A cargo ship, the Caribbean Lady, is sailing headlong into the harbor of New York City. There is no response from the captain of the ship. A team is sent to find out why. The ship appears to be empty and is quarantined. Dr. Turner (Carlo Monni), from the Health Department, is sent to check on the situation. He and his team are met by Lt. Tony Aris (Marino Mase) from the New York Police Department.
While investigating the ship they find the captain and crew are dead. They seem to have exploded from the inside out. The cargo hold contains boxes labeled coffee. One of the cartons appears to have fallen and opened. Inside they find large pods that look similar to giant green eggs. One of the eggs has rolled over to a heated pipe and is pulsating. A member of the team picks up the egg to take it to the lab. The egg explodes and goo hits Dr. Turner and his team. The men explode. Tony races out.
Tony is put in decontamination. Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) from Internal Security Special Division 5 is called in to take charge of the situation. Stella has one of the eggs analyzed. The substance in the egg turns out to be bacteria of alien origin. The egg is similar to those described by an astronaut, Commander Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch), from his recent trip to Mars. Ian’s partner in the trip, Hamilton (Siegfried Rauch), claimed that Ian was suffering from a breakdown and there were no such eggs on the planet. Ian is contacted to join the investigation.
Stella, Tony and Ian head to South America and the coffee company that they believe shipped the alien eggs to New York. What they find are an alien egg harvesting business being run by alien infected people that answer to a giant one-eyed alien queen creature referred to as Cyclops.
“Contamination” AKA “Alien Contamination” AKA “Toxic Spawn” AKA “Alien Arrives on Earth” AKA “Alien Arriva Sulla Terra” was released in 1980 and was directed by Luigi Cozzi. It is an Italian and West German science fiction horror movie.
Italian science fiction is not always the best science fiction, especially when it is done as a rip off of a blockbuster film. In this case Ridley Scott’s film “Alien” 1979. Although much of the film is different, there is enough there for people to see the resemblance.
The movie is short on plot but long on gore. It actually wasn’t all that bad, provided you can find the original version of the film and not the chopped-up versions titled “Alien Contamination” and “Toxic Spawn”. For the most part, the movie moves along nicely. There were a couple slow spots but not enough to lose my attention and there was plenty of blood and guts to go around. Even a rat explodes. The Cyclops alien is not all that great. I was hoping for more of a brain looking creature, but it ended up being a little more puppet-y. Regardless, the movie was better than I expected.
Director Luigi Cozzi claimed that the film was partially funded by Colombian drug dealers. Apparently, they were happy when the movie made money and they got a return on their investment. I’m sure Cozzi was also pleased about that.