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Alien 2: On Earth (1980)

DVD Cover (Midnight Legacy)
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Overall Rating 37%
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Ranked #7,832
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A spaceship lands back on Earth after a failed mission, but the astronauts have been replaced by hideous creatures that can penetrate people's bodies and make them explode. A group of cave explorers are attacked by the monsters inside an underground cave, but the survivors are in for a surprise when they finally manage to escape the trap... --IMDb
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Review by Bill Wolford
Added: April 8, 2011
Well, it's an Italian Alien sequel/rip-off. Loving the Alien movies means this has a warm spot in my heart, but it doesn't mean its a really good movie though. I had to laugh at the opening credits, when I saw that the music was composed by Oliver Onions. Yep, an Italian composer decided to go the American name change route to that. I would have kept the Italian name myself. And I don't know if he composed everything himself or not, seeing as part of the soundtrack is featured in half a dozen other Italian horror flicks. Anyway, on to the film.

And what a film it is. If you are a fan of so bad its good, you're gonna love this. The story does start out very slowly, with almost too many plot idea to fit in the film. We have cave explorers, the lead female of whom is also a psychic. An astronaut landing (which if this is a sequel, it would mean Ripley landing wouldn't it?). We have some rocks that we assume are from space, but its not really clear. And a whole alien invasion that wipes out the earths population, but we don't see it happen because the cave explorers are having their own problems underground.

Lets see if we can make sense of a garbled story. While we are waiting for the astronauts (Ripley?) to land, our lead cave explorer does a TV special, but has to leave early as she is besieged by some psychic trauma. She sees her shrink who blows her off with some talk about dealing with her inner monsters herself. She and her team of explorers are about to return to a cave that they haven't finished exploring yet. On the way, they stop for supplies, and a comrade gives her a pretty rock that she puts in her knapsack.

Once inside the cave, they reach new territory and one of the woman's friends tells her the rock in her pack is moving. The friend takes it out, only to be attacked by something inside it (ala.. the egg from Alien). She falls into a ravine and is unconscious. She is rescued and promptly regurgitates an alien... albeit a small one, from her face, which attacks another member of the group.

Now we're in the ten little Indians section of the movie as we see the cave explorers picked off one by one by different types of alien creatures. Some are of the small variety, something is in the rock, on the ceiling, controlling a man. There is never a definitive alien creature in this film, and I'm not sure why. Were there too many ideas and not enough money? We may never know. We do find out that the alien won't attack our female lead because of her psychic powers. How convenient.

Back on the surface, she finds out about the invasion and subsequent eradication of the human race. Roll credits.

You need to own this film and I'll tell you why. First, Alien rip-offs are fun. Second, its a great movie to watch drunk. Third and most important is the films distributor, Midnight Legacy Films. This is the first film offering from Midnight Legacy and they have done a beautiful job restoring this movie. It is also the longest version of the movie to date. It is uncut, English language, 1:85 widescreen. It has never been released in the United States officially and other versions have been cropped and edited.

This is considered the definitive version of the film, transferred from the original 35mm negative. The special features include the only surviving trailer from the mega rare Dutch VHS, and effects outtakes transferred directly from the negative B-Roll.

And lastly this release (and future releases), are all collectible, as they each come with a slip case and are numbered on the spine (Like Criterion Releases). Hopefully Midnight Legacy Films will become the Criterion for the horror film collector. Alien 2: On Earth is Issued #1 on the spine. This fun movie in addition to the bonus features and its future value makes this a must buy for all genre fans. 10/10.
Bill Wolford #1: Bill Wolford - added July 27, 2012 at 2:17am
The Midnight Legacy collection has since ceased operations after just this one release. Maybe someday they'll return, but I doubt it. The collectable aspect of this release may be gone, but it was still an excellent transfer of an obscure horror film.
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