After accidentally sitting thru' Species III recently then bemoaning the fact that I hadn't yet seen Species IV you'll never guess what turned up on teevee t'other night.
God bless you ITV 2!
Species: The Awakening (AKA Species IV. 2007).Dir: Nick Lyon.
Cast: Ben Cross, Roger Cudney, Helena Mattsson, Dominic Keating and Marlene Favela.
Tefal headed, blonde poppet Miranda (Mattsson, soon to be seen in Iron Man 2) is your normal everyday swotty student. Orphaned when her parents died in a bad smash she lives with her horse faced, doting uncle Tom Hollinder (Cross whose ex-wives must have been begging for extra cash that month), a professor of clever things at the local university.
Miranda it seems is getting very excited for not only are they moving to The England (that's in Europe near France for our American friends) in the summer but she's got a hot date with the gorgeous Ted Sexington that very night!
Nervously combing her hair forward to hide her massive brow, Tom looks on proudly (but not perversely, well not yet) at his niece as she takes those first faltering steps into adulthood.
Aw, sweet.
But this is a Species movie so it comes as no surprise when Tom wakes the next morning to find Miranda's room empty.
Where could she be?
Well, it seems that she's turned up stark bollock naked in a park, unconscious and covered in big green veins a wee bit like a lump of milky white smooth cheese.
Luckily a passing jogger (a blink and miss it cameo from the fantastic Gregg Lucas, who you may remember as the catering assistant on the Vin Diesel epic Pitch Black) finds poor Miranda and carries her to the local hospital.
At least I hope it's local cos her head must weigh about the same as a really big melon.
Fearing the worst (and anxious to get the plot moving) Uncle Tom (no, not this one) rushes to the very same hospital to see if she's there.
Whilst he sweatily drives across town it seems that Miranda has gone all green, gooey and bullet nippled, running round the wards and butchering anyone she comes across in a flurry of cheap CGI carnage.
Which is nice, if a little unexpected this early into the movie.
Tom arrives just in time to find a sweaty Miranda, her ample arse pointing skyward lying face down in the ladies toilet. Quickly injecting her with what looks like washing up liquid he scoops her into his arms, pops her in the back of the car and drives away towards Mexico.
Where it's cheaper to film shite like this obviously.
Waking up on the back seat and confused as to why she's covered in egg, semen and blood Miranda, looking for all the world like a freshly molested kitten demands her uncle tell her what the hell's going on.
With a sharp intake of breath and wearing a face of pure fizz, Tom explains to Miranda that she isn't really his niece and that she is, in fact the last of the three alien/human embryos created all the way back in the original Species.
To be honest this could all be utter tosh because all I remember from the first film is the alien having a wet dream about Michael Madsen (haven't we all?) and the aforementioned actor wandering about with a shitty wee gun whilst sweating like a cornered rapist.
As if suffering from plot point diarrhoea Tom goes on to admit that he sneaks into her room at night to inject her with his 'special serum' to keep her alien half under control but that recently it appears not to be working that well.
No shit.
Anyway, it's not all bad because Tom's old workmate, a piss stained jolly old Oirishman named Forbes (Keating from Enterprise and 80's shit-com Desmonds), may have the answers to whatever it is that's wrong.
Or something.
It's not long before our duo arrive in Mexico and, after booking into a grubby hotel, Tom puts Miranda to bed and heads out into town to look for his old pal. Realising that nothing of any consequence has happened for about 10 minutes a fairly foxy if milky eyed nun (the cheesily cheerful Favela) jumps off a building and lands directly in front of Tom before licking her lips in a provocative manner and pointing her breasts in his general direction.
Tom, a little surprised by these turn of events legs it back to his hotel with the nun (whose name is Azura by the way) giving chase and, after an irritating subplot about her, an old Texan man with horses teeth and a mutant cabbie (not as amusing as it sounds I'm afraid) our hero finally tracks Forbes down to his warehouse lovenest where we're introduced to the greasy little fella as he's gyrating away under Azura whilst shouting "Oh begorah!" a lot.
Finishing his sexy business and wiping his cock on a tea towel, Forbes gives Miranda a thorough once over, discovering that she urgently needs a blood transfusion from a human lady to curb her alien-ness.
Yup, makes perfect scientific sense to me.
Forbes suggests they go kidnap a woman and perform the operation right now.
After a fair amount of macho posturing and heated argument Tom gives in and heads off to the local discotheque in order to find a donor.
Dancing like your dad at a wedding and drinking sherry by the bucketful, Tom quickly pulls a pure local stunner but having about as much luck on first dates as Phil Spector does It isn’t long before she has him pinned to a wall with his trousers down and threatening to shove a steak knife up his arse.
Luckily Azura comes to the rescue, knocking the woman unconscious and carrying her back to the car ready for her to feel Forbes little prick.
Of his needle that is.
Forbes and Tom (sweatily) complete the transfusion and just like in the other Species movies, Miranda cocoons herself into a giant wet leathery testicle, waiting to be reborn.
flopping suggestively out of the heaving ballsack and covered in slime, Miranda strides confidently over to Tom and Forbes, her shoddily moulded alien cheese nipples glistening in the moonlight and demands some of the sex.
Beware the stare of Subo!
Will they find Miranda before it's too late?
Too late for what I'm not sure.
Will she and Azura go head to head in a rubber suited slimy alien lesbian shagfest?
Or will mankind be destroyed by an ever increasing army of extra terrestrial shag whores?
Admit it, even a quick titfuck would kill you.
I hate to admit it but Species: The Awakening is by far the best chapter in this whole sorry saga, gone is the cod seriousness that blighted part one and the rather unpleasant air of misogyny that permeated the second film is no more and by ignoring the continuity wankfest that was part three The Awakening comes across as more of a relaunch than a bona fide sequel, dragging the ultimately 'B' movie premise (sexy aliens want to shag and kill you!) kicking and screaming from A list land to the silicon enhanced, dirty back alleys of direct to DVD Avenue.
Right where it should be.
Everything about the film is a constant; the acting from everyone involved is uniformly bad as are the effects, fake breasts and even faker accents but in context you'd be disappointed were it otherwise. Obviously it never reaches the dizzy heights of such scifi/horror hybrids as the fantastic Contamination or even Xtro, if you have a wee boy in the family (or living nearby or even that you chat to online whilst pretending to be a 14 year old girl) this is the perfect introduction to the genre we call 'shite-fi'.
Hats of to director Lyon (who, according to that bastion of truth the IMDB, enjoys painting, sculpting, writing, music, theatre, photography, philosophy and even performance art) and the fact that he's not half the tortured artist or cinematic genius he thinks he is.
Can I just add tho', before I sign off, that although I appear to have made out that this film is in fact not too bad and, gulp, fairly enjoyable it is at the end of the week a pile of utter shite.
Phew, glad that's sorted.
First of all, I think I might have peed a little at that Nun still.
ReplyDeleteSecond, this film sounds absolutely brilliant!!!!!
Quality review sir.
The Species franchise should be shown at Film schools instead of the usual suspects like 'Kane', "Psycho' and '...with the wind" (creak) as shining examples of how to film everything RIGHT!!!!
Clearly deep and intellectual films that only improve with age and like an onion skin, reveal even more rewarding layers that only the most sharp and astute scholars will latch onto, I, Barry Norman can highly recommend this fantastic fourth Installment as an essential entry in this overwhelmingly inspiring series of frankly stunning works and one can only hope that the franchise continues into numbers reaching into quattuordecillions. Thumbs up!!!