The Italians certainly have a way with cinema. They have no shame in “ripping off” pre-existing works. If it’s something that sells, they’ll pick it up and run with it. And because of that my love for them is everlasting. By using previous hits as “inspiration,” Italy has produced some of my favorite movies of all time. Contamination, which borrows quite heavily from Alien, is another one of those movies and nearly every moment of it is glorious.

The film opens with a large ship drifting into the New York Harbor. The ship appears to be abandoned as communication attempts fail to get any sort of a response. Once the proper authorities reel the ship in NYPD Lieutenant Tony Aris (Marino Masé) leads a team aboard to investigate the mysterious vessel. They soon discover the entire crew is dead, their bodies mutilated beyond recognition. To make matters worse strange eggs litter the boat and we soon find out that these eggs contain a liquid that causes humans to explode. Needless to say, shit gets real in a hurry.

The government quickly gets involved sending Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) in to assess the situation. After a fairly quick inspection of the eggs Holmes is able to tie them back to a recent mission to Mars. Unfortunately the only surviving member of that trip to Mars, Commander Hubbard (Ian McCulloch),  is basically retired. Fortunately Holmes has a way of convincing people to do as she says so Hubbard agrees to help without putting up much of a fight. With the government granting 72 hours to solve the mystery, the newly formed trio heads to South America to get started.

Contamination is basically Alien if Alien took place on Earth. Oh and instead of having one chest burster scene we get about 50. Obviously I’m over exaggerating a bit, but Contamination does feature a whole lot of exploding chests and each one is in glorious slow motion. The slow motion is important because it really allows you to see the insides of the poor victims as they come ripping out of their bodies. I approve of this all very much.

The team of Holmes, Hubbard and Aris is so weird. The whole time they have this bizarre love triangle going on. Both guys are interested in Holmes and you can tell Holmes is interested in both of them. Plus both Hubbard and Aris know the other is attracted to Holmes. The weird thing is none of them seem to mind this. It’s awkward because it’s never really awkward between the three of them. They all seem to understand the situation and they’re completely cool with it.

It’s also worth pointing out that Aris is basically Cosmo Kramer if Kramer were a Brooklyn cop. Something about his mannerisms and the way he reacted to situations just made me think of Kramer. The whole time I was watching the movie I couldn’t help but think, “yep, that’s Kramer.”

The three-way-love-connection isn’t the only craziness to take place. Contamination also features these strange moments of humor that sometimes have tonal shifts. There is one scene in particular that really highlights this. Hubbard, Aris and Holmes are set to meet up for dinner. When the time arrives Aris and Hubbard meet up and walk over to the hotel room Holmes is staying in. When they arrive they notice that a do not disturb sign has been placed on the door. Now even though they had all agreed to meet for dinner, Hubbard and Aris don’t think it’s that strange that Holmes changed her mind without telling them and decide that they’ll just proceed to dinner together without her. I mean hey, if she wanted to be bothered why put up the sign?

What Hubbard and Aris fail to realize is that the bad guys snuck into Holmes’ room while she was in the shower and placed one of the eggs in her bathroom. They then locked her in the bathroom and put up the do not disturb sign to fool Hubbard and Aris. Miraculously this almost works! Fortunately Holmes made it out before the egg exploded, which we know would have caused her to explode. Maybe the biggest question here though is why the baddies didn’t just kill Holmes while she was in the shower?

So yeah, Contamination contains some really strange script elements, but hey no one ever said Luigi Cozzi was great with plot details. Cozzi is, however, one of the Italian genre directors I find to be a bit underrated. He doesn’t get the same love and recognition as the Fulci’s of the world, but he’s a very talented director. Contamination, despite its flaws, demonstrates the skill of Cozzi. He crafted a really fun Alien knockoff. There are lots of moments along the way that don’t make sense but it’s all worth it once you get to that final battle with the giant alien creature. Oh and there is all of the exploding humans which is cool. And he wisely enlisted the talents of Goblin for the soundtrack which is always a plus.

Now available on Blu-ray from Arrow, Contamination looks fantastic. Which at this point should come as no surprise. More than any other company Arrow consistently delivers on the goods. This is actually probably one of my favorite Arrow releases to date. The special features include a little mini-doc discussing the Italian rip-offs which I find fascinating. One of my favorite special features on anything ever. The film also comes in a really cool, shiny slipcase with gorgeous artwork. Just a stunning release all around.

Contamination is now available on Blu-ray from Arrow Films.