Fun Alien(s) Knockoffs available on BD List

[The Great Owl]

Originally Posted by AKORIS

This was my first thought when I saw the thread title.

Here's my movie content review of Forbidden World that I wrote a few years back, and compared it overtly to Alien...


Forbidden World, another glorious Roger Corman production, not only rips off the plot of Alien, but it also rips off footage from a previous Corman release, Battle Beyond the Stars. The fact that this movie is not only watchable, but actually quite fun, is a testament to the abilities of the low-budget film crew, all of whom were quite enthusiastic about the project.

Jesse Vint, who is best known for a myriad of supporting roles during the late 1970s and early 1980s, plays an intergalactic federal marshal who is assigned to investigate problems at a genetics laboratory on an isolated planet. It tuns out that the scientists' plans to engineer a life form capable of feeding the population has spiraled out of control, resulting in a massive mutant creature that turns humans into gross indistinct masses of protein for its own food source.

This plot is basically just an excuse for copious amounts of gore and gratuitous nudity, but the end result is nonetheless entertaining. I love that the two female scientists, played by June Chadwick and Dawn Dunlap, walk around the laboratory in clear stripper high heels and have a propensity to have long serious conversations while washing each other's hair in the shower.

The mutant looks like a knockoff Walmart version of the creature in Alien, but effective camerawork and quick editing make it halfway fearsome during the confrontation scenes.

Years have passed since the last time that I saw Forbidden World, but I quite enjoyed revisiting it last night. It's another example of how even the bad sci-fi movies of the 1980s were still good simply because they were so...so 1980s. If you're a 1980s kid like me, in fact, then you'll remember June Chadwick from her role in the original V miniseries as the blonde alien who is Diana's second-in-command.