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CONTAMINATION (Blue Underground DVD) Director: Luigi Cozzi Hacktors: Ian McCulloch, Louise Monroe, Martin Mase Head Count: Tag-line: None here. Other releases have carried the excellent 'You can feel them in your blood!'. Death Toll: A healthy dozen, although roughly half of these are gunshot victims, as opposed to gruesome exploders. Cutting Remarks: Blue Underground does it again - another great little cult movie gets the Rolls Royce DVD treatment. For anyone in the UK who spent years watching the VIP Video pre-cert release, or the censored European Creative re-release, to see Luigi Cozzi's sci-fi/horror gut-buster in glorious, sharp colour is quite some revelation. Finally, we can see every detail of the exploding stomachs which were this movie's gimmick and helped keep it in most gorehounds' hearts.          The plot, viewed in the cold light of not only DVD but 2003, is wholly ludicrous. Cargos of alien eggs are brought to Earth, partly by a possessed NASA astronaut who visited Mars with Ian McCullogh's character. The latter actor, by the way, is as great as usual, taking the whole thing very seriously and displaying plenty of that stiff British upper-lip perfectly summing up the late seventies when this was made.          In one especially nonsensical scene, an unseen fiend attempts to assassinate the female colonel heroine (Monroe) by placing an egg in her bathroom while she takes a shower. Why not just kill her there and then? But no - let's place an egg in the room which will take at least 15 minutes to explode! Those eggs, by the way, are the second best thing in the movie, looking great considering they were apparently just varnished balloons. Third prize goes to the climactic Cyclops creature, which is also miraculously good - glowing lamp eye aside - given Cozzi's miniscule budget. Get in the beers and get laughing. Most Memorable Demise: Three men who die together in a warehouse full of eggs. Those stomachs blow up good. Look Out For: A hilarious scene in which the evil astronaut Hamilton tells Monroe, "It's time to meet the Cyclops." Frightened, she replies, "The Cyclops?!". "Yes," says Hamilton, looking straight into the camera lens. "The Cyclops!". Err, what was the creature's name again? Killer Quote: "Let's see what's behind this little mystery" - Cops venturing aboard a boat, shortly before being blown open by alien slime. DVD Details: Widescreen 1.85:1/16:9. Four audio options here: DTS, Dolby 5.1 EX, Dolby 2.0 and good old mono, for that 1980s ambience. An excellent, newly-filmed 18-minute featurette, Alien Arrives On Earth, interviews Luigi Cozzi about Contamination and his career in general. Who'd ever thought we'd see that? We also get a 23-minute documentary made around the time of Contamination's release, in which a decidedly younger-looking Cozzi enthuses about the process of film-making, over footage from the 'Contamination' set (where, incidentally, it doesn't look like anyone was exactly having a ball). Interestingly, both featurettes see Cozzi dissing his leading lady Monroe, who he basically describes as ugly on both occasions! We beg to differ, although she's admittedly no Caroline Monroe, who Cozzi originally wanted for the role. This documentary is also ripe with statements of the obvious, such as "The blood obviously wasn't real", "The bullets are, obviously, fake" and best of all, "The actors didn't really explode"! Plus the theatrical trailer, poster & still gallery and a graphic novel which must be played on a PC with DVD-ROM capabilities. Release Date: Out now in the States and the UK. [Check it out at Amazon UK] [Check it out at Amazon US] [Reviews Menu] © Copyright Slasherama 2002-present