HNUM²

“No, it isn’t over, god damn it. If one of those monsters happen to get here you won’t be able to say this hearing is over! And all this bullshit that you think is so important, will only be able to use to wipe your ass.”

Ever wondered what James Cameron’s Aliens would have been like if it was directed by someone without much talent?
What’s that you say?  No?  You know already?
Ah, you must have seen Carnosaur 2, then.

OK, ever wondered what James Cameron’s Aliens would have been like if it was directed by someone without much talent and starred zombies in place of the xenomorphs?

Yes?  Well, read on.

I went into this movie knowing nothing about it other than who directed it.  Expecting some cheesey bad/good laughs, the first 5 minutes didn’t disappoint.  Most of the laughs coming from the blatant Aliens ripoff.  Little did I know at the time that there would be more to follow.  A lot more.
I almost couldn’t believe it when the next scene was a generic brand version of the board room interrogation scene, with the star to “Maintain, for unknown reasons the ‘Dark Star’ was washed up on an unexplored island” and there being “No evidence to suggest there even exists such an island.” All with the stats of the ships crew being projected on a screen behind her.
Next comes the Carter Burke scene…  Sorry, the Paul Barker scene, where he explains the loss of communication with the people who were sent to examine the site. And the subsequent offer of work. The nightmare. The agreeing to go back.

I could go on listing the scenes that are badly ripped off.  But there’s no need.  There isn’t really much that isn’t lifted from Aliens.  Which to me made it kinda hard to enjoy, even on an “Unintentionally bad” level.  When you’re hearing the Hudson-lite hoping that “those Zombies left us some hot babes to rescue ajiggy jiggy” You’re longing for some juicy colonists daughters.  And when he feels “Secure, right?  The captain is on his way”  You can’t help but wish he was feeling “safer already.”  I can’t help thinking that they missed a perfect opportunity to use the line “Shit, we just lost our last life, man.  Insert another quarter to continue.”  Way better than “Game Over, man” and if Bruno Mattei hadn’t unfortunately passed away (He’s making cheap Italian ripoffs at the big cheap ripoff movie factory in the sky, now) I’d shoot him an e-mail suggesting a re-dub to feature that line.

I just hope that next time I’m watching Aliens, I can keep the memories of this out of my mind.  I don’t want to be wondering how the movie would have turned out if Newt was actually a mutant zombie with an eyeball growing out of the top of her head.  Or how awesome it would have been if the Alien Queen was a sort of brain-thing and the offspring were some king of naked mutant zombie coneheads.

There are still some funny moments.  Like when the voice actors lines appear to have been edited to keep the lip-synching as close as possible, leaving an almost stuttering effect.  And when the actors act in slow motion instead of doing it in post production.  And the watch that doubles as a motion detector and, with absolutely nothing to distinguish it from the detection of motion, a way to pick up the captain and the others’ “not dead” weak signal, but they are too few and far between to recommend this to anyone who might get a laugh out of this kind of movie.  I guess you still might find it funny.  It is bad. So bad it could be funny but as I said earlier, the closeness to Aliens seemed to strip it of its chomedy.