Alien – Die Saat des Grauens kehrt zurück (1980)

Alien – Die Saat des Grauens kehrt zurück: Directed by Ciro Ippolito, Biagio Proietti. With Belinda Mayne, Mark Bodin, Roberto Barrese, Benedetta Fantoli. A spaceship lands back on Earth after a failed mission, but the astronauts have been replaced by hideous creatures that can penetrate people’s bodies and make them explode. A group of cave explorers are attacked by the monsters inside an underground cave, but the survivors are in for a surprise when they finally manage to escape the trap…

“Theyu0026#39;ve got some nerve calling this film Alien 2: although certain elements have clearly been inspired by Ridley Scottu0026#39;s 1979 sci-fi horror classic, the film as a whole couldnu0026#39;t be more different…u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWant tense, claustrophobic, space-bound, futuristic action? Not a chance. Sulla Terra, the filmu0026#39;s subtitle, translates as On Earth, meaning that the film takes place on (present day) Earth, and under its surface in an admittedly impressive looking cavern. Unfortunately, this means we get endless tedious footage of the characters wandering around the cave, the director so preoccupied by the wonderful rock formations that he forgets all about telling a coherent story, throwing in such random nonsense as a telepathic speleologist just for the hell of it.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eLooking forward to seeing a cool alien creature? Sorry. This filmu0026#39;s extraterrestrial starts off as a blue rock, turns into a red hand puppet in a moment that rips off Alienu0026#39;s chest-burster (although I admit that the face-burster scene is pretty cool), and finally becomes a mass of indistinguishable and very unconvincing tentacle thingies.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eExpecting ground-breaking special effects? No dice. This is a low-budget Italian production, so all we get is some grainy stock footage for scenes involving a space mission returning to Earth, and some cheap gore. Thankfully, the latter is pretty juicy: the aforementioned face-burster sees the victimu0026#39;s eyeball pushed from its socket before the creature erupts; one of the cavers has his head chewed off, the severed noggin (complete with assorted giblets) falling onto the rocks below with a satisfying u0026#39;thudu0026#39;; and another guyu0026#39;s head explodes to reveal thrashing tentacles.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eWhat about a thrilling finalé? I donu0026#39;t think so! After a couple of encounters with the creature, the last pair of survivors emerge from the cave to discover that the planet is totally deserted, with the exception of the alien, which chases them around for a while, director Ciro Ippolito employing dreadful alien POV shots. Eventually, Ippolito becomes as bored with proceedings as his viewers undoubtedly are, abruptly ending his film with a caption warning the audience u0026quot;You may be next!u0026quot;. Itu0026#39;s a lousy way to wrap up a fairly dismal film which is barely worth enduring for the gore (and a bit of gratuitous topless nudity from star Belinda Mayne).”