alien monsters | Monster Zone

Watch out for the monster's pincer-tail, Riddick! — Watch out for the monster’s pincer-tail, Riddick!

Starring Vin Diesel, Jordi Mollà, Matt Nable, Katee Sackhoff, Dave Bautista, Bokeem Woodbine and Conrad Pla. Written and directed by David Twohy. One Race Productions/Riddick Canada Productions/Radar Pictures.

'Survival is his revenge' — ‘Survival is his revenge’

Hard-as-nails macho future warrior Riddick finds himself stranded on a wild, sun-scorched planet, so he is forced to trigger an emergency beacon that attracts two teams of mercenaries, who land on the planet and begin to hunt him. As if taking on these mercs isn’t enough, it starts to rain, and within the wet weather lurk monsters that would really love to eat Riddick!

PITCH BLACK (2000) was a very enjoyable, violent sc-fi-action-monster movie that introduced the world to badass antihero Riddick (a character created by Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat), played to perfection by Vin Diesel. The follow-up flick, THE CHRONICLES OF RIDDICK (2004), wasn’t to my taste. I found it too overblown and sprawling, desperate to be more of an ‘epic’ sci-fi blockbuster. This third film, RIDDICK, is much better, in my opinion, maybe because it tones down the pompous fantasy-science fiction elements of part 2 and concentrates on telling a survival-on-a-creature-filled-planet story, just like the first film. You could certainly argue that RIDDICK’s central concept is very similar to PITCH BLACK’s core plot: one has alien beasties that only come out in the dark, and the other has alien beasties that only come out when it rains. But, hey, I like this monsters-in-the-downpour concept, so let’s move on…

The monsters close-in... — The monsters close-in…

RIDDICK really delivers lots of creature action! Perhaps this movie’s world is a little green screen-ish compared to the real locations used in PITCH BLACK, but this movie does boast a fun bunch of critters!

There’s loads of fun stuff to see here, including pincer-tailed Mud Demon predators, hyena-like dog creatures, flying bird-reptiles and eels that live in tepid pools of water. I love the bit where Riddick disembowels a big Mud Demon… which proceeds to eat its own guts!

Riddick slides beneath the big Mud Demon, ready to slit open its guts with his bone-mounted blade weapon!

It was a nice touch having Riddick befriend one of the alien dog creatures. Cool!

There’s a last stand-style battle between Riddick and the Mud Demons on a rock outcrop that is also pretty damn cool: it’s almost like a Conan the Barbarian moment! Niiiiiiiiiice.

The last stand moment atop a rocky outcrop

Finally, here are some creature concepts…

The original design for the Mud Demon was done by Patrick Tatopoulos, then Jerad S. Marantz took a pass at the creatures, modelling them in Z brush.

Full body view of Mud Demon, seen from different angles — Full body view of the Mud Demon design, seen from different angles

Designs for the Mud Demon pincer-tipped tail!

Blobby alien attacks a victim in a cave!

After a spacecraft returns to Earth missing its astronauts, we are shown a young girl on a beach, where she discovers a strange, blue rock. The girl’s mother soon finds her… with her face missing!

We then follow some friends who are on their way to enjoy themselves exploring a cave system. As they change into their caving gear, one of the group discovers a blue rock… and he decides to put it in his backpack. Bad decision, mate.

This sci-fi horror flick was written and directed by Ciro Ippolito (going by the name Sam Cromwell), was released following the success of ALIEN (1979), and was promoted as an unofficial sequel to Ridley Scott’s film, despite having no connection to it.

ALIEN 2: ON EARTH was released theatrically in Italy on April 11th 1980 as ALIEN 2: SULLA TERRA. It is also known as ALIEN TERROR.

The film features Michele Soavi in a co-starring role, before he went behind the camera to become the director of such films as STAGE FRIGHT (1987), THE CHURCH (1989) and CEMETERY MAN (1994). The movie was filmed in Rome’s Cinecittà Studios, California and the Castellana Caves in southern Italy.

Okay, this flick has an interesting set-up: a group of friends being killed off by alien organisms during a caving expedition. That’s a cool idea. These extraterrestrial things, I assume, arrived in those blue, pulsating rocks, but nothing is explained clearly in this movie.

Cavers get killed after the alien organ-blobs somehow squirm out of the surrounding boulders... — Cavers get killed after the alien organ-blobs somehow squirm out of the surrounding boulders…

The blobby, bloody, organ-like aliens are only ever seen in close-up, as they erupt from victims or, at one point, issue from inside boulders in the cave. Because we only ever see them up-close or out of focus it’s hard to really know what these creatures are meant to look like in their entirety.

The alien blob-bits are shown in close-up, so you never get a clear view of the whole thing

Yes - another 'bit of an alien' seen in the cave — Yes – another ‘bit of an alien’ seen in close-up in the cave

The film possesses very little logic. In fact, it makes fellow Italian Alien rip-off movie CONTAMINATION (1980) look like a plotting masterclass by comparison! For instance, it’s hard to know why the protagonists who manage to escape from the cave make the decision to go to a bowling alley rather than run straight to a police station! And just how did the entire city become deserted so quickly at the end of the film?

However, as I learnt long ago that logic was never an important factor in many Italian genre movie knockoffs, I kind of expected this sort of plotting! So what did stand out for me in this movie? Well…

…I think the best moment comes when a blobby alien bursts from a woman caver’s face, wraps around the throat of a guy dangling from a rope, then causes his head to fall off! Sometimes you have to enjoy the occasional gory, bizarre moment in these illogical flicks!