Coming later this month from our dear friends at Severin… THE CLAW! OH GOD!! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! Oh wait, it’s just Alien from the Abyss a.k.a. Alien from the Deep (as my old, junky One 7 DVD calls it), part jungle action, part Aliens rip-off, all eurotrash good-badness. Let’s pop this puppy in and milk some snakes!

Jane and Lee are Greenpeace activists investigating corporate shenanigans in the jungle involving throwing toxic waste in a volcano (was that really the easiest way to dispose of it?). Unfortunately they run afoul of Murdock from Rambo (Charles Napier) who proceeds to try to take them down because they KNOW TOO MUCH. Naturally while fleeing for their lives they run into local snake farmer Bob, the nerdy/handsome? lead who helps them escape temporarily. Meanwhile Luciano Pigozzi is that scientist character who always tries to warn the bad guys of the danger of what they’re doing but is ignored. In this case, he tries to tell them that mixing radioactive goo and magma will lure in murderous aliens. He is later proved correct. The alien does indeed eventually show up when the movie remembers it’s supposed to be ripping off Aliens instead of Indiana Jones. Although really, we mostly just see the alien’s giant claw slinking down foggy corridors, snatching people. Bob and Jane (Lee bites it… sorry Lee) must face down the alien who turns out to be a really tall, gangly, stiff creature that barely moves except swinging its one giant claw around occasionally. Fortunately for Bob and Jane, there’s a random bulldozer nearby they can use and Dr. Geoffrey (Pigozzi’s character) shows up with a flamethrower. Will Bob and Jane defeat the alien menace? How many snakes does bob milk along the way? Would the alien’s claw be delicious steamed with a little butter and garlic?

Antonio Margheriti, the director of Alien from the Abyss, has had an interesting career. Like most genre Italian directors in the ’60s through ’80s, he’s dabbled in a lot of different genres, according to him though always at the wrong time. Where I thought he has consistently excelled was in two key areas: one is his gothic horror films that his keen eye for lighting and set design always imbued with a great sense of atmosphere, and the other is his charming sci-fi films, made on a budget but with obvious affection, chocked full of delightful miniatures and cheesy effects that embodied a healthy dose of fun. He is perhaps also quite well-known for his action and jungle adventure films with lots of explosions which he almost entirely focused on in the ’80s. Alien from the Abyss is a kind of hybrid of jungle adventure and sci-fi horror. This in theory should be a perfect blending of the three kinds of films Margheriti has had proven success in realizing. In execution though, it’s quite obvious that he was severely constrained by budget with the big reveal of the alien being almost laughably terrible. Still Margheriti makes do with what he has and attempts to deliver something watchable despite the monetary limitations. Part of this is most obviously seen in just how much he focuses on the early on-the-run jungle action scenes (which actually take up about an hour of the movie) shot in the Philippines of course. Much of the actual “horror” section of the film is limited to the last twenty minutes or so and we really don’t see the alien fully until the very end. Definitely a good move on Margheriti’s part given how cheesy the alien looks and moves. As bad as this movie is though, Margheriti has a knack for pacing and makes the film imminently watchable despite its massive flaws.

I mentioned earlier that I had a previous release of this film on DVD from One 7, and speaking of the image quality here, it is MILES better than the crap transfer on that DVD. While the Severin scan does have a few nicks and scratches here and there, overall this is a very nice transfer that looks particularly good in the final third when Margheriti breaks out the garish lighting and fog machines in the hallways of the facility. Severin gives us both an English dub and the original Italian, both mono audio tracks, and they both sound very clear and crisp.

As Severin often does, they have given us a healthy heapin’ helpin’ of nice extras. First up we have an interview with Edoardo Margheriti, Antonio’s son, reminiscing about his dad’s work on Alien from the Abyss. Apparently the reason the monster looks so bad is that Margheriti has outsourced the construction of the creature to a local Philippine shop he hadn’t worked with before instead of his usual guys in Rome in order to save money on costs and well… you get what you pay for, ya know? This was a nice little 13 minute interview that acts as a good precursor to the meat of the disc, an hour-long documentary “The Outsider – The Cinema of Antonio Margheriti” that was directed by his son Eduardo. It’s a very nicely produced doc that offers an overview of Margheriti’s entire career and gives lots of personal insight into Margheriti’s life and passions. Very nice inclusion! Then we finally have another interview with Edoardo, this one focusing on how and why he made the documentary on his father. One interesting thing I learned is that Antonio didn’t really seem to care too much about his gothic horror films that I like so much with his true passion being his sci-fi films that he had made earlier in career. He also loved making his jungle adventures like the Indiana Jones-ripoff Ark of the Sun God. It’s fine though. Whether he liked his gothic horror films or not, I still do. Overall, very nice extras package!

Is Alien from the Abyss a good movie? Oh definitely not. Margheriti himself was disappointed in it. But still, there’s a lot of fun to be had here if approached with the right mindset. Get some friends together and come up with a drinking game to take a shot every time someone mentions snake milking. By the time the shoddy alien shows up, you’ll be too wasted to care how cheesy it is.