The Alien Within (1995)
* (out of 4)
Executive producer Roger Corman was behind this "film" taking place in the year 2020 after Earth's resources have been used up. We're told corporations went below the sea to try and find new resources and this is when we meet our mining crew and before long they pick up some sort of parasite from a nearby Russian crew. THE ALIEN WITHIN, also known as UNKNOWN ORIGIN, is a pretty poor rip-off of THE THING and in fact it's so close to the John Carpenter film that I'm really shocked Universal didn't go after them. I mean, we've always had rip-offs of popular films but not many of them rip this closely to the original source. Perhaps the studio just didn't care because they figured no one would remember the film after it originally played because it was simply so poor. There's really not too much going on here and at just 75-minutes it's really amazing to see how boring it is in that time. If you've seen THE THING then you're not going to be shocked by anything that happens here and it's a pretty direct copy of that film, although there's no character development, suspense or anything like that. Each scene just seems rushed, the special effects are laughable but they do add some camp and you can tell that the actors are just sleepwalking for their paychecks. Roddy McDowell plays the main scientist and we even have William Shatner's daughter Melanie playing a supporting role. THE ALIEN WITHIN is sci-fi at its very worst and unlike most of these Corman films, this one here features no exploitation, no nudity and it really doesn't have anything in it to make it worth viewing.
