aka Alien Terror/Strangers
Thelma is a mildly attractive spelunking enthusiast with psychic powers… no, I’m not having a stroke… and these powers would explain why she zones out during an interview at a local news station. A zoned out guest, holding her head in pain doesn’t lead to good television and the program is cut short as Thelma looks on like me whenever someone attempts to talk politics. The psychic occurrence is sparked by a returning space capsule. A returning space capsule that is found to be worryingly empty. That’ll be important for later. Trust me. So, following the disastrous interview, Thelma, her boyfriend (and lost Gibb brother) Roy and her gang of friends who could not be any more “Italian Horror Film Group Of Youngsters” head out for their weekend cave-diving trip. You don’t have to be a psychic to be a spelunking enthusiast, apparently. They make a couple stops along the way. Stop one is a beach so one of their number can pick up some candles he ordered from Italy (I too buy all my Italian candles from beachfront stores) but this is mostly done so Thelma can have another episode while she walks along the beach, managing to freak out a mother sunbathing as her daughter plays in the water. The gang leaves and the little girl discovers a strange looking rock that’s breathing… something I don’t believe rocks should be doing. Soon after, mother comes across her daughter sitting perfectly still and lightly whimpering. Sounding like she may have slightly scrapped her knee or something, the mother is quite shocked to find her daughter’s face torn off. Impressive pain endurance on this child, I’ll tell you that much. We leave old hamburger face to get back with our group of spelunking goobers. They stop at a general store to grab some supplies and change into their gear, it’s also where the candle-buying dork, Burt, finds another strange rock and hands it off to Thelma who throws it in her backpack. That’ll be important later. Now, I’ve never dived a cave or shimmied my way in between rocks under the earth so I have no interest in spelunking. The filmmakers obviously had a major interest in this hobby because they spend an inordinate amount of time feasting on the details of cave exploration. It may be a blast to take part in but trust me when I say that watching minimally attractive Italian people take part in the experience like it’s far more interesting than slimy alien-rock-things mutilating Italian flesh is an ass-numbing experience. My ass being thoroughly numbed, the rock boogers finally attack (never place a pulsating alien that looks like a rock in your travel bag) after what feels like nearly ten hours of spelunking. Thank the spaghetti nightmare gods they do away with these derps in an excessively messy way. After thinning the heard, Thelma (whose psychic abilities have proven to be beneficial just not at all to her dead friends) and Gus escape the caves and run to the safest place in the world… a bowling alley. Wait. These fucking dopes. The lack of populace should have been a dead giveaway that something has gone wrong and when a fully formed alien creature shows itself, we get the vibe that earth may be doomed. There are aspects of this film that are trash bliss but man does this movie not give two fucks about keeping you interested when it’s not wallowing in its more exploitative elements. Bowling, suiting up for cave exploration, cave exploration, waiting for people and a form of conversing with friends that feels like cut and pasted bits of dialogue from several scripts that have nothing to do with each other may just fry your brain before having the chance to appreciate the fun stuff. I pity anyone who actually had so little going on in their cranium that they went into this thinking it was actually a sequel to Ridley Scott’s masterpiece. Bring a blanket, get some sleep… you’re going to get some sleep before the alien gullet POV (maybe it’s the creature’s butthole? I don’t know the physiology) climax leads to the usual “Fuck you for watching” denouement.
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