The Alien Within (1995) (TV)

Director:

Scott P. Levy

Writers:

Rob Kerchner (story)
Alex Simon (writer)

Release Date:

18 July 1995 (USA)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Plot:

Crew of an undersea mining platform falls prey to mysterious and dangerous parasite. The parasite has the ability to affect people's minds...

Cast

Roddy McDowall	...	Dr. Henry Lazarus
Alex Hyde-White	...	Jedidiah Pickett
Melanie Shatner	...	Catherine Harding
Don Stroud	...	Louis
Rodger Halston	...	Wyatt
Emile Levisetti	...	Brill
Richard Biggs	...	Hawkes
Sha-Ri Pendleton	...	Fife
Miro Polo	...	Russian Officer
Tim Trevan	...	Russian Boy

Also Known As:

Unknown Origin

MPAA:

Rated R for violence, brief language and nudity.

Runtime:

75 min | Germany:83 min (16-rated version) | Argentina:88 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

Germany:16 | Argentina:13 | UK:18 | USA:R (Certificate #33609)

Company:

Concorde-New Horizons

Trivia:

The password to activate the self-destruct device on the undersea platform is shown on the screen to be "Nostromo". Nostromo was also the name of the interstellar mining ship from the original Alien (1979) movie; a movie from which The Alien Within borrows heavily.

Goofs:

Factual errors: Richard Biggs is listed in the end credits as Richard Briggs.

Pathetic "The Thing" rip-off

This movie starts with the same basic premise of "Leviathan" – American deep-sea mining unit investigates a Russian sub that has contracted a deadly parasite. It then delves straight into "The Thing" and "Alien", which only makes sense since "Leviathan" itself was a take on those. My jaw dropped as entire scenes were copied wholesale from them. i.e. - captain leaving his final voice-log: "Everyone is tired. Nobody trusts anybody"; the decision to "test" the crew to determine who is infected and who is not; parasite using tentacles to grab its victims. Even the use of flamethrowers seems pointless based on the nature of the creature, and can only be seen as a further attempt to emulate the film's predecessors.

Speaking of the parasite, what exactly was it, anyway? Maybe the mysterious nature is intentional, but it was never explained why it takes control of its host's body. We are again left with the assumption that it operates in the same way as "The Thing", hiding within the shape of a person until it can attack and reproduce.

The production value is low, of course, this being from Corman. The underwater caverns have no water in them. If you watch carefully during the death of one character, you actually see the fiery dummy being extinguished. Acting isn't great; the android guy doing his Data impersonation throughout the film in particular bothered me. It's depressing to see that McDowell's career reached this kind of low near the end.