Simply Perfect

Lack of good storyline.

To all those who have watched it: I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

Seriously, how hard can it be for an entire group of people to include at least five guys to restrain or kill one psychopath!!?? Some people found this a well-written story with a few problems. It's not well-written, and it has more than a few problems. Some have compared it as a rip-off of the movie Alien, however it came out only the following year. To me it appears to be just a bit of a coincidence, but this comparison is like comparing one of Mozart's piano concertos to chopsticks. The stupidity of the reactions of the crew upon realizing the threat they faced is pretty much like watching a long version of the Keystone Cops, just not as funny. They did everything that they could possibly do wrong and added a few new things that weren't even in the book of wrong things to do.Case in point, you know she has murdered her co-workers brutally, instead of sending every able-bodied man with blunt objects, or any kind of weapon knowing that she's a little on the strong side the commander sends takes the doctor and Sharon to subdue the brutal psychopathic herculean woman killer. As the doctor is struggling with her, Commander Holly McKay stands right behind him during the struggle with a high-powered welding gun triggering it needlessly a few times, just feet behind the doctor. You don't have to be a road scholar to know how this scene is going to end. The person who wrote this, did they have to skip kindergarten that day? This is really bad! Horribly horribly awful! And I'm being polite here. Another of many serious flaws is when the commander knows about the death of Barbara at the hands of Sandy, instead of giving an announcement that Sandy has gone out of her mind and is extremely dangerous her instructions are simply to go back to your rooms and lock the door. I'm not entirely sure but a better suggestion would have been, Sandy has gone nuts, we have to go and find her, everyone get together in pairs and make your way to the command room. That way we may be able to organize a search for the dangerous lunatic. Again, just my suggestion. This is written so badly for scientists they're all ignorant morons if they couldn't see this happening and did nothing plausible to prevent it. Seriously, four or five guys can't take down one pregnant female? Really!?

Exploitation director Norman J. Warren turned his sights away from his more traditional settings, usually remote houses in the countryside, to concentrate on a barren and murky alien planet where hideous things lurked in the shadows. Unfortunately his film actually used the Chislehurst Caves as a setting, cheap perhaps but not entirely convincing. This low-budget ALIEN derivative is definitely worth a watch for those who can take Warren's trademark violence and unpleasantness, but the potential is wasted in favour of too much running about in the dark.The plot starts off well, culminating in a monstrous and deeply unpleasant alien rape sequence, but it all goes downhill from there. The writers didn't seem to know how to carry the premise through and squandered it in favour of having their cast be picked off one by one after obeying the typical conventions of the slasher film, i.e. acting extremely stupidly by splitting up and running down a gloomy corridor. Much of the film, after the initial set up, is merely a series of violent murders, each one different from the last to give some variety. The gore content is high, with a woman being stabbed with a pair of scissors (an image Warren seems rather fond of), somebody sawing their own foot off when it gets jammed, and even some cannibal scenes where stomachs are torn open and intestines torn out.The acting is generally amateurish, with the smaller roles performed by unfamiliar faces who are adequate at delivering their lines but offer no personality or realism to their characters. Robin Clarke, as the hero, gives a rather stilted delivery, but I quite liked him. Stephanie Beacham, nearly a decade on from Dracula AD 1972, has a good role as a tough female crew member but even she is relegated to running around and hanging on the hero's arm at the end of the film. The best performance, though, comes from Judy Geeson, who is excellent as the woman possessed by an alien force and who will stop at nothing to care for her alien offspring. The torment she suffers as she's torn between her human and alien sides is excellent, Natasha Henstridge could have used her as inspiration for her role in SPECIES but sadly didn't. Geeson manages to be sympathetic, and gives a chilling portrayal of evil and madness.Unfortunately the alien creature itself is far too rubbery to be effective. It reminded me of the title design in THE FLY, and quite probably served as an inspiration for it. The alien babies are okay and thankfully only used briefly, so that we don't get time to see how they work. There are some nice low budget explosions and action to keep things moving along, but in the end it all comes down to the fact that we've seen it all before, and this offers little in the way of fresh or new ideas. It's just people running about and being murdered, yet again. INSEMINOID is by no means a particularly bad film, but it's just not particularly good either.

A group of archaeologists on an unnamed planet get more than they bargained for when they unearth some crystals. One crew member immediately dies when exposed to them and soon Sandy (Judy Geeson) finds herself kidnapped and impregnated by an alien. This causes her to have superhuman strength and decide to kill everyone. Totally a bummer for Mark (Robin Clarke), the mission leader and her old boyfriend. My earlier viewing Norman J. Warren's PREY (1978) prompted me to revisit the only Warren film I had seen. I still enjoy this cheap-o ALIEN (1979) clone as it unfolds like a slasher in a space mining camp. Seriously, these characters act just like the thick headed teens in a body count flick, always doing dumb stuff like leaving secure areas. Hell, they fall for the "I'm okay, help me" bit from Sandy twice! It is the kind of movie where someone gets their oxygen helmet opened and instantly fall back with their arms out, gasping for air (hint: use your arms to close the helmet). I also love the bit of tension from a woman whose foot gets caught. She barely attempts to dislodge it, cries when they tell her to connect two wires on her suit and then decides the best course of action is to cut her own foot off. She doesn't make it. The film also answers the age-old question of "which alien pregnancy came first, the INSEMINOID or the XTRO?" It was INSEMINOID, although XTRO topped it in terms of the gross out factor. What is up with you Brits and alien pregnancy?

Britain has produced some great science fiction writers, such as the late Sir Arthur C Clarke, and an iconic science fiction television show, "Doctor Who". Sci-fi, however, has not been something that the British cinema has normally excelled in, although there have been occasional exceptions such as "Village of the Damned" and "Quest for Love". In the late seventies and early eighties, however, sci-fi was all the rage, following the success of "Star Wars", and even the British felt they had to get in on the act. Lack of finance meant that Britain was unable to produce its own big-budget space epics of the "Star Wars" type; that camp, self-mocking parody "Flash Gordon" was about the closest we got. "Inseminoid" is rather based upon another successful American science fiction film of the late seventies, "Alien".A group of interplanetary archaeologists (apparently in the far distant future there will be such an academic discipline) are carrying out a dig on an alien planet, otherwise known as Chislehurst (a dormitory town on the southern edge of London). One of the team, Sandy, is raped and impregnated by an alien creature. (Although the film is set many centuries in the future, all the characters have nice, user-friendly twentieth century English names like Mark, Gary, Sharon and Sandy). Pregnancy seems to change Sandy's character for the worse, because she goes on a homicidal rampage, slaughtering her colleagues one by one in order to feed on their blood. Although Sandy is outnumbered by about ten to one, and although the others have weapons which she lacks, they are unable to combine effectively to overcome her, merely offering themselves up like lambs to the slaughter.In the course of the film we make some interesting discoveries about the planet and its inhabitants, namely:- • Alien males have transparent plastic penises.• The main symptom of pregnancy among alien females is not morning sickness but murderous bloodlust. This possibly explains why their species is on the verge of extinction.• Contrary to what biologists might think, it is quite possible for humanoid life to evolve on a barren planet with temperatures of ninety degrees below zero.• There may be intelligent life in outer space but there is precious little in the British film industry.The film was made on a very low budget, as will be evident from the sets, costumes and props. The only thing director Norman Warren can do to make the exterior scenes look a bit less like Chislehurst is to shoot them through a red filter, although that makes it look as though the characters are moving at the bottom of an ocean of strawberry jam.Low budgets are not necessarily an impossible obstacle in the science-fiction field; the makers of British television series such as "Doctor Who" and "Blake's Seven", and even American ones such as "Star Trek", did not have at their disposal the huge amounts of cash George Lucas spent on "Star Wars". They could, however, sometimes call upon intelligent scripts and decent acting, which is not the case with "Inseminoid". The cast, at least on the female side, includes some relatively well-known names such as Judy Geeson, Stephanie Beacham and Victoria Tennant, none of whom look as though they know what they are doing in a film like this.At its best, science fiction can ask some pertinent questions about how science and technology might possibly develop in the future, and also about the philosophical, ethical and social implications of those developments. At its worst, it is "Plan 9 from Outer Space". On a scale of Ed Wood to Asimov, "Inseminoid" comes very close to the bottom end; it is only the third film I have ever given the minimum mark. The science fiction setting is really no more than an excuse for some video-nasty type gore and mayhem. 1/10.