Inseminoid

The universe of sci-fi horror films is replete with copycats who jumped on the “Alien” (1979) bandwagon, although few with the audacity of Norman J. Warren – one of the last independent directors specializing in exploitation films. His brazen attempt to recycle elements and scenes from Scott’s masterpiece has got to be one for the record books (there’s even the off-camera voice of a poor man’s Ripley, in the guise of a documentation officer recording mission reports).

Beyond that, a decisive focus on sex and horror is poor compensation for a disturbing lack of ideas. Speaking of sex, some of the same obsessions that popped up in the director’s earlier “Prey” (1977) and “Spaced Out” (1979), primarily intercourse between humans and aliens (the endless list of paraphilias would merit a footnote), along with cannibalism, appear here as well. But this film has a lot more victims to be massacred, a fact that translates into a succession of grisly deaths that drags on until the raw material is completely exhausted, and there’s no one left to kill (and just in case a viewer gets distracted, the thoughtful Norman went to the trouble of inserting stills of every single dead body from the film into the end credits!).

As far as the cast, we certainly can’t knock Judy Geeson and her colleagues for any lack of effort – the problem lies at the root, that is, in a screenplay that’s both sketchy and muddled (the relation between the crystals and the alien rapist is a bit vague, to say the least, and the theme of twins is pretty cursory, with the possessed woman’s powers left unexplained and inexplicable). Another strike against the screenplay is that it’s riddled with absolutely ridiculous characterizations. Specifically, all the scientists are either geniuses or show-offs. A perfect example is exolinguist Mitch’s astounding conjectures: “There’s something about these crystals that we just haven’t discovered yet. Now their energy must have something to do with a life source“. Another is the way Karl treats unknown alien artifacts: ‘What is it?’ ‘Holly, give me half an hour, then you can talk to him’.

For insatiable hard-core fans of this kind of trash, Larry Miller even put out a novelization of the film (“Inseminoid: A Far from Human Birth” – 1981).