Alien Terminator (1995)

It’s one day before a team of isolated scientists are freed from their bio-dome 5 miles beneath the earths surface in Las Cruces, New Mexico.  As it turns out, the project was really funded by Earthtek in order to develop a virus to create aggressive soldiers or to kill folks.  This part was a juuuussst a little shaky but I’m leaning towards the former more so than the latter.  Newton (Kevin Alber-the director of several of the newer Emmanuelle flicks) is the genius biochemist/geneticist who is the only one who really knows the purpose of their extended isolation experiment.  He snorts, smokes and ingests just about every synthetic drug he can produce to expand his brain power while toiling away in a lab full of Lite Brite control panels and gurgling beakers of colored fluid.  Instead of a spark factory this one produces blinks and bubbles.  Finally he has success while rearranging the atoms of the virus while wearing glasses and his Nintendo Power Glove.

The other scientists, Coach (Bob McFarland), McKay (Maria Ford), Tayler (Roger Halston), Rachel (Lisa Boyle) and Pete (Emile Levisetti) are blissfully unaware of the labs true purpose and go about their own unrevealed research.  We can assume no one was working on any antivirals or anything that may stop a massive killing machine.  Pete and Rachel have big plans for the day they finally pop the hatch and see the surface of the earth again.  They’re getting hitched.  No one else really has any plans (which is a good thing as it pans out).  Newton runs into resounding success as his virus infects his rat, then Coach’s cat…then Coach.  In a scene cribbed straight out of ALIEN, Kane…I mean Coach, ruins the scientists dinner by frothing at the mouth, flopping on the table and having something small and fast bust out of his back.  See that…totally threw you with the back bit.  Now that this thing is out it is up to the EarthTek team to find a way to stop it before it gets to the surface. 

This film is staffed by the usual suspects: Maria Ford, Emile Levisetti, Bob McFarland, Roger Halstead and Lisa Boyle are all New Horizons regulars.  The acting is on par with anything else you’ve seen from New Horizons.  The sets are creative and actually work despite a bit of cheesiness.  The EarthTek uniforms are hilarious…they are logo T-shirts.  They look more like a softball team than a science team. Ford’s is a cut-off apparently to show her contractually obligated midriff. As far as nudity, Lisa Boyle does all of the heavy lifting while Ford keeps her top on.  

Though called ALIEN TERMINATOR, there is little inspired by TERMINATOR to be found.  The ALIEN ripoffs are fairly obvious.  It is more a pastiche of ALIEN and LEVIATHAN than anything else.  In fact, it is more like LEVIATHAN under ground with a couple scenes cribbed from ALIEN.  The news story about a catastrophe wiping out the whole team is lifted straight from the underwater horror flick.  The effects are fairly laughable.  They are done in the best film school style but they leave much to be desired.  The computer graphics effects are outrageous!  Newton’s VR graphics would make the effects teams of LAWNMOWER MAN and HACKERS swell with pride.  They are absolutely terrible.  

The New Horizon DVD has no special features but there are some trailers: ALIEN TERMINATOR, FUTURE FEAR, SHOWGIRL MURDERS, ANGEL OF DESTRUCTION.  Overall ALIEN TERMINATOR is brainless fun.  It doesn’t require any thought or investment of thought.  Put it on and do something productive or put it on and veg out.  

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