Lightning
Home Video | Review by Dan Taylor
In
the near future, the race for commercial
supremacy of space has come down to two
companies: Richter Dynamics of West Germany
and NTI of the United States. As the film
opens, two guys from NTI who have never
seen ALIEN are inspecting a large box they
have found at a site:
GUY #1: "It's a skeleton of
something."
GUY #2: "Whatever's in here
has probably been dead a hundred centuries."
CYNICAL FAN WHO SAW ALIEN: "Then
again, maybe it's going to thrust it's slimy
tentacles into your spine and paint the
inside of your helmet crimson red."
After this suspense-filled
opening we're thrown into another in the
long line of ALIEN rip-offs which came down
the pike in the early 80s. CREATURE has
the distinction of being one of the more
entertaining ones.
THE MISSION: Claim
a geological site of alien origin. Now that
doesn't sound tooooo dangerous does
it? Well, don't ask the psychic chick, 'cause
she has "bad feelings" about the
trip. How bad???
PSYCHIC CHICK: "I'm
not coming back."
HER LOVER: "Of course you are."
PSYCHIC CHICK: "No, I'm not.
I can feel it. Make love to me. Please."
END OF DISCUSSION!!!
And so, the doomed crew (whoops!
did I spoil anything?) sets off with all
of the required stereotypes on board. Davidson
is the tough-as-nails ship's pilot. The
navigator is the woman who just wants to
be treated like any other guy and not like
a breast-sporting hunk o' love. Perkins
is the NTI employed mission commander who
usually plays a cop or an FBI agent. Brice
is the leather-wearin', gun-totin', silent
wench from Hell who looks like she could
suck the chrome off a trailer hitch, but
never got close enough to any man to try.
Along for the ride are the usual characters
who should simply be listed in the credits
as "Alien Chum."
Once the mission reaches the
designated planet and the crew disembarks
onto the soundstage with flashing lights,
er, I mean the surface of the planet, they
come across two mutilated bodies and one
freshly-killed crew member. Do we turn back
and go to our ship? No, but then again,
the scenes on the planet and in the ship
are so poorly lit that we can't even make
out what they're afraid of. For all we know
it could simply be Ernest Borgnine in a
strapless evening gown...Ew! that actually
is kind of scary.
By this point we all know
what is going to happen (that is, if you've
seen ALIEN, ALIENS, GALAXY OF TERROR, FORBIDDEN
WORLD, etc.) and we're chomping at the bit
for a little of the Double K action...and
our prayers are soon answered as the Kinkster
comes up behind the leather babe, grabs
a breast and says, "I see you like
guns. What else do you like?"
K2, as Hans "Rudy"
Hofner tells the crew that he was originally
aboard a ship with 22 crew members, but
now it's just him. Then again, if I was
a shape-shifting creature with (as K2 puts
it) "zoom kind uv collactive intelligence"
I wouldn't go near him either.
At this point, Kinski teams
up with the now-dwindling NTI expedition,
and we viewers begin to ask ourselves some
questions: One...Is Kinski the alien? Two...Would
you trust Kinski even if he wasn't
the alien? Three... Why do all the chicks
look alike? Four...If you take 24 Vivarin
at once, will you stay awake for the rest
of your life, or will your brain simply
shut down and mutate you into a cross between
Iggy Pop and those guys at the bus station
who drink kosher wine from a paper sack?
From here on out CREATURE
is a rocking & rolling humans vs. aliens
tale as we get mutilations, mutations, exploding
heads, a lounge lizard Kinski-creature,
a rip-off of the ending of THE THING, and
a finale that nearly borders on imaginative
B-filmmaking.
The acting all around is pretty
wooden (especially from the guy who plays
Perkins), with only K2 attempting to breathe
some life into lines like "This creature
is sly..."
Then again, the script by
director William Malone and Alan Reed doesn't
give anyone much to do while they sit around
and wait to get turned into a face-sucking
sack of shit. Gets the nod just for having
a sense of fun and Kinski.
