Alien 2 Sulla Terra (1980)
AKA: Alien 2
AKA: Alien 2 è sulla terra
AKA: Alien 2 On Earth
AKA: Alien Terror
AKA: Strangers

(Release Date: April 11, 1980 [Italy])

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J.C. Maçek III The World's Greatest Critic! Having had the Acid scared out of them by the original Alien, my parents bought the original Beta VCR tape of that flick way, way back when such a concept was as alien as that cassette's subject matter. This became my first ever R-Rated film and probably my first horror film... unless you count Mary Poppins. I was six years old. I didn't sleep a full night again till I was 8. And now, after all this time, look how I turned out! I forgive you, Mom and Dad! Regardless, Alien became a staple of my viewing habits growing up. I must have watched it 10 times before I was as many years old, and heaven knows how many by the time I reached (chronological) adulthood. One of those many times was around the year 1984, two years before Aliens (the first of several Alien sequels) was released. When my old friend Shadrach showed up to hang with the young me, I suggested we watch Alien if he hadn't yet seen it. His response was that he hadn't but that he'd seen the second one. Wait just a cotton pickin'... SECOND one? No way! I'd known Alien like a sibling for half my life at that point. There wasn't a second one! Shad was vehement that there was. "Alien 2!", he insisted. He proceeded to give me a synopsis, something along the lines of "These worms came down here from outer space and ate people... it was good!" I checked with my Dad. He didn't believe it. I didn't believe it, and Shad was surprised at how much different the first Alien had been from the second. Part of the 2006 Summer of Horror! Yeah, probably because there wasn't a second. Not for another two years anyway, and Aliens, sure as Xenomorph blood is caustic, had nothing to do with interstellar worms visiting planet Earth. Shad was clearly off his dot and as confused as Terry McAuliffe on Meet the Press. Or so we thought. Turns out we were both right... conditionally. In the year 1980 there was indeed released a film called Alien 2 (also known as Alien Terror and any number of other things). And to a kid, this movie might be considered to be about "worms from space." However, this flick is most assuredly not some lost entry into the Alien franchise. No... in the tradition of unofficial Italian-made sequels (see also Zombi 2's cash in on Dawn of the Dead), piss poor Italian "filmmaker" Ciro Ippolito (who makes Fulci look like Fellini) pissed out this squirt of exploitative hogwash onto the low-hanging fruit of the wombs of lesser Grindhouse cinemas in the hopes of reeling in the trusting fans of better flicks. But watching Alien 2, I can't see how anyone could ever get this even vaguely confused with Ridley Scott's Sci-Fi/ Horror masterpiece. Watching Alien 2 is less a grippingly realistic experiment in otherworldly terror, and more an intestine voiding experience in passing a stone. There is no confusing these flicks. This movie sucks earwax sculptures through a dry bong. It's seven kinds of warmed-over terrible! How terrible, you ask? Well... it's sometimes sold, if you can find it, as a double feature with Nightmare City! That's right... It takes second billing to Nightmare City! Isn't that pretty much like saying "I'm almost as good a business manager as Jeffrey Skilling.", or "One day we'll be as popular a car company as Renault!"? Viewing this turkey, I wasn't all that surprised. I'll be dipped in whip and whipped with a broken antenna if this isn't an even worse movie than Nightmare City. This is not a movie. This is a collection of long, drawn-out sequences that seem like old Ippolito didn't realize he'd left the camera running, laced together with the rare and dull scene of anti-intellectual dialogue and badly special effected action. Let's see, we've got... The driving sequence (which excites us to the turn-by-turn journey of a seventies station wagon all through the town) The rowing sequence (during which ol' Ciro treats us to every stroke of an old man's paddling adventure in a straight line from his yacht to the shore... THANK YOU!) The rock climbing sequence (which shows us people climbing rocks... a lot) The bowling sequence (yes, we get to thrill to a bunch of people we don't like rolling a black ball at a few white bats) And who could forget the amazing walking sequence (featuring actors putting their feet in front of their other feet, shifting their weight, repeating with the aft foot and actually making progress across a surface of some kind). If you miss any of these indispensable sequences, or are interrupted by the "plot", simply sit there a few minutes... most of these repeat themselves to really bring home the points of driving, rowing, climbing, bowling and walking! It was almost cute how interspersed between these segments Ciro (who also wrote this joke) tried to stab at a plot. A precognitive psychic spelunker (yes, you read that right, no I didn't make that up) appears, for no apparent reason on a news special about the latest crew of Astronauts returning to Earth. Yeah, because nothing says "interstellar travel" like cave exploration. They're both dark. I'll give them that. During the live airing of the show, our leading lady (Belinda Mayne's pectorally gifted Thelma) has a horribly horrifying horrible vision (I'm guessing that she's going to appear in a terrible movie) and passes out. To make sure there are no surprises, Thelma, her boyfriend Roy (Mark Bodin), their friends Burt (Michele Soavi) and Maureen (Judy Perrin), and a whole bunch of homogeneous and forgettable characters, who seem as interchangeable as Legos, all decide to go explore a cave somewhere. But first they must bowl. And drive... and walk... and then they may get lucky enough to climb!!! After about fourteen hours of screen time (I think), a stupid looking rock (supposedly brought back from the ill-fated space mission Ciro paid almost no lip service to, but somehow found outside a gas station bathroom) turns out to be one of those creepy trap-door eggs from Alien and a lame substitute for a "Face Hugger" jumps out all over one of our hapless heroines. Man, what good is a precognitive psychic spelunker if she's not going to pay attention to ESP warnings of cave danger. You asked for this, Thelma! To separate this ever-so-greatly from the original and GOOD Alien and to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that this is indeed just another Italian Giallo schlock flick, the monster doesn't burst out of this character's chest as any good chestburster should. No, it bursts out of her face, taking the sweet time to pop her eyeball. Uncle Lucio must be so proud. However, speaking of "Chest Bursting", our sweet lead Belinda does treat us to a fantastic, if brief, topless scene, that beat out any special effect this motley crew could have ever thrown at us. In fact, Belinda Mayne's breasts comprise the only scene in this entire film worth watching. And THAT is the sequence that Ciro Ippolito cut short. What is he a Puritain? As for everything else, if you've seen any bad Italian schlock rip-offs, you can guess the rest. Yeah, there's the eye-popping, the head exploding, the bad dubbing, the ridiculous homage scenes, and yes, Director Ciro Ippolito even takes on an American sounding pseudonym. Sorry, Ciro, the name Sam Cromwell is even less convincing than your special effects. Speaking of which, the special effects are anything but special or effective. The idea of "scary" here is to have some bad keyboard music (by The Oliver Onions because they couldn't afford The Goblins) accompany someone with tomato soup smeared on their face, while someone else screams and the camera zooms in on the fussy eater. The "Alien" is less Xenomorph than Zero-Morph! Man, that Chest Burster... oh, sorry, EYE BURSTER... looked like a Muppet with matted-down fur. It was almost as scary as Jar Jar Binks. Almost. The only thing worse is the ending. I'd call it "ambiguous", but that would imply that I give two shits what the fate of these characters, or the intentions of Ciro Ippolito's vision ever was, would be or could have been. When the words "You could be Next!" filled the screen, I figured, you know, that would be fine, man... because then I'd be dead and I'd never have to watch horse shit like this again. Alien Terror indeed. Alien TERRIBLE, maybe! Wow, twenty-two years to prove a point and this is my reward? And I was STILL wrong? I'm glad I didn't bet Shad any money. Hell, with interest we'd be looking at... Well, more than the budget of this accident in the short pants of Cinema. Aside from Belinda's Boobies, the one redeeming quality about Alien 2 I can mention is that it makes Alien 3 seem like a better movie. Hell, Alien 3 is an unadulterated masterpiece compared to this vomitous mass. Alien 2 Sulla Terra, or Alien 2: On Earth or what ever you want to call it is a DOG!!! That's right, the Italian Exploitation flick about menacing worms form beyond the stars gets NO STARS by ANY name!!! If I ever see Shad again I'm going to punch him right in the nose for claiming this steaming cow pie was "good". Man, these horrible rip offs and unofficial sequels! Ach! Man! What a taint to otherwise unblemished legacies. And for those of you who think this sort of garbage is finally over, let me shamefully point you toward the Bloody Murder franchise. At least those jackasses have the decency to rip off already bad movies. Oooh, I'm mad! Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to strike up a deal with GPS, Ciro's silly Italian movie studio. I'm going to try to pitch my idea for Alien 5. So far all I've got is some footage of me sleeping that got taped when I accidentally left my VHS camcorder running, but apparently that's what GPS calls a hell of a start. See you in the next pilfered reel.