Contamination (1980)

Dir: Luigi Cozzi

This lovably goofy sci-fi/horror crossover starts with a bunch of alien eggs finding themselves transported from Mars into New York on a mysterious abandoned boat. Sounds boring but it turns out - and get this! - that if you get any goo from the eggs on yourself, YOU EXPLODE. Yeah. EXPLODE. Like, totally. From the guts out. IN SLOW MOTION, no less. A tough talking army colonel, an alcoholic astronaut and a wise-cracking cop try to save the world from the explodey eggs but the odds are stacked against them as more and more keep appearing... IN THE UNLIKELIEST OF PLACES! In many respects, Contamination is unashamedly B-Grade, taking its cues from the schlockiest of 50s drive-in classics and loading itself with corny dialogue and cheap laughs. In others, however, it's surprisingly polished. There are some really slick sequences, a lot of cool location shooting and some decent (and very splattery) special FX. There's a budget here and it's put to impeccable use. It's the kind of film that could never be made now; if anything, it's maybe the only true posthumous postscript of drive-in chic. A loving full stop at the end of an era. Whatever else though, "Contamination" is a blast. Endlessly entertaining. ***