FORBIDDEN WORLD

(vt MUTANT)

   Film (1982). New World. Dir Allan Holzman, starring Jesse Vint, June Chadwick, Dawn Dunlap, Linden Chiles, Fox Harris, Raymond Oliver. Screenplay Tim Curnen. 86 mins. Colour.

   This cheap imitation of ALIEN (1979), from Roger CORMAN's New World exploitation factory, is distinguished by its gleefully sleazy nature and amusing cynicism. An outer-space troubleshooter (Vint) is awakened from cryo-sleep (CRYONICS), casually informed that he is now younger than his son, and despatched to a remote planet where a genetically engineered organism has run amok. Although generally predictable, this is fast-paced and does produce oneastonishing coup by having its MONSTER, which replicates the cell structure of anything it devours, defeated when a terminally ill scientist feeds it his own cancerous liver, an organ he has removed during anaesthetic-free self-surgery. Vint's grimy hero imports a bit of welcome humour, and the film makes good use of the generically required exploitation elements, intercutting a formulaic sex scene with oddly poignant vignettes of the space-station staff whiling away the time at the end of the Universe. Some of FW's sets and effects crop up again in ANDROID (1982).

   KN