Reviews (34)

a darn good spaghetti western
Terence Hill became an international superstar with this superb film, and so did Bud Spencer. They play gunslinging outlaw half brothers who end up trying to help protect a Mormon settlement from a band of Mexican desperado's. While the Mormon's turn the other cheek, the desperado's quickly learn the Trinity brothers will not. They follow the eye for an eye tooth for a tooth teaching. But it's not just the Mexican's who want the Mormon settlement, another band of cut throats want it too, and eventually team up with the desperado's to try and take it. With all these outlaws what's the two Trinity brothers to do? Well, I won't say, but I will tell you that this movie is packed with lots of hilarious comedy, great action, and a taste of suspense. One interesting twist to this movie is that Bambino (played by Bud Spencer) is sheriff of the nearby town. How he got the job is a laugh riot in itself. This is a movie the whole family can watch and enjoy, and the sequel (Trinity is still my Name) is equally entertaining .

Excellent Movie - Terrible Pan & Scan DVD
This is certainly one of the best Bud Spencer-Terence Hill movies. It is actually much smarter than other Spencer-Hill pictures, because it contains a lot of intertextual references in its wonderfully portrayed western (parody/homage) moments. The music is magnificent too.

I saw this film in Bosnia for the first time when I was kid and I immediately fell in love with it. In a few years I owned over 30 Bud Spencer (and Terence Hill) movies. The version I had in Bosnia (on a pirated VHS tape)had wonderful colours and was rich in detail. Anybody can guess why? Yes, you're right - because it was a WIDESCREEN copy (possibly imported from Italy). This DVD, however, is released in a horrendous PAN & SCAN edition. Many nice details are lost, there is a lot of artificial panning, and in certain action sequences you cannot even decipher what is going on. There are a few moments in which only background is seen, because the characters on both sides of the original widescreen picture (ar: 2,35:1) have been cut off. Furthermore, this DVD has terrible image resolution. Pixillation is present throughout the film (I have some Real Video files on my PC that have better picture quality than this DVD). This DVD, nonetheless, is very cheap. I bought it for 7.99 Canadian dollars (around 5 American dollars). And, of course, this is the best copy of this brilliant film that is available in North America and the reason why everybody should own it. 5 stars for the movie, 1 star for the DVD. All in all, 3 stars from me. I just wish I had my Bosnian widescreen copy.

Max Brand, Italian style
First, let me explain the three stars are for the DVD, not the Trinity Boys (they are 5 star all the way). What we need is a digital restoration of Terence Hill movies. The Spaghetti Western genre relied on several gimmicks: obtuse plots, quirky characters, superhuman heroes, great music, and lastly INTENSE,VIBRANT COLORS. Unless you catch them on the Western Channel, almost all home video versions of these movies are faded travesties. This dvd is better than most, but is nothing compared to the original. This is even more true of Boot Hill.If you've never seen the intensity of Terence Hill's blue eyes set into his impossibly tan face, then you can't begin to realize how much the color has faded. I remember watching Terence Hill in Boot Hill back at a drive-in and thinking "my gosh, he's darker than Woody Strode!"
As for Trinity, it holds up wonderfully 30 years later as a classic parody of Spaghetti Westerns. The two brothers are straight out of the more humorous work of Max Brand: gifted with extraordinary skill bordering on the supernatural with which they better their adversaries in outlandish ways. The sequel was just as good and I wish they had made ten more of them. Lacking that, somebody please restore these wonderful films!

Great Movie, DVD sucks
At the risk of repeating the other reviews: this DVD sucks! I loved Terrence Hill's deadpan performance in this spaghetti western, but the DVD quality just isn't there. I've tryied playing it on a Sony DVD player, a PS2, my laptop, and even a CineVision DVD player. Only the PS2 even recognized the menu, and could partially play the movie. The burn was too faint for the other players to read at all. (No scratches on disk.)
Buy this on VHS!

One of the Best Spaghetti Westerns -- with a twist !
"They call Me Trinity" deserves six stars except for the poor video quality. This looks a UMAX tape version that has been overly compressed by mpeg 2 in it's conversion from tape to digital. It's a shame that one of the greatest Italian westerns ever made should have been treated in this way. My understanding is that the beautiful film-to-digital video transfers [for example 'Los Campaneros' or 'Day of Anger'] have been scanned from original 35mm film in a Rank or Ampex video conversion machine that converts the 35mm image directly to digital video with little or no compression, but 'Trinity' obviously did not get that treatment. 'Trinity' stars Bud Spencer [real Italian name is Carlo Pedersoli] and Terrence Hill [Mario Girotti] as two at-odds brothers, one a rough diamond and the other an accomplished intelligent goofball. The plot is fairly simple with the two brothers trying to prevent a gang of outlaws from terrorizing a group of farmers and stealing their land. Much of the humor in this film is very subtle and can only be appreciated after viewing two or three times. The test of a good movie is multiple watchability and Trinity certainly succeeds with every scene containing importance and entertainment value. The interaction with the farmers becomes a little tedious in the end and parts could have been cut since the movie is fairly long at nearly two hours. In fact the length of the movie may account for the excessive video compression on DVD. The editing style is more consistent with older movies and wham-bam-thank-you-mam fans may not like the pace. Even so this is a very special entry and the humor is engaging and optimistic and never stilted or patronizing, and the action scenes are also extremely well done. Hence the classic nature of this film as a spaghetti favorite. Will end on the usual disclaimer with spaghettis: traditional 'John Wayne' western fans probably won't like this movie and will rate it with low marks, however that is a tremendous shame because 'Trinity' is a solid gold spaghetti classic! ... Read more

Description

When Women Played Ding-Dong (1971, 83 min.) - Prehistoric cave-stud Ari (Antonio Sabato) wins lovely virgin Listra (Nadia Cassini) in a pig-catching contest, but their attempts at "Ding-Dong" keep getting interrupted by idiot battles between his tribe, The Cave Dwellers, and their neighbors, The Lake Dwellers. Annoyed that hubby would rather make war than Ding-Dong, Listra organizes the women of both tribes to go on strike and "abstain Ding-Dong" until the men stop fighting. It all happens back in the days when men carried clubs and women played ding-dong, an Italian stone-age sex comedy based on the Greek classic "Lysistrata" and filled with shapely cavewomen sporting '70s hairstyles, a gay caveman with the hots for the hero, a title tune that will follow you forever and, of course, plenty of old-fashioned Ding-Dong! "50,000 B.C. (Before Clothing)" (1963, 65 min.) - Locked out of his trailer home by his nasty old wife, sad sack Charlie Wishnick tries to sleep it off in a crazy inventor's taxi cab but discovers it's actually a flying time machine which deposits him at The Knob Hill Nudist Camp back in 50,000 B.C. (Before Clothing)! Goofy Charlie gawks at naked cavegirls, falls in love with vivacious Zelda ("Bad Girls Go to Hell's" Gigi Darlene), and is almost eaten by real-life giant Eddie Carmel in this crackpot nudie-cutie, presented in prehistoric "Nudicolor!" ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Very exciting Italian Shocker!
A boat arrives in New York Harbor, explorers look around the deserted ship to find out that the crew has died and has a cargo of green alien eggs that squirt a liquid that can make people explode. However, it's up to a research woman and a former Astronaut ( Ian McCulloch) to find out the mystery of the deadly Eggs and it's carrier which happens to be a cycloptic monster.
A somewhat farfetched but very exciting Italian Science Fiction horror shocker with some decent perfomances, but the dubbing was ok and there is some great make-up and gore effects such as the exploding chest scenes. The DVD by Blue Underground is terrific in picture and sound quality, the extras are very good but this is definitely good for a gore-hound or Sci-fi lover.
Also recommended: The Thing ( 1982), Scanners, Total Recall, Phenomena ( a.k.a. Creepers), Day of the Dead, Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn, Tenebre, Killer Klowns From Outer Space, Critters, Night of the Creeps, Bad Taste, Alien, Aliens, Alien3, Alien Resurrection, Predator, The Toxic Avenger, Pitch Black, Starship Troopers, and The Beyond.

Charming Low Budget SF
Finally this long neglected SF film appears on DVD: withdrawn some 20 years ago in Britain during the 'Video Nasty' witchhunt and unavailable in any form since, 'Contamination' is a film full of charm despite its highly derivative nature. The most obvious comparison is with 'Alien' of course but as the director himself points out in a lovely interview that is the best of the extras on this disc, his aim with the film was to pay homage to 50s American SF pictures. What a nice chap Luigi Cozzi clearly is - ready to admit his debts to other SF, clearly in love with the genre and unashamedly open about his derivative approach
References to 'Invaders From Mars' and 'Quatermass 2' abound: the Martian Cyclops monster is a corker, refreshingly unrealistic and like the director charmingly unsophisticated and direct.
The gore effects remain quite shocking but are relatively few and far between - most descriptions of this movie indicate that someone's chest bursts apart every ten minutes or so, but all such descriptions are overexaggerated. Why this film remains banned in the UK after so long is a mystery to me...
The main problem with the film is its pacing - the middle of the film does lack suspense and imagination, some scenes crawling along when the injection of original ideas (unfortunately the lovely Cozzi doesn't have many of his own, apart from the blatant blood and guts) would have upped the adrenalin.
The picture on the DVD is very good indeed and the music by Goblin is of course excellent, despite the absence of Claudio Simonetti: only one gripe here, Cozzi under-uses the score which is apparent when one owns the superbly remastered cinevox CD.
If you love cheap pulp SF, you have to get yourself this unoriginal but fun film that will take you back to your childhood experiences of lurid science fiction at its most potent.

Avocado of Death
No, this is not about Pinkwater's Snarkout boys. Instead it is about a movie called Alien Contamination (A.K.A. Toxic Spawn) a strange but entertaining foreign film set in America with shades of Atomic Submarine and The Arrival.

A runaway freighter is boarded and found to contain a gruesomely dead crew and boxes marked coffee that contain large avocado-like pods or eggs. These eggs explode on maturity and any mammalian life nearby will explode seconds later. Research shows the eggs to be non-terrestrial in nature. A chance landing by alien spores is ruled out and the failed Mars mission is suspected.

The surviving astronaut from the Mars mission is now a drunk. He had claimed to have seen avocado-like eggs on Mars but the rest of the crew denied his claims. With his help the coffee shipment is tracked to a plantation in South America and the action moves there.

It turns out that the Mars crew mate is not dead. He is alive and running the operation to destroy all human life. He is under the control of a being known as the Cyclops. He brought a Cyclops spore back from Mars where he was hypnotized. After some fun scenes the heroes triumph in the end and the menace from Mars is ended.

Despite the feeling of wrongness that foreign films in English often have, this is actually well above the usual monster shlock movie. In a way it reminds me of The X-Files with investigators that actually investigate records instead of just stumbling along. It was much more of a detective film with aliens than an alien movie with detectives.

I recommend this film for anyone who likes better horror and science fiction films.

Alien arrives on Earth, indeed.
A search of a supposedly deserted ship uncovers a gruesome mystery. The crew is dead, literlly torn apart by some unknown force, and the ship's cargo is not coffee, but groaning, glowing eggs that make people explode whenever contact with the slimy green filling is made. Writer/director 'Lewis Coates' (aka Luigi Cozzi) crafts an incomprehensible story of alien invasion (or simple destruction, the exact goal is never made clear) in this most famous (or infamous) Italian cash-in on Alien. In the to be expected excellent supplements (the disc is from Blue Underground, so special things are almost a matter of routine) Cozzi comes across as a real classic sci-fi geek. Too bad that love didn't infuse his script or direction. While the movie is entertaining, it is mostly for the wrong reasons, and Cozzi fumbles chances for suspense during key moments in the film (i.e. having the female lead trapped in a bathroom with an alien egg) by dragging the scenes out until they become ludicrous. Nonetheless, fans of this long gone era of movie making (late seventies/early eighties low budget schlock cinema) will find something to enjoy in the movie. I did.

Never pick up alien eggs
"Contamination" is one of those low budget Italian science fiction potboilers that provide countless hours of fun. There's something deeply nostalgic about these films for me; I spent whole evenings watching this pap on cable television back in the mid 1980s. There was nothing like coming home in the summer, ordering a pizza, and spending all night with these delicacies. I guess things haven't changed too much since I am still watching them thanks to the DVD revolution. That these movies look and sound better now than they did when they first came out is one of those technological marvels that stagger the mind. Thanks go to Bill Lustig and the folks at Blue Underground for taking the time to release "Contamination" with a plethora of extras coupled with a great audio and video presentation. If you have never sampled the wonders of Italian schlock films, this is a great place to start. "Contamination," in case you haven't guessed, is a shameless rip off of Ridley Scott's classic science fiction gorefest "Alien." But don't expect to see Sigourney Weaver or John Hurt appear anywhere near this cheesy little number.

Eggs. "Contamination" deals primarily with eggs. An abandoned ship sails into New York harbor loaded with weird, pulsating pods the size of basketballs. When the authorities attempt to investigate this strange ship, a bunch of people die horribly when the eggs blow up and spray them with a viscous goo. The hapless souls coated with explosive yolk simply don't keel over and die in a nice, peaceful manner, though. Nope, they explode in ultra slow motion, with their chests and throats opening up with a bang. Obviously, the origins of these objects represent a significant threat to the human race, so the government quickly gets involved in the whole affair. Scientists quickly learn the pods are not of this world, a discovery that brings up a recollection of a disastrous trip to Mars some years before. In an effort to discover what the heck is going on, the government agents, headed up by sexy Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau), track down an astronaut who survived the ill-fated mission. With an annoying New York cop in tow, Holmes must work fast if she is to save humanity from a fate with decidedly alien implications. Yay!

The emotionally destroyed astronaut, Commander Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch of "Zombie" fame), just cannot bring himself to cast his mind back to that horrible time on the red planet. Eventually he does, of course, and in the process recalls a cave filled with millions of pulsating pods and a light as bright as the sun. What does it all mean? Not much at first. Then we discover that some lunk head Hubbard knows only too well managed to bring back the pods, and something else much more dangerous, to earth. The exploding eggs are the central linchpin in a plot to conquer the world. It is up to the psychologically unbalanced Hubbard, the mouthy cop, and Colonel Holmes to thwart this dastardly deed before people start blowing up on a regular basis. Their mission takes them around the world in search of a coffee magnate who smuggles the eggs in wooden boxes filled with beans. All the while, Hubbard's flashbacks about the mysterious cave on Mars reveal more and more clues about what is occurring here on planet earth. Can our heroes stop this nefarious plot before it gets underway? Can Hubbard overcome his difficulties and save the world? Will that cop ever shut up? These questions, and many more unimportant ones, will find resolution by the end of "Contamination."

The movie isn't a masterwork of cinema, even for an entry in the low budget Italian horror-science fiction genre, but it does have its moments. Ian McCulloch is always fun to watch in these types of movies, and he does a good job in the role of the horrified Hubbard. The rest of the cast, well, let's just say the word "forgettable" applies on more than one occasion. At least the gore keeps you on your toes; director Luigi Cozzi wisely spaces out the gruesome death scenes throughout the film, which greatly helps the pacing in an otherwise slow film. Moreover, the effects, from the grue to the pulsating eggs, are well done considering the ultra low budget. Throw in some scenic shots from different locales along with a pounding score from Goblin, and you have the makings of an entertaining little shocker. And let's face it; we all could use more exploding torsos and melting heads to help us get through the day. "Contamination" gives us all of that and not much more. Cozzi is no Sergio Leone, but he doesn't need to be when making a zero cost science fiction puker.

The extras included on the disc are as good as they are surprising for such an obscure film. You get trailers, of course, but you also get so much more. Blue Underground got Cozzi to do an interview about the film, an interview that sheds light on many aspects of the film. With all of the framed 1950's movie posters on the wall behind the director during the interview, it is obvious he likes classic science fiction films. Indeed, Cozzi emphasizes his love for old science fiction and how the genre inspired him to lens "Contamination." Add in a grainy looking featurette made during the filming of the movie and some poster stills, and you have yourself a very nice DVD worth purchasing. Give Cozzi's film a shot if you like your sci-fi gooey and cheap. If not, you can always rent "Alien" again. ... Read more

Amazon.com

In American romantic comedies, after overcoming some silly obstacle, the heroine will choose this guy or that one, and it's usually pretty obvious which.In French romantic comedies, not only is either guy just as likely, but theheroine could just as well end up with both of them--or neither. Ah, the worldlyFrench! César and Rosalie are a happy May-December couple (young Romy Schneiderand middle-aged Yves Montand) until the return of Rosalie's old flame David(Sami Frey). David immediately inflames the insecure César with jealousy, to thepoint that his aggressive behavior threatens his relationship with Rosalie farmore than David himself does. The story of César & Rosalie takesunpredictable turns, but every shift is compelling because of how truthfullywritten and acted the characters are. The French don't need to invent sillyobstacles to romance; they understand that human nature itself is obstacleenough. --Bret Fetzer ... Read more

Reviews (2)

A Mature, Beautifully Observed Love Triangle
Claude Sautet is one of the lesser known French directors in the United States, but he made a number of wonderful dramas about romantic relationships that are hard to find on DVD (two of his last films found an audience in the U.S.--Un Coeur en Hiver and Nelly and Monsieur Arnaud). Cesar and Rosalie is one of his best with memorable performances by Yves Montand, Sami Frey, and the extraordinary Romy Schneider. The love triangle in this film is unpredicatable and touching. Another Sautet film that should be released is Vincent Francois Paul and the Others, which is a melancholy ode to love and friendship.

1st review for this movie. Wow.
That's indicative, I guess, of the overwhelming popularity of Claude Sautet's *Cesar and Rosalie*. No matter -- it's still one of the most plausible "love-triangle" movies ever made. There are many reasons for this, starting with Sautet's refusal to be just another New Wave-wannabe. A good plan, considering that by 1972 the movement had run its natural course, anyway. There are no jump-cuts here; no socio-political commentary; no stylistic flourishes. Although *Cesar and Rosalie* ranks as an "auteur" film, technically speaking (i.e., by its virtue of being written and directed by one man), the director makes a big point of not investing it with "personality" or trademark tics which we can point to. With this film, Sautet announced his ongoing obsession with the unsatisfied bourgeoisie, an obsession that typically manifested itself in the form of a May-December romance. This movie is no different: here we have Yves Montand as a middle-aged wealthy dealer in car parts, and the lovely Romy Schneider as his live-in partner. Schneider's Rosalie is a free spirit in the Sixties vein, but she's no ingenue: she's been around the block a time or two. Around 30, she has a young daughter from a previous marriage, and is confident enough to be of some considerable help to Montand's Cesar with his auto business. She's wise enough to not put up with Cesar's fussy nonsense. Enter David (well-played by Sami Frey), an old flame -- though NOT the father of her kid -- who is determined to win her back. With this fairly predictable set-up, Sautet proceeds to frustrate our expectations and surprise us at almost every turn, making for an engrossing viewing experience. All three of the principles are excellent. Schneider was always at her best in Sautet's films. . . . Yves Montand delivers what may be the performance of his life in the role of manic, joyful, and dangerously belligerent Cesar. . . . Sami Frey as the Other Man is of course the opposite of Cesar: thoughtful, younger, rather ineffectual, and just plain quiet. The movie doesn't take sides, either. Each man's faults and virtues -- to say nothing of Rosalie's faults and virtues -- are meticulously laid-out in an egalitarian display. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

this movie does not deserve to have "scarface" in the title!
this movie was easily one of the worst movies i have ever seen. it had POOR acting POOR picture quality POOR fighting scenes absolutly no plot and is definately NOT worth watching,renting, or buying. ... Read more

Reviews (34)

a darn good spaghetti western
Terence Hill became an international superstar with this superb film, and so did Bud Spencer. They play gunslinging outlaw half brothers who end up trying to help protect a Mormon settlement from a band of Mexican desperado's. While the Mormon's turn the other cheek, the desperado's quickly learn the Trinity brothers will not. They follow the eye for an eye tooth for a tooth teaching. But it's not just the Mexican's who want the Mormon settlement, another band of cut throats want it too, and eventually team up with the desperado's to try and take it. With all these outlaws what's the two Trinity brothers to do? Well, I won't say, but I will tell you that this movie is packed with lots of hilarious comedy, great action, and a taste of suspense. One interesting twist to this movie is that Bambino (played by Bud Spencer) is sheriff of the nearby town. How he got the job is a laugh riot in itself. This is a movie the whole family can watch and enjoy, and the sequel (Trinity is still my Name) is equally entertaining .

Excellent Movie - Terrible Pan & Scan DVD
This is certainly one of the best Bud Spencer-Terence Hill movies. It is actually much smarter than other Spencer-Hill pictures, because it contains a lot of intertextual references in its wonderfully portrayed western (parody/homage) moments. The music is magnificent too.

I saw this film in Bosnia for the first time when I was kid and I immediately fell in love with it. In a few years I owned over 30 Bud Spencer (and Terence Hill) movies. The version I had in Bosnia (on a pirated VHS tape)had wonderful colours and was rich in detail. Anybody can guess why? Yes, you're right - because it was a WIDESCREEN copy (possibly imported from Italy). This DVD, however, is released in a horrendous PAN & SCAN edition. Many nice details are lost, there is a lot of artificial panning, and in certain action sequences you cannot even decipher what is going on. There are a few moments in which only background is seen, because the characters on both sides of the original widescreen picture (ar: 2,35:1) have been cut off. Furthermore, this DVD has terrible image resolution. Pixillation is present throughout the film (I have some Real Video files on my PC that have better picture quality than this DVD). This DVD, nonetheless, is very cheap. I bought it for 7.99 Canadian dollars (around 5 American dollars). And, of course, this is the best copy of this brilliant film that is available in North America and the reason why everybody should own it. 5 stars for the movie, 1 star for the DVD. All in all, 3 stars from me. I just wish I had my Bosnian widescreen copy.

Max Brand, Italian style
First, let me explain the three stars are for the DVD, not the Trinity Boys (they are 5 star all the way). What we need is a digital restoration of Terence Hill movies. The Spaghetti Western genre relied on several gimmicks: obtuse plots, quirky characters, superhuman heroes, great music, and lastly INTENSE,VIBRANT COLORS. Unless you catch them on the Western Channel, almost all home video versions of these movies are faded travesties. This dvd is better than most, but is nothing compared to the original. This is even more true of Boot Hill.If you've never seen the intensity of Terence Hill's blue eyes set into his impossibly tan face, then you can't begin to realize how much the color has faded. I remember watching Terence Hill in Boot Hill back at a drive-in and thinking "my gosh, he's darker than Woody Strode!"
As for Trinity, it holds up wonderfully 30 years later as a classic parody of Spaghetti Westerns. The two brothers are straight out of the more humorous work of Max Brand: gifted with extraordinary skill bordering on the supernatural with which they better their adversaries in outlandish ways. The sequel was just as good and I wish they had made ten more of them. Lacking that, somebody please restore these wonderful films!

Great Movie, DVD sucks
At the risk of repeating the other reviews: this DVD sucks! I loved Terrence Hill's deadpan performance in this spaghetti western, but the DVD quality just isn't there. I've tryied playing it on a Sony DVD player, a PS2, my laptop, and even a CineVision DVD player. Only the PS2 even recognized the menu, and could partially play the movie. The burn was too faint for the other players to read at all. (No scratches on disk.)
Buy this on VHS!

One of the Best Spaghetti Westerns -- with a twist !
"They call Me Trinity" deserves six stars except for the poor video quality. This looks a UMAX tape version that has been overly compressed by mpeg 2 in it's conversion from tape to digital. It's a shame that one of the greatest Italian westerns ever made should have been treated in this way. My understanding is that the beautiful film-to-digital video transfers [for example 'Los Campaneros' or 'Day of Anger'] have been scanned from original 35mm film in a Rank or Ampex video conversion machine that converts the 35mm image directly to digital video with little or no compression, but 'Trinity' obviously did not get that treatment. 'Trinity' stars Bud Spencer [real Italian name is Carlo Pedersoli] and Terrence Hill [Mario Girotti] as two at-odds brothers, one a rough diamond and the other an accomplished intelligent goofball. The plot is fairly simple with the two brothers trying to prevent a gang of outlaws from terrorizing a group of farmers and stealing their land. Much of the humor in this film is very subtle and can only be appreciated after viewing two or three times. The test of a good movie is multiple watchability and Trinity certainly succeeds with every scene containing importance and entertainment value. The interaction with the farmers becomes a little tedious in the end and parts could have been cut since the movie is fairly long at nearly two hours. In fact the length of the movie may account for the excessive video compression on DVD. The editing style is more consistent with older movies and wham-bam-thank-you-mam fans may not like the pace. Even so this is a very special entry and the humor is engaging and optimistic and never stilted or patronizing, and the action scenes are also extremely well done. Hence the classic nature of this film as a spaghetti favorite. Will end on the usual disclaimer with spaghettis: traditional 'John Wayne' western fans probably won't like this movie and will rate it with low marks, however that is a tremendous shame because 'Trinity' is a solid gold spaghetti classic! ... Read more

Reviews (1)

this movie does not deserve to have "scarface" in the title!
this movie was easily one of the worst movies i have ever seen. it had POOR acting POOR picture quality POOR fighting scenes absolutly no plot and is definately NOT worth watching,renting, or buying. ... Read more

Reviews (34)

a darn good spaghetti western
Terence Hill became an international superstar with this superb film, and so did Bud Spencer. They play gunslinging outlaw half brothers who end up trying to help protect a Mormon settlement from a band of Mexican desperado's. While the Mormon's turn the other cheek, the desperado's quickly learn the Trinity brothers will not. They follow the eye for an eye tooth for a tooth teaching. But it's not just the Mexican's who want the Mormon settlement, another band of cut throats want it too, and eventually team up with the desperado's to try and take it. With all these outlaws what's the two Trinity brothers to do? Well, I won't say, but I will tell you that this movie is packed with lots of hilarious comedy, great action, and a taste of suspense. One interesting twist to this movie is that Bambino (played by Bud Spencer) is sheriff of the nearby town. How he got the job is a laugh riot in itself. This is a movie the whole family can watch and enjoy, and the sequel (Trinity is still my Name) is equally entertaining .

Excellent Movie - Terrible Pan & Scan DVD
This is certainly one of the best Bud Spencer-Terence Hill movies. It is actually much smarter than other Spencer-Hill pictures, because it contains a lot of intertextual references in its wonderfully portrayed western (parody/homage) moments. The music is magnificent too.

I saw this film in Bosnia for the first time when I was kid and I immediately fell in love with it. In a few years I owned over 30 Bud Spencer (and Terence Hill) movies. The version I had in Bosnia (on a pirated VHS tape)had wonderful colours and was rich in detail. Anybody can guess why? Yes, you're right - because it was a WIDESCREEN copy (possibly imported from Italy). This DVD, however, is released in a horrendous PAN & SCAN edition. Many nice details are lost, there is a lot of artificial panning, and in certain action sequences you cannot even decipher what is going on. There are a few moments in which only background is seen, because the characters on both sides of the original widescreen picture (ar: 2,35:1) have been cut off. Furthermore, this DVD has terrible image resolution. Pixillation is present throughout the film (I have some Real Video files on my PC that have better picture quality than this DVD). This DVD, nonetheless, is very cheap. I bought it for 7.99 Canadian dollars (around 5 American dollars). And, of course, this is the best copy of this brilliant film that is available in North America and the reason why everybody should own it. 5 stars for the movie, 1 star for the DVD. All in all, 3 stars from me. I just wish I had my Bosnian widescreen copy.

Max Brand, Italian style
First, let me explain the three stars are for the DVD, not the Trinity Boys (they are 5 star all the way). What we need is a digital restoration of Terence Hill movies. The Spaghetti Western genre relied on several gimmicks: obtuse plots, quirky characters, superhuman heroes, great music, and lastly INTENSE,VIBRANT COLORS. Unless you catch them on the Western Channel, almost all home video versions of these movies are faded travesties. This dvd is better than most, but is nothing compared to the original. This is even more true of Boot Hill.If you've never seen the intensity of Terence Hill's blue eyes set into his impossibly tan face, then you can't begin to realize how much the color has faded. I remember watching Terence Hill in Boot Hill back at a drive-in and thinking "my gosh, he's darker than Woody Strode!"
As for Trinity, it holds up wonderfully 30 years later as a classic parody of Spaghetti Westerns. The two brothers are straight out of the more humorous work of Max Brand: gifted with extraordinary skill bordering on the supernatural with which they better their adversaries in outlandish ways. The sequel was just as good and I wish they had made ten more of them. Lacking that, somebody please restore these wonderful films!

Great Movie, DVD sucks
At the risk of repeating the other reviews: this DVD sucks! I loved Terrence Hill's deadpan performance in this spaghetti western, but the DVD quality just isn't there. I've tryied playing it on a Sony DVD player, a PS2, my laptop, and even a CineVision DVD player. Only the PS2 even recognized the menu, and could partially play the movie. The burn was too faint for the other players to read at all. (No scratches on disk.)
Buy this on VHS!

One of the Best Spaghetti Westerns -- with a twist !
"They call Me Trinity" deserves six stars except for the poor video quality. This looks a UMAX tape version that has been overly compressed by mpeg 2 in it's conversion from tape to digital. It's a shame that one of the greatest Italian westerns ever made should have been treated in this way. My understanding is that the beautiful film-to-digital video transfers [for example 'Los Campaneros' or 'Day of Anger'] have been scanned from original 35mm film in a Rank or Ampex video conversion machine that converts the 35mm image directly to digital video with little or no compression, but 'Trinity' obviously did not get that treatment. 'Trinity' stars Bud Spencer [real Italian name is Carlo Pedersoli] and Terrence Hill [Mario Girotti] as two at-odds brothers, one a rough diamond and the other an accomplished intelligent goofball. The plot is fairly simple with the two brothers trying to prevent a gang of outlaws from terrorizing a group of farmers and stealing their land. Much of the humor in this film is very subtle and can only be appreciated after viewing two or three times. The test of a good movie is multiple watchability and Trinity certainly succeeds with every scene containing importance and entertainment value. The interaction with the farmers becomes a little tedious in the end and parts could have been cut since the movie is fairly long at nearly two hours. In fact the length of the movie may account for the excessive video compression on DVD. The editing style is more consistent with older movies and wham-bam-thank-you-mam fans may not like the pace. Even so this is a very special entry and the humor is engaging and optimistic and never stilted or patronizing, and the action scenes are also extremely well done. Hence the classic nature of this film as a spaghetti favorite. Will end on the usual disclaimer with spaghettis: traditional 'John Wayne' western fans probably won't like this movie and will rate it with low marks, however that is a tremendous shame because 'Trinity' is a solid gold spaghetti classic! ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Charming Low Budget SF
Finally this long neglected SF film appears on DVD: withdrawn some 20 years ago in Britain during the 'Video Nasty' witchhunt and unavailable in any form since, 'Contamination' is a film full of charm despite its highly derivative nature. The most obvious comparison is with 'Alien' of course but as the director himself points out in a lovely interview that is the best of the extras on this disc, his aim with the film was to pay homage to 50s American SF pictures. What a nice chap Luigi Cozzi clearly is - ready to admit his debts to other SF, clearly in love with the genre and unashamedly open about his derivative approach
References to 'Invaders From Mars' and 'Quatermass 2' abound: the Martian Cyclops monster is a corker, refreshingly unrealistic and like the director charmingly unsophisticated and direct.
The gore effects remain quite shocking but are relatively few and far between - most descriptions of this movie indicate that someone's chest bursts apart every ten minutes or so, but all such descriptions are overexaggerated. Why this film remains banned in the UK after so long is a mystery to me...
The main problem with the film is its pacing - the middle of the film does lack suspense and imagination, some scenes crawling along when the injection of original ideas (unfortunately the lovely Cozzi doesn't have many of his own, apart from the blatant blood and guts) would have upped the adrenalin.
The picture on the DVD is very good indeed and the music by Goblin is of course excellent, despite the absence of Claudio Simonetti: only one gripe here, Cozzi under-uses the score which is apparent when one owns the superbly remastered cinevox CD.
If you love cheap pulp SF, you have to get yourself this unoriginal but fun film that will take you back to your childhood experiences of lurid science fiction at its most potent.

Avocado of Death
No, this is not about Pinkwater's Snarkout boys. Instead it is about a movie called Alien Contamination (A.K.A. Toxic Spawn) a strange but entertaining foreign film set in America with shades of Atomic Submarine and The Arrival.

A runaway freighter is boarded and found to contain a gruesomely dead crew and boxes marked coffee that contain large avocado-like pods or eggs. These eggs explode on maturity and any mammalian life nearby will explode seconds later. Research shows the eggs to be non-terrestrial in nature. A chance landing by alien spores is ruled out and the failed Mars mission is suspected.

The surviving astronaut from the Mars mission is now a drunk. He had claimed to have seen avocado-like eggs on Mars but the rest of the crew denied his claims. With his help the coffee shipment is tracked to a plantation in South America and the action moves there.

It turns out that the Mars crew mate is not dead. He is alive and running the operation to destroy all human life. He is under the control of a being known as the Cyclops. He brought a Cyclops spore back from Mars where he was hypnotized. After some fun scenes the heroes triumph in the end and the menace from Mars is ended.

Despite the feeling of wrongness that foreign films in English often have, this is actually well above the usual monster shlock movie. In a way it reminds me of The X-Files with investigators that actually investigate records instead of just stumbling along. It was much more of a detective film with aliens than an alien movie with detectives.

I recommend this film for anyone who likes better horror and science fiction films.

Alien arrives on Earth, indeed.
A search of a supposedly deserted ship uncovers a gruesome mystery. The crew is dead, literlly torn apart by some unknown force, and the ship's cargo is not coffee, but groaning, glowing eggs that make people explode whenever contact with the slimy green filling is made. Writer/director 'Lewis Coates' (aka Luigi Cozzi) crafts an incomprehensible story of alien invasion (or simple destruction, the exact goal is never made clear) in this most famous (or infamous) Italian cash-in on Alien. In the to be expected excellent supplements (the disc is from Blue Underground, so special things are almost a matter of routine) Cozzi comes across as a real classic sci-fi geek. Too bad that love didn't infuse his script or direction. While the movie is entertaining, it is mostly for the wrong reasons, and Cozzi fumbles chances for suspense during key moments in the film (i.e. having the female lead trapped in a bathroom with an alien egg) by dragging the scenes out until they become ludicrous. Nonetheless, fans of this long gone era of movie making (late seventies/early eighties low budget schlock cinema) will find something to enjoy in the movie. I did.

Never pick up alien eggs
"Contamination" is one of those low budget Italian science fiction potboilers that provide countless hours of fun. There's something deeply nostalgic about these films for me; I spent whole evenings watching this pap on cable television back in the mid 1980s. There was nothing like coming home in the summer, ordering a pizza, and spending all night with these delicacies. I guess things haven't changed too much since I am still watching them thanks to the DVD revolution. That these movies look and sound better now than they did when they first came out is one of those technological marvels that stagger the mind. Thanks go to Bill Lustig and the folks at Blue Underground for taking the time to release "Contamination" with a plethora of extras coupled with a great audio and video presentation. If you have never sampled the wonders of Italian schlock films, this is a great place to start. "Contamination," in case you haven't guessed, is a shameless rip off of Ridley Scott's classic science fiction gorefest "Alien." But don't expect to see Sigourney Weaver or John Hurt appear anywhere near this cheesy little number.

Eggs. "Contamination" deals primarily with eggs. An abandoned ship sails into New York harbor loaded with weird, pulsating pods the size of basketballs. When the authorities attempt to investigate this strange ship, a bunch of people die horribly when the eggs blow up and spray them with a viscous goo. The hapless souls coated with explosive yolk simply don't keel over and die in a nice, peaceful manner, though. Nope, they explode in ultra slow motion, with their chests and throats opening up with a bang. Obviously, the origins of these objects represent a significant threat to the human race, so the government quickly gets involved in the whole affair. Scientists quickly learn the pods are not of this world, a discovery that brings up a recollection of a disastrous trip to Mars some years before. In an effort to discover what the heck is going on, the government agents, headed up by sexy Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau), track down an astronaut who survived the ill-fated mission. With an annoying New York cop in tow, Holmes must work fast if she is to save humanity from a fate with decidedly alien implications. Yay!

The emotionally destroyed astronaut, Commander Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch of "Zombie" fame), just cannot bring himself to cast his mind back to that horrible time on the red planet. Eventually he does, of course, and in the process recalls a cave filled with millions of pulsating pods and a light as bright as the sun. What does it all mean? Not much at first. Then we discover that some lunk head Hubbard knows only too well managed to bring back the pods, and something else much more dangerous, to earth. The exploding eggs are the central linchpin in a plot to conquer the world. It is up to the psychologically unbalanced Hubbard, the mouthy cop, and Colonel Holmes to thwart this dastardly deed before people start blowing up on a regular basis. Their mission takes them around the world in search of a coffee magnate who smuggles the eggs in wooden boxes filled with beans. All the while, Hubbard's flashbacks about the mysterious cave on Mars reveal more and more clues about what is occurring here on planet earth. Can our heroes stop this nefarious plot before it gets underway? Can Hubbard overcome his difficulties and save the world? Will that cop ever shut up? These questions, and many more unimportant ones, will find resolution by the end of "Contamination."

The movie isn't a masterwork of cinema, even for an entry in the low budget Italian horror-science fiction genre, but it does have its moments. Ian McCulloch is always fun to watch in these types of movies, and he does a good job in the role of the horrified Hubbard. The rest of the cast, well, let's just say the word "forgettable" applies on more than one occasion. At least the gore keeps you on your toes; director Luigi Cozzi wisely spaces out the gruesome death scenes throughout the film, which greatly helps the pacing in an otherwise slow film. Moreover, the effects, from the grue to the pulsating eggs, are well done considering the ultra low budget. Throw in some scenic shots from different locales along with a pounding score from Goblin, and you have the makings of an entertaining little shocker. And let's face it; we all could use more exploding torsos and melting heads to help us get through the day. "Contamination" gives us all of that and not much more. Cozzi is no Sergio Leone, but he doesn't need to be when making a zero cost science fiction puker.

The extras included on the disc are as good as they are surprising for such an obscure film. You get trailers, of course, but you also get so much more. Blue Underground got Cozzi to do an interview about the film, an interview that sheds light on many aspects of the film. With all of the framed 1950's movie posters on the wall behind the director during the interview, it is obvious he likes classic science fiction films. Indeed, Cozzi emphasizes his love for old science fiction and how the genre inspired him to lens "Contamination." Add in a grainy looking featurette made during the filming of the movie and some poster stills, and you have yourself a very nice DVD worth purchasing. Give Cozzi's film a shot if you like your sci-fi gooey and cheap. If not, you can always rent "Alien" again.

Blue Underground, I adore you!
1979 was a very important year for the Italian film industry. Why? Because two American genre films -- DAWN OF THE DEAD and ALIEN -- spurred a slew of imitators from the land of Folcelli pasta. Although DAWN's rip-offs were countless and have gained cult status (some of them have become minor classics), most Italian ALIEN clones have been discarded like yesterday's trash. Directed by Luigi Cozzi, a sort of poor man's Lucio Fulci, CONTAMINATION was made immediately after the success of the Ridley Scott classic. Cozzi also blessed us with the silly STAR WARS-inspired STARCRASH in 1979.

Like many Italian exploitation films of the early 80s, CONTAMINATION begins on location in New York City. A ship enters a harbor with seemingly everyone dead on board. A group of scientists and police garbed in protective gear discover a bloody mess, as well as a bunch of mysterious eggs that look like lime jello footballs. Getting to close to these eggs could prove deadly, as they spew some goo at you and make your body combust from the chest outwards.

A stereotypical Italian NYC cop (Marino Masé) survives the ordeal and teams up with a female military scientist (Louise Marleau). She calls on a now reclusive, alcoholic former astronaut (Ian McCulloch) who returned from Mars without his companion and with unbelievable stories about deadly alien eggs. Proof has now given his tales some clout, so the three trace the strange cargo back to a coffee company in South America! After more victims explode like overcooked meatballs in a microwave oven, a 50s-style Cyclops alien appears and is basically the force behind this mad plot to take over the earth.

CONTAMINATION was released in the U.S. as "Alien Contamination" and when it came out on video, it was pretty much was ignored in favor of rentals of DR. BUTCHER M.D. and ZOMBIE (both also with Scottish thesp McCulloch). It's basically low-grade, cheap thrills with some nice gore effects (nobody did it better than the Italians, Savini included) and homages to INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and other sci-films. It starts with a bang, ends with a semi-bang, but there's lots of rubbish in the middle. McCulloch is always a hoot to watch and lifts the film above its otherwise mediocre level.

Blue Underground has done a stellar job releasing CONTAMINATION on DVD. The film has dull color schemes and bad lighting to begin with, but this transfer is still excellent. Letterboxed at 1.78:1 with Anamorphic enhancement, it almost looks as though it was made yesterday. The audio is equally impressive, with four separate audio tracks: Mono, Dolby 2.0, Dolby 5.1 EX, and DTS 6.1, so Goblin's pounding score never sounded better.

A few nice extras are included here. "The Alien Arrives on Earth" is a solid video interview with director/co-writer Luigi Cozzi. Say what you will about his talent, but he's an obvious fan of science fiction, and the 50s classics in particular. Cozzi tells us everything you need to know about CONTAMINATION, including little tidbits like how he originally wanted Caroline Munro to play the scientist, but the producer didn't want to cast a beauty queen. "Luigi Cozzi on the Set of Contamination" is an original production short film from 1980 (probably shot in 16mm) that takes us from Cozzi's fantasy-art filled office to the set of the film. Both of these are in Italian with English subtitles. Rounding out the extras are the European theatrical trailer, a photo/still/poster gallery and a graphic novel based on Cozzi's original storyboards. This feature can be opened up on your PC using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software. ... Read more

Reviews (4)

TOO BAD IT IS NOT LETTERBOXED
This is not a bad Spaghetti Western with snow, not bad for the price either, however this is a pan and scan print of obviously a 2:35 to 1 aspect ratio, but most of the action is central to the screen, so not as many "talking noses" per say....The print was grainy in some parts but oddly adds to the European feel of the film. Maurizio Merli does a credible job as the good guy and fahter figure to the boys and dog (German Shepard or Alaskan Huskie) and the heavy is played with his usual serving of ham by Henry Silva and a small supporting role by Irish star turned Italian film catylist Donald OBrian. Also for Spaghetti Western, the film is quite mild and very little violence or adult situation. The excellent score is by Carlo Rustichelli who scored several films for the late Gioseppi Collizi such as Boot Hill and Ace High. It has a few extras, for some odd reason an Little Rascal short and a dvd dictionary. I would like to see Lucio Fulci's White Fang and its sequel released as well on dvd...Overall this is not a bad family film

WHITE FANG TO THE RESCUE
This DVD cover is missleading!!! This has nothing to do with the "WHITE WOLF WHITE FANG" The white fang in this movie is a German sheapard -- that people in the movie call a wolf! Get real there is a big difference in a Wolf and a dog!

The people that put out this DVD should not claim it is "Based on the novel by JACK LONDON WHITE FANG TO THE RESCUE"!

WHITE FANG
A young boy gains the trust of a wild wolfhound, which acts as a protector and best friend for the lonely kid. This comes in handy when he gets involved with a famous journalist (Franco Nero), who exposes a web of corruption in a small Klondike mining town, led by a ruthless grasping businessman named Beauty Smith (John Steiner).

WHITE FANG is a change of pace for Fulci. After directing the violent gialli LIZARD IN A WOMAN'S SKIN and DON'T TORTURE A DUCKLING, he decided to aim for a more 'wholesome' movie. He succeeds quite well, and is helped no end by excellent location photography (though some of the opening scenes do look like they were filmed on a stage) and decent actors. Though Franco Nero's lead performance is capable, he pales in comparison with the likes of John Steiner's greedy, seedy villain and Fernando Rey's drunken preacher, whose faith doesn't keep him from raiding the church collection box to buy whisky!

Unfairly neglected by film fans and Fulci buffs alike, this does deserve greater consideration, and despite it being intended for children, it does go a little overboard on violence, with a lingering scene where Fang duels with a grizzly bear.

Fulci's sequel, CHALLENGE TO WHITE FANG, has much the same cast and crew, and is also worth seeing - if you get the chance.

More excitment than the 1972 movie
White Fang once again bounces into action when a human friend gets killed by greedy gold-rushers. Fang and another human friend finds the body and the second man decides to switch idenities with the other. This sets up into a plot involving the murdered man's son, who is the heir to his dad's deed and the villains of the film kidnap him to sqander the fortune, while the man is falsely under suspition of the murder. It is then up to White Fang to save the day. This is the 1974 sequel to the 1972 "White Fang" movie from Italy, both from gore-horror film-maker Lucio Fulci. I kinda since the story to "Rescue" is a little blotchy. For instance, what ever motivated the guy in the first place to switch idenities with the murder victim? Maybe it was to protect the deed and confrot the murderers, but did it ever occur to him a stunt like this would get himself framed for killing a man? Who knows. And there is a little rusty acting on the human part. But "White Fang to The Rescue" isn't at all a bad film. As in the original movie, the best thing was the dog cast as the title hero. Even more of a pleasure to dog-lovers, Fang is given more to do in this film. He tries to rescue the boy from a bear, can open doors with his mouth, he again attempts to rescue the boy from the kidnappers, which is the best part of the film that shows what an unaverage smart canine Fang is. It's intresting that he can be savage or other times be loving and loyal like Rin Tin Tin. And watch out for a spatacular dramatic scene where Fang crashes through a glass window like the other film, and a tense cliffhanger where he puts his life at a limb saving the child one more time. Like its predicessor, 'Rescue" is good entertainment despite any little flaws. ... Read more

Amazon.com

Director Luigi Cozzi's science fiction thriller, which borrows wholesale from Alien for its loopy plot, is a gleefully cheesy gorefest that should please horror fans with a fondness for the lowbrow. Long-suffering Eurocult Ian McCulloch (Zombie) stars as an astronaut who joins an investigation into the appearance of extraterrestrial eggs on a ghost ship in New York's harbor. Their search uncovers an Earth-based conspiracy to cultivate the eggs for world domination. Despite the abundant gore and lunk-headed script, Contamination has an endearingly naive tone that suggests '50s-era B science fiction (of which Cozzi is a fan); as such, one can't be too harsh on a film that displays its affections so openly. Amazingly, Contamination has been banned in England since being named in the "video nasty" debacle of the early '80s. Blue Underground's widescreen DVD is uncut (with 5.1 Dolby and DTS sound!), and should be a welcome addition to any cult collector's cache. --Paul Gaita ... Read more

Reviews (14)

Charming Low Budget SF
Finally this long neglected SF film appears on DVD: withdrawn some 20 years ago in Britain during the 'Video Nasty' witchhunt and unavailable in any form since, 'Contamination' is a film full of charm despite its highly derivative nature. The most obvious comparison is with 'Alien' of course but as the director himself points out in a lovely interview that is the best of the extras on this disc, his aim with the film was to pay homage to 50s American SF pictures. What a nice chap Luigi Cozzi clearly is - ready to admit his debts to other SF, clearly in love with the genre and unashamedly open about his derivative approach
References to 'Invaders From Mars' and 'Quatermass 2' abound: the Martian Cyclops monster is a corker, refreshingly unrealistic and like the director charmingly unsophisticated and direct.
The gore effects remain quite shocking but are relatively few and far between - most descriptions of this movie indicate that someone's chest bursts apart every ten minutes or so, but all such descriptions are overexaggerated. Why this film remains banned in the UK after so long is a mystery to me...
The main problem with the film is its pacing - the middle of the film does lack suspense and imagination, some scenes crawling along when the injection of original ideas (unfortunately the lovely Cozzi doesn't have many of his own, apart from the blatant blood and guts) would have upped the adrenalin.
The picture on the DVD is very good indeed and the music by Goblin is of course excellent, despite the absence of Claudio Simonetti: only one gripe here, Cozzi under-uses the score which is apparent when one owns the superbly remastered cinevox CD.
If you love cheap pulp SF, you have to get yourself this unoriginal but fun film that will take you back to your childhood experiences of lurid science fiction at its most potent.

Avocado of Death
No, this is not about Pinkwater's Snarkout boys. Instead it is about a movie called Alien Contamination (A.K.A. Toxic Spawn) a strange but entertaining foreign film set in America with shades of Atomic Submarine and The Arrival.

A runaway freighter is boarded and found to contain a gruesomely dead crew and boxes marked coffee that contain large avocado-like pods or eggs. These eggs explode on maturity and any mammalian life nearby will explode seconds later. Research shows the eggs to be non-terrestrial in nature. A chance landing by alien spores is ruled out and the failed Mars mission is suspected.

The surviving astronaut from the Mars mission is now a drunk. He had claimed to have seen avocado-like eggs on Mars but the rest of the crew denied his claims. With his help the coffee shipment is tracked to a plantation in South America and the action moves there.

It turns out that the Mars crew mate is not dead. He is alive and running the operation to destroy all human life. He is under the control of a being known as the Cyclops. He brought a Cyclops spore back from Mars where he was hypnotized. After some fun scenes the heroes triumph in the end and the menace from Mars is ended.

Despite the feeling of wrongness that foreign films in English often have, this is actually well above the usual monster shlock movie. In a way it reminds me of The X-Files with investigators that actually investigate records instead of just stumbling along. It was much more of a detective film with aliens than an alien movie with detectives.

I recommend this film for anyone who likes better horror and science fiction films.

Alien arrives on Earth, indeed.
A search of a supposedly deserted ship uncovers a gruesome mystery. The crew is dead, literlly torn apart by some unknown force, and the ship's cargo is not coffee, but groaning, glowing eggs that make people explode whenever contact with the slimy green filling is made. Writer/director 'Lewis Coates' (aka Luigi Cozzi) crafts an incomprehensible story of alien invasion (or simple destruction, the exact goal is never made clear) in this most famous (or infamous) Italian cash-in on Alien. In the to be expected excellent supplements (the disc is from Blue Underground, so special things are almost a matter of routine) Cozzi comes across as a real classic sci-fi geek. Too bad that love didn't infuse his script or direction. While the movie is entertaining, it is mostly for the wrong reasons, and Cozzi fumbles chances for suspense during key moments in the film (i.e. having the female lead trapped in a bathroom with an alien egg) by dragging the scenes out until they become ludicrous. Nonetheless, fans of this long gone era of movie making (late seventies/early eighties low budget schlock cinema) will find something to enjoy in the movie. I did.

Never pick up alien eggs
"Contamination" is one of those low budget Italian science fiction potboilers that provide countless hours of fun. There's something deeply nostalgic about these films for me; I spent whole evenings watching this pap on cable television back in the mid 1980s. There was nothing like coming home in the summer, ordering a pizza, and spending all night with these delicacies. I guess things haven't changed too much since I am still watching them thanks to the DVD revolution. That these movies look and sound better now than they did when they first came out is one of those technological marvels that stagger the mind. Thanks go to Bill Lustig and the folks at Blue Underground for taking the time to release "Contamination" with a plethora of extras coupled with a great audio and video presentation. If you have never sampled the wonders of Italian schlock films, this is a great place to start. "Contamination," in case you haven't guessed, is a shameless rip off of Ridley Scott's classic science fiction gorefest "Alien." But don't expect to see Sigourney Weaver or John Hurt appear anywhere near this cheesy little number.

Eggs. "Contamination" deals primarily with eggs. An abandoned ship sails into New York harbor loaded with weird, pulsating pods the size of basketballs. When the authorities attempt to investigate this strange ship, a bunch of people die horribly when the eggs blow up and spray them with a viscous goo. The hapless souls coated with explosive yolk simply don't keel over and die in a nice, peaceful manner, though. Nope, they explode in ultra slow motion, with their chests and throats opening up with a bang. Obviously, the origins of these objects represent a significant threat to the human race, so the government quickly gets involved in the whole affair. Scientists quickly learn the pods are not of this world, a discovery that brings up a recollection of a disastrous trip to Mars some years before. In an effort to discover what the heck is going on, the government agents, headed up by sexy Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau), track down an astronaut who survived the ill-fated mission. With an annoying New York cop in tow, Holmes must work fast if she is to save humanity from a fate with decidedly alien implications. Yay!

The emotionally destroyed astronaut, Commander Ian Hubbard (Ian McCulloch of "Zombie" fame), just cannot bring himself to cast his mind back to that horrible time on the red planet. Eventually he does, of course, and in the process recalls a cave filled with millions of pulsating pods and a light as bright as the sun. What does it all mean? Not much at first. Then we discover that some lunk head Hubbard knows only too well managed to bring back the pods, and something else much more dangerous, to earth. The exploding eggs are the central linchpin in a plot to conquer the world. It is up to the psychologically unbalanced Hubbard, the mouthy cop, and Colonel Holmes to thwart this dastardly deed before people start blowing up on a regular basis. Their mission takes them around the world in search of a coffee magnate who smuggles the eggs in wooden boxes filled with beans. All the while, Hubbard's flashbacks about the mysterious cave on Mars reveal more and more clues about what is occurring here on planet earth. Can our heroes stop this nefarious plot before it gets underway? Can Hubbard overcome his difficulties and save the world? Will that cop ever shut up? These questions, and many more unimportant ones, will find resolution by the end of "Contamination."

The movie isn't a masterwork of cinema, even for an entry in the low budget Italian horror-science fiction genre, but it does have its moments. Ian McCulloch is always fun to watch in these types of movies, and he does a good job in the role of the horrified Hubbard. The rest of the cast, well, let's just say the word "forgettable" applies on more than one occasion. At least the gore keeps you on your toes; director Luigi Cozzi wisely spaces out the gruesome death scenes throughout the film, which greatly helps the pacing in an otherwise slow film. Moreover, the effects, from the grue to the pulsating eggs, are well done considering the ultra low budget. Throw in some scenic shots from different locales along with a pounding score from Goblin, and you have the makings of an entertaining little shocker. And let's face it; we all could use more exploding torsos and melting heads to help us get through the day. "Contamination" gives us all of that and not much more. Cozzi is no Sergio Leone, but he doesn't need to be when making a zero cost science fiction puker.

The extras included on the disc are as good as they are surprising for such an obscure film. You get trailers, of course, but you also get so much more. Blue Underground got Cozzi to do an interview about the film, an interview that sheds light on many aspects of the film. With all of the framed 1950's movie posters on the wall behind the director during the interview, it is obvious he likes classic science fiction films. Indeed, Cozzi emphasizes his love for old science fiction and how the genre inspired him to lens "Contamination." Add in a grainy looking featurette made during the filming of the movie and some poster stills, and you have yourself a very nice DVD worth purchasing. Give Cozzi's film a shot if you like your sci-fi gooey and cheap. If not, you can always rent "Alien" again.

Blue Underground, I adore you!
1979 was a very important year for the Italian film industry. Why? Because two American genre films -- DAWN OF THE DEAD and ALIEN -- spurred a slew of imitators from the land of Folcelli pasta. Although DAWN's rip-offs were countless and have gained cult status (some of them have become minor classics), most Italian ALIEN clones have been discarded like yesterday's trash. Directed by Luigi Cozzi, a sort of poor man's Lucio Fulci, CONTAMINATION was made immediately after the success of the Ridley Scott classic. Cozzi also blessed us with the silly STAR WARS-inspired STARCRASH in 1979.

Like many Italian exploitation films of the early 80s, CONTAMINATION begins on location in New York City. A ship enters a harbor with seemingly everyone dead on board. A group of scientists and police garbed in protective gear discover a bloody mess, as well as a bunch of mysterious eggs that look like lime jello footballs. Getting to close to these eggs could prove deadly, as they spew some goo at you and make your body combust from the chest outwards.

A stereotypical Italian NYC cop (Marino Masé) survives the ordeal and teams up with a female military scientist (Louise Marleau). She calls on a now reclusive, alcoholic former astronaut (Ian McCulloch) who returned from Mars without his companion and with unbelievable stories about deadly alien eggs. Proof has now given his tales some clout, so the three trace the strange cargo back to a coffee company in South America! After more victims explode like overcooked meatballs in a microwave oven, a 50s-style Cyclops alien appears and is basically the force behind this mad plot to take over the earth.

CONTAMINATION was released in the U.S. as "Alien Contamination" and when it came out on video, it was pretty much was ignored in favor of rentals of DR. BUTCHER M.D. and ZOMBIE (both also with Scottish thesp McCulloch). It's basically low-grade, cheap thrills with some nice gore effects (nobody did it better than the Italians, Savini included) and homages to INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS, IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE and other sci-films. It starts with a bang, ends with a semi-bang, but there's lots of rubbish in the middle. McCulloch is always a hoot to watch and lifts the film above its otherwise mediocre level.

Blue Underground has done a stellar job releasing CONTAMINATION on DVD. The film has dull color schemes and bad lighting to begin with, but this transfer is still excellent. Letterboxed at 1.78:1 with Anamorphic enhancement, it almost looks as though it was made yesterday. The audio is equally impressive, with four separate audio tracks: Mono, Dolby 2.0, Dolby 5.1 EX, and DTS 6.1, so Goblin's pounding score never sounded better.

A few nice extras are included here. "The Alien Arrives on Earth" is a solid video interview with director/co-writer Luigi Cozzi. Say what you will about his talent, but he's an obvious fan of science fiction, and the 50s classics in particular. Cozzi tells us everything you need to know about CONTAMINATION, including little tidbits like how he originally wanted Caroline Munro to play the scientist, but the producer didn't want to cast a beauty queen. "Luigi Cozzi on the Set of Contamination" is an original production short film from 1980 (probably shot in 16mm) that takes us from Cozzi's fantasy-art filled office to the set of the film. Both of these are in Italian with English subtitles. Rounding out the extras are the European theatrical trailer, a photo/still/poster gallery and a graphic novel based on Cozzi's original storyboards. This feature can be opened up on your PC using the free Adobe Acrobat Reader software. ... Read more

Reviews (1)

this movie does not deserve to have "scarface" in the title!
this movie was easily one of the worst movies i have ever seen. it had POOR acting POOR picture quality POOR fighting scenes absolutly no plot and is definately NOT worth watching,renting, or buying. ... Read more