted on more of a James Bond-type vibe, which is why the movie never seems to steer as strongly into its sci-fi trappings as it should. The acting is stiff, with McCulloch and Marleau mostly imitating human cardboard. But as was often the case with the Italian splatter subgenre, liberal helpings of exploding guts wallpaper over a lot of narrative cracks. Contamination is no classic, but by god… it does deliver exploding guts. Nobody can take that away from it.