Contamination (film)
Encyclopedia
Contamination is a 1980 science fiction
horror film
directed by Luigi Cozzi
and starring Ian McCulloch
.
, seemingly abandoned. The ship is discovered to be carrying large containers of coffee, hidden inside of which are a series of football-sized green eggs. The crew sent in to explore the ghost ship find the mutilated remains of the former crew gathered in one place, and they soon discover the reason why: when heated up enough, the green eggs explode, spraying a viscous liquid over everything. The liquid is toxic to living creatures, and causes the body to immediately explode.
The military's answer to this phenomenon is Colonel Stella Holmes (Marleau
). She establishes a link between the green eggs and a recent mission to Mars that ended badly for the two astronauts who descended to the planet. One of them disappeared, and the other, Commander Hubbard (McCulloch
), had a breakdown and subsequently became an alcoholic. When pressed, Hubbard agrees to help Holmes in her investigation of the insidious plot to bring the deadly eggs to Manhattan, and it takes them, along with sarcastic New York cop Tony Aris (Masé
), to a Colombian coffee plantation
. All is not as it seems; Hubbard's former astronaut colleague is apparently alive and well and living under the influence of a monstrous alien cyclops, which is using mind control to further its plot to flood the world with the green eggs and wipe out human life on Earth.
, Luigi Cozzi
wanted to follow it up with another science fiction film. On seeing Ridley Scott
's film Alien
his producer decided he wanted Cozzi to make something similar.
Due to budgetary constraints Cozzi decided to set the film on Earth, although retaining the ideas of the alien eggs and a large creature from Scott's film, and duly wrote a script called Alien Arrives on Earth.
Producer Claudio Mancini wanted to use the name Contamination, which had been the working title for an aborted film he had been developing based on the Jane Fonda
film The China Syndrome
. The name was duly changed against Cozzi's wishes, with the producer also insisting on Cozzi developing more James Bond
style elements as opposed to his science fiction theme.
The film's production offices were in the same building as those used by the makers of Zombi 2
and, impressed by the profits that film had made, Cozzi decided to try to hire the same cast members, although ultimately Ian McCulloch
was the only actor to come on board. Cozzi wanted to use Caroline Munro
(who had been featured in Starcrash) as Colonel Holmes but once again the producer over-ruled him and hired an older actress Louise Marleau
instead. (Caroline Munro later worked with Cozzi again in his 1989 opus "De Profundis".)
Contamination was shot in five weeks, three weeks in Rome and then a further two weeks split between location shooting in New York City
, Florida
and Colombia
.
Cozzi had wanted to use animation or stop motion
photography to realise the alien cyclops at the film's climax but was once again over-ruled by the producer and an animatronic version was constructed instead. Cozzi subsequently claimed that this creature failed to work properly and would barely move, so he had to use rapid jump cuts to hide the fact that it was being pulled about by stagehands.
, Contamination (as it is known in the United Kingdom
) was classed as a video nasty
. Specifically, the film includes graphic depictions of human bodies exploding violently in slow motion, as well as the grisly remains of such explosions. While the explosion effects are not technically graphic (each of the exploding victims is encased in some kind of bulky costume that is obviously hiding the mechanism that sprays the gore), they are extremely bloody.
Years later the BBFC
classified the uncut version with a 15 certificate. It was released on video in the United States under titles Alien Contamination and Toxic Spawn, which are heavily edited. It is now available in the US in an unedited version which has been released on DVD.
Thematically, the film makes some rather obvious references to 1979's Alien
, in the use of small football-sized eggs and human bodies exploding. In some countries, the film was marketed under the title "Contamination: Alien on Earth", which has caused some to confuse this film with the similarly titled Alien 2: On Earth. Contamination includes a large spider-like creature called "The Cyclops", an alien who is responsible for the creation of the murderous green eggs.
Science fiction film
Science fiction film is a film genre that uses science fiction: speculative, science-based depictions of phenomena that are not necessarily accepted by mainstream science, such as extraterrestrial life forms, alien worlds, extrasensory perception, and time travel, often along with futuristic...
horror film
Horror film
Horror films seek to elicit a negative emotional reaction from viewers by playing on the audience's most primal fears. They often feature scenes that startle the viewer through the means of macabre and the supernatural, thus frequently overlapping with the fantasy and science fiction genres...
directed by Luigi Cozzi
Luigi Cozzi
Luigi Cozzi is an Italian movie director and screenwriter who directed mainly science fiction and horror films in the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s...
and starring Ian McCulloch
Ian McCulloch (actor)
Ian McCulloch is a Scottish actor.He is best known for his role as Greg Preston in Survivors. Though he debuted in the second episode, "Genesis", Greg would become the male lead for the first series, and got to show off his singing and guitar playing in several episodes...
.
Plot
A large ship drifts into New York HarborNew York Harbor
New York Harbor refers to the waterways of the estuary near the mouth of the Hudson River that empty into New York Bay. It is one of the largest natural harbors in the world. Although the U.S. Board of Geographic Names does not use the term, New York Harbor has important historical, governmental,...
, seemingly abandoned. The ship is discovered to be carrying large containers of coffee, hidden inside of which are a series of football-sized green eggs. The crew sent in to explore the ghost ship find the mutilated remains of the former crew gathered in one place, and they soon discover the reason why: when heated up enough, the green eggs explode, spraying a viscous liquid over everything. The liquid is toxic to living creatures, and causes the body to immediately explode.
The military's answer to this phenomenon is Colonel Stella Holmes (Marleau
Louise Marleau
Louise Marleau is a Canadian actress. She won the 1985 Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her role in Femme de l'hôtel and was nominated in the same category in 1980 for her role in L'arrache-coeur a role for which she won the 1979 Montreal World Film Festival.She...
). She establishes a link between the green eggs and a recent mission to Mars that ended badly for the two astronauts who descended to the planet. One of them disappeared, and the other, Commander Hubbard (McCulloch
Ian McCulloch (actor)
Ian McCulloch is a Scottish actor.He is best known for his role as Greg Preston in Survivors. Though he debuted in the second episode, "Genesis", Greg would become the male lead for the first series, and got to show off his singing and guitar playing in several episodes...
), had a breakdown and subsequently became an alcoholic. When pressed, Hubbard agrees to help Holmes in her investigation of the insidious plot to bring the deadly eggs to Manhattan, and it takes them, along with sarcastic New York cop Tony Aris (Masé
Marino Masé
Marino Masé is an Italian film actor. He has appeared in over 70 films since 1961.He was born in Trieste, Italy.-Selected filmography:* Contamination * Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man...
), to a Colombian coffee plantation
Economics of coffee
Coffee is an important commodity and a popular beverage. Over 2.25 billion cups of coffee are consumed in the world every day. Over 90% of coffee production takes place in developing countries, while consumption happens mainly in the industrialized economies. Worldwide, 25 million small producers...
. All is not as it seems; Hubbard's former astronaut colleague is apparently alive and well and living under the influence of a monstrous alien cyclops, which is using mind control to further its plot to flood the world with the green eggs and wipe out human life on Earth.
Cast
- Ian McCullochIan McCulloch (actor)Ian McCulloch is a Scottish actor.He is best known for his role as Greg Preston in Survivors. Though he debuted in the second episode, "Genesis", Greg would become the male lead for the first series, and got to show off his singing and guitar playing in several episodes...
as Commander Ian Hubbard - Louise MarleauLouise MarleauLouise Marleau is a Canadian actress. She won the 1985 Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her role in Femme de l'hôtel and was nominated in the same category in 1980 for her role in L'arrache-coeur a role for which she won the 1979 Montreal World Film Festival.She...
as Colonel Stella Holmes - Marino MaséMarino MaséMarino Masé is an Italian film actor. He has appeared in over 70 films since 1961.He was born in Trieste, Italy.-Selected filmography:* Contamination * Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man...
as Lieutenant Tony Aris, NYPD - Siegfried RauchSiegfried RauchSiegfried Rauch is a German film and television actor. He has been an actor for over 40 years, in approximately 200 productions.-Career:...
as Hamilton - Gisela HahnGisela HahnGisela Hahn is a German film actress. She has appeared in over 40 films since 1964. She was born in Briesen, Poland.-Selected filmography:* Neues vom Hexer * César and Rosalie * Contamination...
as Perla de la Cruz - Carlo De Mejo as Agent Young
- Carlo Monni as Dr. Turner
Production
After the success of his film StarcrashStarcrash
Starcrash is an Italian 1979 science fiction film, which was also released under the English title of The Adventures of Stella Star . The film is a low budget and is often regarded as a rip-off of Star Wars...
, Luigi Cozzi
Luigi Cozzi
Luigi Cozzi is an Italian movie director and screenwriter who directed mainly science fiction and horror films in the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s...
wanted to follow it up with another science fiction film. On seeing Ridley Scott
Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists , Alien , Blade Runner , Legend , Thelma & Louise , G. I...
's film Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
his producer decided he wanted Cozzi to make something similar.
Due to budgetary constraints Cozzi decided to set the film on Earth, although retaining the ideas of the alien eggs and a large creature from Scott's film, and duly wrote a script called Alien Arrives on Earth.
Producer Claudio Mancini wanted to use the name Contamination, which had been the working title for an aborted film he had been developing based on the Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
film The China Syndrome
The China Syndrome
The China Syndrome is a 1979 American thriller film that tells the story of a reporter and cameraman who discover safety coverups at a nuclear power plant. It stars Jane Fonda, Jack Lemmon, Michael Douglas, Scott Brady, James Hampton, Peter Donat, Richard Herd, and Wilford Brimley.The film was...
. The name was duly changed against Cozzi's wishes, with the producer also insisting on Cozzi developing more James Bond
James Bond
James Bond, code name 007, is a fictional character created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short story collections. There have been a six other authors who wrote authorised Bond novels or novelizations after Fleming's death in 1964: Kingsley Amis,...
style elements as opposed to his science fiction theme.
The film's production offices were in the same building as those used by the makers of Zombi 2
Zombi 2
Zombi 2 is a 1979 zombie horror film directed by Lucio Fulci. It is the best-known of Fulci's films and made him a horror icon. Though the title suggests this is a sequel to Zombi Zombi 2 (also known as Zombie, Island of the Living Dead, Zombie Island, Zombie Flesh Eaters and Woodoo) is a 1979...
and, impressed by the profits that film had made, Cozzi decided to try to hire the same cast members, although ultimately Ian McCulloch
Ian McCulloch (actor)
Ian McCulloch is a Scottish actor.He is best known for his role as Greg Preston in Survivors. Though he debuted in the second episode, "Genesis", Greg would become the male lead for the first series, and got to show off his singing and guitar playing in several episodes...
was the only actor to come on board. Cozzi wanted to use Caroline Munro
Caroline Munro
Caroline Munro is an English actress and model known for her many appearances in horror, science fiction and action films of the 1970s and 1980s.-Early career:...
(who had been featured in Starcrash) as Colonel Holmes but once again the producer over-ruled him and hired an older actress Louise Marleau
Louise Marleau
Louise Marleau is a Canadian actress. She won the 1985 Genie Award for Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role for her role in Femme de l'hôtel and was nominated in the same category in 1980 for her role in L'arrache-coeur a role for which she won the 1979 Montreal World Film Festival.She...
instead. (Caroline Munro later worked with Cozzi again in his 1989 opus "De Profundis".)
Contamination was shot in five weeks, three weeks in Rome and then a further two weeks split between location shooting in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
and Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
.
Cozzi had wanted to use animation or stop motion
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...
photography to realise the alien cyclops at the film's climax but was once again over-ruled by the producer and an animatronic version was constructed instead. Cozzi subsequently claimed that this creature failed to work properly and would barely move, so he had to use rapid jump cuts to hide the fact that it was being pulled about by stagehands.
Content
After the Video Recordings ActVideo Recordings Act 1984
The Video Recordings Act 1984 is an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that was passed in 1984. It states that commercial video recordings offered for sale or for hire within the UK must carry a classification that has been agreed upon by an authority designated by the Home Office...
, Contamination (as it is known in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
) was classed as a video nasty
Video nasty
"Video nasty" was a colloquial term coined in the United Kingdom by 1982 which originally applied to a number of films distributed on video cassette that were criticized for their violent content by the press, commentators such as Mary Whitehouse and various religious organizations.While violence...
. Specifically, the film includes graphic depictions of human bodies exploding violently in slow motion, as well as the grisly remains of such explosions. While the explosion effects are not technically graphic (each of the exploding victims is encased in some kind of bulky costume that is obviously hiding the mechanism that sprays the gore), they are extremely bloody.
Years later the BBFC
British Board of Film Classification
The British Board of Film Classification , originally British Board of Film Censors, is a non-governmental organisation, funded by the film industry and responsible for the national classification of films within the United Kingdom...
classified the uncut version with a 15 certificate. It was released on video in the United States under titles Alien Contamination and Toxic Spawn, which are heavily edited. It is now available in the US in an unedited version which has been released on DVD.
Thematically, the film makes some rather obvious references to 1979's Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
, in the use of small football-sized eggs and human bodies exploding. In some countries, the film was marketed under the title "Contamination: Alien on Earth", which has caused some to confuse this film with the similarly titled Alien 2: On Earth. Contamination includes a large spider-like creature called "The Cyclops", an alien who is responsible for the creation of the murderous green eggs.