INSEMINOID aka HORROR PLANET (UK - 1981; US release 1982) Directed by Norman J. Warren. Written by Nick Maley and Gloria Maley. Cast: Judy Geeson, Robin Clarke, Jennifer Ashley, Stephanie Beacham, Steven Grives, Barry Houghton, Rosalind Lloyd, Victoria Tennant, Trevor Thomas, Heather Wright, David Baxt, Dominic Jephcott, John Segal, Kevin O'Shea, Robert Pugh. (R, 92 mins) A trashy cult horror classic from the glory days of '80s late-night cable, 1981's INSEMINOID (aka HORROR PLANET) is probably the best-known work of British exploitation auteur Norman J. Warren (SATAN'S SLAVE, PREY, TERROR). A blatant ALIEN knockoff that would make a great triple feature with GALAXY OF TERROR and XTRO, INSEMINOID revels in its sleaze, gore, and general grossness, which is really key to its nostalgic charm from a bygone era but would probably result in instant cancellation were it made today. Just out on Blu-ray from Scream Factory (because physical media is dead), INSEMINOID doesn't waste any time letting you know that it's an ALIEN ripoff, after an archaeological expedition finds evidence of past life in tombs on an unnamed planet with two suns and an average temperature of 89 below zero.
Two crew members, Ricky (David Baxt, who had a tiny role as a forest ranger in THE SHINING) and Dean (Dominic Jephcott) are exploring a cave and witness a rock formation exploding. Dean is injured and dies, while Ricky seems to be under the psychological hold of some crystals that were expelled during the blast. After busting out of quarantine, a seemingly possessed Ricky tries to sabotage the installation's oxygen supply and is killed by documentation officer Kate (Stephanie Beacham). Two other crew members--Sandy (Judy Geeson) and Mitch (Trevor Thomas)--venture into the caves only to have an alien creature appear out of nowhere and tear Mitch to shreds before raping Sandy. Another explosion and subsequent cave-in leaves them stranded in the facility until a rescue team can make the long journey to save them. In the meantime, the team's doctor Karl (Barry Houghton) discovers that the traumatized Sandy is in the midst of an accelerated twin pregnancy that doesn't seem to be the result of her relationship with mission commander Mark (Robin Clarke). Sandy then develops an insatiable thirst for blood, stalking and killing the crew one by one in graphic fashion to nourish her growing alien fetuses.
Warren dives right into the horrific mayhem, allowing almost nothing in the way of character development or even getting a handle on who's who on the crew, which consists of about a dozen people for Geeson's Sandy to work her way through. INSEMINOID has a larger-than-normal body count as far as these ALIEN ripoffs go (a young Victoria Tennant, years before marrying Steve Martin and starring with him in L.A. STORY, makes an early exit). It's to Warren's credit that he keeps the film trucking along with all manner of sexual violence and grindhouse gore (there's even a scene where someone has to chainsaw off their own foot), with Geeson, by that point a veteran actress best known for co-starring with Sidney Poitier in 1967's TO SIR WITH LOVE, literally sinking her teeth into it with an intense and fearless performance, giving no visible indication that the whole project is maybe a little beneath her. Likewise for Beacham, a few years away from American TV fame on DYNASTY, THE COLBYS, and SISTER KATE, who reportedly turned down a role in a prestigious London play because this paid more and she needed the money.
The Scream Factory Blu-ray includes a feature-length documentary on Warren, with a focus on the production of INSEMINOID. He cast two Americans for export value--Clarke, who had just co-starred in the Tim Conway/Don Knotts comedy THE PRIZE FIGHTER and had a small role in the George C. Scott/Marlon Brando thriller THE FORMULA, and Jennifer Ashley, who established her drive-in exploitation bona fides in 1976's THE POM POM GIRLS, 1977's TINTORERA, and 1980's GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED on her way to 1983's immortal CHAINED HEAT. Ashley straight-up admits she was out of her league working opposite Geeson and Beacham, but Warren praises her professionalism. That's more than he or Ashley can say about Clarke, described by all involved parties as an arrogant, uncooperative pain in the ass who alienated the entire cast and kept behaving as if having "a Brando movie" on his resume gave him bragging rights, even frequently second-guessing and arguing with the director (Warren: "Robin was in THE FORMULA and he had one scene, where he gets shot in the pre-credits sequence...his scene wasn't even with Brando," adding that Clarke was "the only actor I ever had to yell at").
INSEMINOID is a nasty time capsule from that grimy New Wave of British Horror scene going back to the early '70s that gave us cult figures like Warren, XTRO director Harry Bromley Davenport, and the movement's most famous figure, Pete Walker, the director of gems like 1971's DIE SCREAMING MARIANNE, 1974's HOUSE OF WHIPCORD, and 1976's SCHIZO. These films took a decidedly scuzzier and often sexploitative approach that went further than stalwart UK horror houses Hammer and Amicus. It probably wouldn't play well for more sensitive audiences today, though its alien rape scene is surprisingly less offensive than a similar sequence in the Roger Corman-produced GALAXY OF TERROR, that was made around the same time. Released in a few cities in the US in the spring of 1982 under its original title before being rechristened HORROR PLANET for a relaunch the following fall, INSEMINOID enjoyed a long life in video stores and on cable (under the HORROR PLANET title), and even after the dawn of the DVD era gave some of his older films their first signifcant exposure on these shores, it remains Warren's most widely-seen film in America. Now 78, he's only made two features since--the 1986 spy actioner GUNPOWDER with FELLINI SATYRICON star Martin Potter, and the 1987 slasher film BLOODY NEW YEAR, after which he essentially retired, aside from a few music videos, though he's been an active participant on DVD and Blu-ray bonus features and makes occasional appearances on the UK convention circuit.
THE HOLCROFT COVENANT (UK - 1985) Directed by John Frankenheimer. Written by George Axelrod, Edward Anhalt and John Hopkins. Cast: Michael Caine, Anthony Andrews, Victoria Tennant, Lilli Palmer, Mario Adorf, Michael Lonsdale, Bernard Hepton, Richard Munch, Carl Rigg, Shane Rimmer, Michael Balfour, Andre Penvern, Andrew Bradford, Tharita Olivera De Sera. (R, 113 mins)
A misfire that reunites director John Frankenheimer with his MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE screenwriter George Axelrod (who shares script credit with two other respected scribes in Edward Anhalt and John Hopkins), THE HOLCROFT COVENANT is an intriguing conspiracy thriller that just never finds its footing. Adapted from Robert Ludlum's novel, the film has a fatally miscast Michael Caine as Noel Holcroft, an American architect who gets involved in a decades-old plot hatched by his biological father--a high-ranking Nazi and member of Hitler's inner circle--to pay reparations to surviving Holocaust victims and heirs to those killed using a secret Zurich bank account that's ballooned to $4.5 billion in the 40 years since the end of WWII. Certain parties have other plans for the money, like creating a Fourth Reich, which requires getting rid of Holcroft, who has completely disavowed his father and whose mother (Lilli Palmer, in her last big-screen role before her death in 1986) fled Germany when he was 18 months old and settled in America where she married the man who would adopt Noel (Holcroft's repeatedly proclaiming "I'm a foreign-born American citizen!" seems to be Caine trying to explain away his distinctly Michael Caine accent). Holcroft isn't alone in this inheritance. He must share the proceeds with the children of two other Nazis who entered this "covenant"--the Von Tiebolt siblings (Victoria Tennant and Anthony Andrews) and famed conductor Jurgen Mass (Mario Adorf), which of course leads to numerous double and triple crosses and assassins lurking in the background and foreground of scenes, constantly making attempts on Holcroft's life.
Made during a several-year stretch when he was turning absolutely nothing down (how can we forget his triumphant turn in 1987's JAWS: THE REVENGE?), Caine finished shooting the comedy WATER on a Friday when he got a call to begin work on HOLCROFT on the following Monday, a last-minute replacement after a disagreeable James Caan bailed the day before shooting was to begin. In his memoir, Caine wrote that he arrived for his first day of work on HOLCROFT without seeing even a page of the script, so he had no idea what he was doing, only that it was a thriller and that he wanted to work with Frankenheimer (and, presumably, the pay was good). Nobody seemed to consider that Caine was completely wrong for the part and early scenes find him doing some weird thing with his voice where he's trying to sound American but quickly throws in the towel (Caine is one of the all-time greats, but his American accent, which sounds like someone doing a bad Michael Caine impression, wasn't any better when he tried it again on 2013's LAST LOVE). Frankenheimer spends too much time doing some distracting camera trickery and weird zooms and pointless Dutch angles instead of creating a suspenseful story. The script is a mess--it almost seems like none of the three credited screenwriters looked at what the others wrote--and Holcroft's transformation from a clueless dolt to a coldly lethal manipulator who becomes a crack shot when the movie needs him to never seems plausible. Coming soon after 1983's equally scattershot Sam Peckinpah swan song THE OSTERMAN WEEKEND, this would be the last big-screen Ludlum adaptation (other than a couple of TV-movies) until Hollywood finally got it right with THE BOURNE IDENTITY in 2002. For a globetrotting international thriller, it also looks surprisingly cheap and sloppy at times, with a London backlot doing a piss-awful job of portraying a Manhattan street, looking almost Bulgarian in its utter lack of conviction. And one laughable process screen shot shows Holcroft with some construction workers atop a skyscraper backed by a bush-league NYC skyline that looks edited in with all the cutting edge technology of your local TV weather forecast. Also, why does Noel Holcroft need a remote control for his answering machine? Is it that important that he put his bag on a chair ten feet away that he can't stand there and press "skip"?
THE HOLCROFT COVENANT is also the kind of film that gives away its surprises when you realize a prominently-billed actor has been given almost nothing to do and is barely in the first 3/4 of the movie, so of course, he has to end up being the chief villain (also, are we to believe that Caine, Tennant, Andrews, and Adorf are all roughly the same age?). There's some good work by Bernard Hepton as a British agent who helps Holcroft and the sluggish film finally comes to life with a climactic press conference that has a nice wink-and-a-nudge from Frankenheimer that's an obvious self-referential nod to a memorable scene in THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE. But all in all, THE HOLCROFT COVENANT is one of the great director's most forgettable films--not terrible (we're not talking THE EXTRAORDINARY SEAMAN or YEAR OF THE GUN here), but by no means essential, unless you never miss a Mario Adorf vehicle. Universal picked up the British-made HOLCROFT for the US but pretty much buried it, releasing it on just 73 screens in the fall of 1985 before it quickly turned up on video store shelves.
