I see a lot of movies every year. A
ton. But this year I’ve decided I don’t see enough movies, so one of my
New Year Resolutions was to simply see more. And to write about them.
See, that’s the other half of the equation: I see a ton of movies, but
I write about comparatively few of them. There are a lot of reasons,
but they mainly boil down to the fact that I feel the need to do long
form reviews, and sometimes – like in the midst of Sundance – I just
don’t have the time.
And
so was born this new blog! I aim to make an entry for every single
movie I see in 2010. Some entries may be very short, some may be
lengthy. Entries may take a couple of days to be posted. Let’s see how
long this lasts.
One
last thing: one of my main objectives this year is to rewatch more
movies. I know this sounds like a strange goal, but there are films I
haven’t seen since high school, which means it’s been almost a lifetime
since I saw them. Recently I rewatched Black Christmas for
the first time since the 1980s, and I might as well have been seeing
the movie for the first time. I’m interested in getting a look at some
movies I loved or hated twenty or even ten years ago and seeing how I
feel about them now.
Let’s begin…
#5 Horror Planet aka Inseminoid
1981
d. Norman J Warren
I said that one of the things I really want to do with this blog is revisit old films that I haven’t seen in so long they become new to me. And thus Horror Planet, aka Inseminoid. It’s a film I saw, but back in 1984 or so, when I was 11 or 12. Watching it again I get little flashes of memory – mostly of the alien and gore stuff – but the film is otherwise almost completely new on every level.
The film is essentially a rip off of Alien, but with the alien impregnation made much more literal in that a creepy penis-headed alien puts a tube full of semen into a woman’s vagina. See, these space archeologists are on another planet and they fuck around with stuff they shouldn’t fuck around with, awakening a penis headed alien who is achin’ for a rapin’. He knocks up a woman and she becomes an unstoppable lunactic murderer (for reasons that are never quite clear) and then gives birth to adorable alien twins. She’s still crazy after that and people keep on dying.
Horror Planet, the American title, is probably a better name than Inseminoid, since the Inseminoid appears for about one and a half minutes of screen time. The film’s low budget keeps the alien out of the picture and a crazy lady stalking and slashing for most of the film. On the minus side the movie takes forever to get started, but once it does it’s pretty great in a totally trashy Z-level way. A woman saws off her own foot with a hedge trimmer before freezing to death, there are multiple mutilations, there’s the central rape, and then there’s a couple of rubbery baby alien puppets. The film’s fairly fast-paced, wasting little time bothering to set up these ‘characters’ and their ‘relationships.’ One thing that is set up: everyone in the future dresses like it’s 1981.
Judy Geeson, of To Sir, With Love fame (as well as multiple 80s TV appearances) plays the knocked up femmenaut, and she’s actually pretty good. There’s a scene where she’s trying to get people to come out of the base and get killed by her where she’s actually very creepy. Still, some blonde in jeans isn’t the most compelling villain in your scifi horror film.
Norman J Warren directed another film I’d like to revisit, Satan’s Slave, although the other films of his I’ve seen I don’t recall fondly. Bloody New Year struck me as stupid in the 80s, but then again I thought Inseminoid was utterly hardcore and awesome back then as well, so who knows.
The one thing I keep trying to remember is which I saw first – Inseminoid or Alien? I have a bad feeling I saw these films in the wrong order, although I have very early memories of watching Alien on VHS at a friend’s house.