Contamination (alternate titles include: Alien Contamination, Toxic Spawn, and Alien Arrives on Earth) is a 1980 Sci-Fi Horror film by Luigi Cozzi. As a large cargo ship, the Caribbean Lady, drifts into New York City, the crew is nowhere in sight. Upon further investigation, their remains are found, appearing as if they exploded.
Inside the cargo hold, an unusual cargo is found: green, pulsating eggs, unlike anything seen before. Disturbing them causes them to rupture, and reveals the cause of the crew's deaths as the police officers' chests explode!
Colonel Stella Holmes is assigned to investigate the strange case. Soon it becomes apparent that these eggs are not from Earth, and with the help of former astronaut Ian Hubbard, they track the eggs to South America, where their true source is revealed…
Contamination was among the earliest of Alien ripoffs, taking the chestburster idea and running with it.
This film provides examples of:
- Attack Its Weak Point: Hubbard kills the alien cyclops by shooting it in the eye.
- B-Movie
- Chekhov's Gun: Hubbard's flare-gun is used to shoot the alien cyclops in the eye, killing it.
- Don't Call Me "Sir": When Aris salutes Stella upon finding out that she's a colonel for the President, she tells him that there is no reason for him to salute her.
- The End... Or Is It?: Good news, the alien cyclops and presumably "queen" is dead. The bad news, there's eggs spread in secret on random cities around the world, and we see one burst in the middle of a crowded street just as the movie cuts to credits.
- Exploitation Film: As noted in
Follow the Leader below. - Faking the Dead: Hamilton staged plane wreck months before the film begins, so he can focus on growing and spreading the eggs.
- Genre Shift: It goes from a sci-fi horror film to a spy thriller in the middle portion back to a sci-fi horror film at the end.
- Gorn: Exposure to the contents of an egg causes people's chests to bloodily explode.
- Hypnotic Eye: Looking into the eye of the alien cyclops compels the person to walk close enough to be killed and eaten.
- Kill It with Fire: Stella's solution to A New York warehouse filled with eggs.
- Too Dumb to Live: The cop who picks up a pulsating egg.
- Video Nasties
