Species III (V)

I must confess, I haven’t seen either prior ‘Species’ movie in ages and can’t remember a damn thing regarding the plot. Point- if there are any inconsistencies in the stories evolution, I would have missed it completely. On the other side, at least I got to go in with a clean slate not knowing what to expect exactly.

In Brad Turner’s ‘Species III,’ the extremely long unrated direct-to-video release, Eve (Natasha Henstridge) giver birth to a baby girl in the wake of her bloody death. The daughter Sara (Sunny Mabrey) is raised by Professor Abbott (Robert Knepper) of a local university. When he discovers the potential of this baby he decides to play god and create a new species. At the same time a student at the University is about to lose his scholarship and is told he MUST do some sort of project with a professor or he’ll lose it. Ironically enough (wink wink) he works with the professor is his mission to create a perfect species. While at the same time hybrid species are hunting down Sara to rape her and help clean their dying and sick genetic make-up.

The movie ran in at over 1 hour and 50 minutes, which is extremely too long for a direct-to-video movie, this was one of the only major downfalls of the movie. There were plenty of useless scenes the movie could have done without, for example: In one scene Sara is out looking for her special “mate” and strolls through a group of high school kids partying. They hit on her and she knocks them around a bit- one says, “Give me some tongue,” and Sara grabs his jaw, squeezes and replies, “you don’t want tongue.” The scene is useless and runs in at around 5 minutes. There are plenty of other examples of this; a shorter cut would have meant a cleaner, tighter movie.

There was a little reminiscent of another movie floating around in ‘Species III,’ sometimes it felt like I was watching the great ‘Re-Animator.’ I’m not comparing the two films in any way shape or form; it’s just that the level of gore and the “style” of gore were quite similar. The species and hybrids had large tentacles- sometimes spewing from their stomachs and flailing around; tell me that’s not right out of ‘Re-Animator’? The blood level in this unrated version was way up there. There were plenty of heads being blasted open by the species, people being split apart, disgusting berth scenes, melting hybrids and more! If anything, the blood and gore made this movie totally watchable and something I could actually sit through again on lets say- a ‘Species’ night.

Although the movie was long, I actually did enjoy the story-arc, but the screenplay itself was hilarious. I can’t stand when an actor will announce what just happened. For example towards the end of a movie this reactor or something needs to be sealed off and when it is this one guy says something along the lines of, “oh good it’s stopping, yes yes he sealed it.” Once again this is something that happens time and time again and is completely unnecessary.

And the acting? Dreadful. “Do you have a nice set of breasts and a sweet ass?” You’ve got the job! It’s like the casting agents went to MTV’s little party house headquarters and just grabbed some beautiful people and said, “Want to be in a movie?” The acting is up there next to horrendous, with the exemption of Robert Knepper who played Professor Abbott.

Although the movie isn’t perfect- or even close to perfect for that matter- it is quite entertaining, especially for a direct-to-video. My only advice would be to hold the remote close, because you’ll want to skim through a lot of the bull crap to get to some action! ‘Species II’ is a definite rent, and possible own if you have the previous two. The DVD is available to own now.

Official Score