Species

Director Roger Donaldson takes a Dennis Feldman script and turns it into a rollicking sci-fi horror film that’s pure entertainment, and where eroticism and repulsion happily coexist.

On the narrative level, the dazzling opening (it kicks off pretty much in the thick of things with an adrenaline-charged escape from a laboratory) serves as a prelude to what quickly shapes up to be an unrelenting chase thriller punctuated by a series of scenes with undisputed visual impact (the woman’s death in the nightclub bathroom, the diabetic stud’s death by lethal kiss, the flamethrower pursuit à la “The Thing“…).

A totally respectable cast. However, Michael Madsen in the role of the crude mercenary is a cut above everyone else, with the exception of Natasha Henstridge, who unquestionably steals the show in her motion picture debut. Her Sil, an intriguing blend of lethal and fragile (“I don’t know why I’m here; I don’t know who I am, who sent me“), is imbued with such a deeply disturbing charm that comparing her to Tobe Hooper’s Space Girl wouldn’t be totally off the mark.

The practical special effects (a decent splatter quota) are clearly superior to the still incipient computer graphics. Countless references, from “Alien” (soundtrack, creature’s design by H.R. Giger) to “Aliens” (the showdown in the sewer), all the way to the aforementioned “The Thing“.

A decent sequel, “Species II”, followed in 1998, directed by Peter Medak.