Forbidden World
Entry updated 25 January 2021. Tagged: Film.
Film (1982; vt Mutant). New World. Directed by Allan Holzman. Written by Tim Curnen. Cast includes June Chadwick, Linden Chiles, Dawn Dunlap, Fox Harris, Raymond Oliver and Jesse Vint. 86 minutes. 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 (see 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 one astonishing 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 Forbidden World's sets and effects crop up again in Android (1982). [KN]
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