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Released by: One 7 Movies
Released on: 3/8/2011
Director: Antonio Margheritti (as Anthony Dawson)
Cast: Charles Napier, Maria Giulia Cavalli, Daniel Bosch, Robert Marius, Luciano Pigozzi
Year: 1989
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The Movie:
The cover art for Alien From The Deep might lead you to believe that this is one of the many Italian Alien/Aliens rip offs made during the eighties, and to a certain extent that'd be true, but this one throws in some jungle scenes, lots of snakes, and a snarling Charles Napier to make for an all together different sort of movie.
The film follows an environmentalist with bad pants named Jane (Maria Giulia Cavalli credited as Julia McKay for some reason) and her cohort/cameraman Lee (Robert Marius) as they narrowly avoid being killed by a helicopter owned by the E-Chem Corporation. You see, the E-Chem Corporation is up to no good - they're dumping barrels of radioactive waste into an active volcano on a remote island somewhere in the… ocean (they don't say which one) and Jane and Lee are not cool with this. They aim to expose them, but E-Chem's main dude, Colonel Kovacks (Charles Napier) isn't going to let that happen on his watch.
Our heroes make it to the island where they're chased by Kovacks' machine gun touting lackeys. Lee is captured but Jane is saved by a guy named Bob (Daniel Bosch) who lives inside what appears to be a hollowed out school bus somewhere deep in the jungle and who makes his living as a snake squeezer. That is, he catches snakes and squeezes out their venom and sells it to pharmaceutical companies. At any rate, after he peeps at Jane in the shower, they decide to go rescue Lee but to do that they'll have to fight a bunch of guys with guns and matching outfits. Thankfully, the snakes are on their side. Lee, however, is not so lucky. Sure, they find him and it looks like they're going to be able to save him but eventually a gigantic black claw comes out of the ground from the volcano below and fucks him up good. At this point, it's very obvious that there's a giant alien-crab-monster-robot thing out and about and that it wants to kill everybody, especially Charles Napier.
Produced by frequent Bruno Mattei collaborator Franco Gaudenzi, Alien From The Deep is cheap Italian crap of the highest order but I'll be damned if it isn't a whole lot of fun. Margheriti's penchant for exploding miniatures and models is in full swing here and his knack for shooting reasonably exciting action scenes is put to good use, even if said scenes don't make much sense and aren't at all necessary to the plot. The final reveal of the monster is a good one, and if our titular critter borrows a little bit from Giger's designs for Ridley Scott, so be it - at least he's got a gigantic claw to set him apart. The movie isn't particularly gory but it does have some awesome scenes where snakes somehow take down a small army of guys with M-16s and frequent use of the word 'balls' scattered throughout (seriously, take a drink any time anyone says 'BALLS' in this movie - you might not get hammered but you'll catch a good buzz and that counts for a lot). Throw in a lot of helicopters, a jive talking black dude who sells Lee a dingy for a thousand bucks, flamethrowers, and lots of caves and you've got yourself one hell of a film, even if it doesn't really seem to have any aliens in it per se, nor does it take place in the deep (if it had, maybe there'd be an alien in it).
If you've made it this far and are proud to own films like Contamination, Mutant or Alien Prey then it's probably a pretty safe bet that this one will be up your alley. Don't take it too seriously and drink/smoke your way through it and there's no way you won't have a good time with this irredeemable piece of Eurotrash.
Video/Audio/Extras:
Alien From The Deep looks about as good as the fullframe tape source used for this transfer will allow. It is sometimes a bit too dark, but the image is at least reasonably clean and clear throughout. Softness is an issue throughout, and detail is only going to look as good as the materials that the transfer was culled from permit but considering the source, the picture is watchable enough. The compositions don't actually suffer much at all from the fullframe presentation, though it's probably a safe bet that this isn't the film's original aspect ratio.
You've got the option of watching the film in either an English language or an Italian language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track, though frustratingly enough, there are no English subtitles provided for the Italian track. Both tracks are fine, quality wise, if a bit flat here and there but the lack of English subtitles for most of the Italian track is obviously a big dumb strike against this disc. In regards to the English track, there are some scenes where you might notice some warbling in the dialogue. It's not bad enough to ruin the experience, but it's there.
Extras are slim, though there is an Italian language opening/closing credits sequence (also taken from a VHS source) provided as well as a decent sized poster and still gallery provided alongside the static menu and chapter selection options.
The Final Word:
Alien From The Deep is awful… awfully entertaining that is! It doesn't make a whole lot of sense and the presentation on this DVD kind of stinks but where else are you going to see a pretty blonde in mom jeans team up with a snake squeezer named Bob to fight Charles Napier and a giant crab-robot-monster thing? Throw in some of those exploding miniatures that Margheriti is known for, frequent use of the word 'balls' and some side-boob action and you can see how this one comes up a winner.
