Roots Search: Shokushin buttai X (1986)

... aka: ルーツ・サーチ 食心物体Ｘ

... aka: Alien, el dibujo animado (Alien, the Cartoon)

... aka: Criatura del espacio (Space Creature)

... aka: Roots Search

... aka: Roots Search: Heart-Eating Object X

... aka: Roots Search: X, the Throbbing Thing

Directed by:

Hisashi Sugai

At the Tolmeckius ESP Research Center (it's a space station), scientist / commander Marcus and his two man crew - blondie Scott and bulky Norman - are experimenting on a fourth crew member; a powerful, huge-eyed psychic named Moira, who's having a recurring bad dream that may not just be a nightmare but instead a premonition of things to come. A large "warpship" called Green Planet, which is forbidden in the sector the scientists are currently traveling in, shows up on their radar. Attempts at communication don't work so they take another smaller ship to the spacecraft, board it and discover a few horrifying things. The corridors are spattered in blood and most of the former crew have been reduced to skeletons. There is, however, one unconscious survivor; second officer Buzz, whom they promptly take aboard their ship. Further exploration of the Green Planet uncovers something else: An alien being that appears to be dead. Not to take an unnecessary chances, Commander Marcus immediately orders it to be shot into space.

Soon after, Marcus is visited by a mind-reading, shape-shifting, vagina-fang-mouthed supernatural being that announces it's going to kill him. It then reveals that it knows a dark secret from his past (he betrayed / framer a former project director, which led him to suicide) and next thing Marcus knows he's being impaled to the ceiling by a large shard of metal. Moira and Scott find the mutilated body but when Buzz awakens, they assure him everything is A-OK. Unfortunately it's not for Norman, who's attacked next. He remembers back to a time when he and a soldier buddy were fighting some giant tentacles monsters called "mordi" and he failed to save his friend's life. Norman ends up with smoke rolling out of his mouth and eye sockets but somehow manages to survive, while the alien promises "I will kill you inside of two hours!"

Scott, who's pissed that Moira is clearly finding herself attracted to Buzz and not him, wanders off and has an encounter with a naked former lover who slit her wrists in the bathtub after he called things off with her. Meanwhile, Norman's old army buddy shows up to lead him to his doom inside an airlock, which makes his body explode. The alien takes multiple other forms, like a pink tentacled monster, a giant brain and some spider-looking thing, calls itself a "messenger from God" and claims it's there to destroy humanity for indulging in malice, greed, lust, evil and other sinful behavior. However, since it's also a master at manipulation, it may very well be lying, something the ambiguous non-ending kind of fails to clear up.

So, about that ending (psst, you may want to skip this paragraph for spoiler purposes)... After the ship explodes, our heroes (who first have a hilarious pink-tinged romantic fantasy frolicking around naked in a field while a fetus floats through space) end up (I think?) on the insides of the creature. It's filled with pulsating organs, veiny webs, tunnels and long-dead corpses, with a color palette that looks hand selected by your average 7-year-old girl. Moira thinks they may actually be in either heaven or hell, and they possibly are, or whatever an afterlife equivalent of either may actually be. This is all left entirely up in the air. However, this entire last scene is a pretty blatant rip-off of the finale of Fulci's The Beyond of all things! In that, a couple spend the film fighting zombies and end up blinded and in hell for their troubles. Here, a couple spend the film fighting an alien, one is blinded and they end up in a hell-like place for their troubles.

This was one of many 80s ALIEN-inspired OVA (original video animation i.e. anime made specifically for the home video market) and it's one of the most hated titles amongst anime fans that I've come across. Viewers criticize the derivative / unoriginal story line, the cheap animation, the pacing, the bland characters and many other subpar aspects of the film. Though I agree with them to an extent, this is still fairly entertaining and has a few interesting ideas.

In addition to multiple VHS and VCD releases in Asia, there were English-subtitled VHS releases from Columbia Video and U. S. Manga Corps Video, as well as an English-subtitled laserdisc release from Image Entertainment in 1993. Spanish-language versions were also released under several different titles.

★★

Kamillions (1990)

... aka: Wingates, The

Directed by:
Mikel (Mike) B. Anderson

Little was known about the making of this very obscure film until the guys at Junk Food Diner hunted down and interviewed the director, so now there's a bit more background information about this one out there... and what fascinating (and amusing) background information it is! According to the director, who'd previously made and sold a low-budget comedy called Alone in the T-Shirt Zone (1986), an acquaintance of his got into contact with him about a directing opportunity. He then flew to San Francisco and met with a group of producers who'd flown in from Hong Kong. The group already had the budget in place (roughly a million dollars), the locations secured, a script and all of the monsters designed for a horror film. After a disagreement over the initial script, the original writers walked. Anderson then wrote a brand new screenplay in less than two weeks. While he was busy doing that, completely unbeknownst to him, the producers changed gears and wanted a monster-comedy film more in the vein of Tim Burton's then-recent hit Beetlejuice (1988). After reading Anderson's straight horror / sci-fi script, the producers attempted to fire him (despite the fact they hadn't yet told him they were wanting something else) and then re-hired him. Anderson and Harry S. Robins (who also plays a major acting role in the movie) then did yet another script rewrite to work in some comedy.

Filming took place at the Dunsmuir House and Gardens in Oakland, California. The familiar-looking home, which was built in 1899 in the Neoclassical style, was the same house previously seen in Burnt Offerings (1976) and Phantasm (1979). Post production didn't go smoothly because all the money ran out, so the score wasn't properly done. The first cut of the film ran over 2 hours, but much to the horror of the director and the co-writer, the Chinese producers (who didn't quite understand the style of humor) had it reduced to about 90 minutes and apparently chopped out whole scenes rather indiscriminately as they went along. Anderson claims that the film was “basically not finished” and that it's “not edited properly.” In fact, he had little to do with the version that eventually found its way onto home video. The 90-minute cut was released on a completely unknown label (SBM) here in the U.S. and it also popped up on video in a few other countries like Australia and the Netherlands. However, the overall distribution was pretty awful.

Loopy scientist Nathaniel Pickman Wingate (Robins), a graduate of Miskatonic University so we already know he has the highest of monster mayhem credentials, has established a contact point with a parallel universe occupying the same subatomic space as our universe. But before he can go down in the record books with some of the greats, first things first. He has a birthday party to attend... His own. Cheerfully aloof wife Nancy (Laura O'Malley) wants him to stop dilly-dallying and get ready and sends their teenage son Sam (Dan Evans) to prod him along, but Nathan just can't pull himself away from his work despite the fact he only has 4 hours of coolant left to safely operate his machinery or else he'll end up blowing up half the planet. While peering into the alternate dimension he's discovered, Nathan spots a bunch of unknown lifeforms. He's then sucked into the portal and two little insect-like monsters are spit out into our world.

Meanwhile, Nancy greets a succession of party guests starting with her snobby, bitchy sister-in-law Angelica (Kate Alexander), who isn't five minutes there before she's criticizing nearly every member of the family. Angelica technically owns half of the huge mansion but she's been unable to get her money out of it due to her brother and his family still living there, so I guess she at least has a reason to be bitter. Long-absent, extremely wealthy cousin Desmon (Christopher Gasti), who's a famous count in Liechtenstein, shows up next all the way from Europe. And then dropping by in is family friend Lawrence Newman (David Allan Shaw), who claims to have given up the bad life (like paying for escorts) to become a conservative (“Obviously the tragic result of a liberal upbringing!”) reverend but is actually just your usual greedy / sex-obsessed hypocrite in clergy's clothing. He also keeps trying to hawk some program called “Dynagetics” in an obvious dig at L. Ron Hubbard's “Dianetics,” which was all over the place at the time.

The two little creatures; one good, one evil, have the amazing power of mimicry and can rearrange their physical structure to become an exact duplicate of any organism or physical object. In other words, they can transform into whomever or whatever they want at will. They also have telekinetic abilities, can animate inanimate objects, read minds and possess many other abilities. The bad creature (which turns out to be a 10-year-old brat in the other dimension) ends up attacking and possessing Desmon, while the good creature (the brat's babysitter) sneaks into son Sam's closet, glances up at pin-up poster and transforms into the image of Sam's dream girl: a model named Jasmine (Dru-Anne Cakmis, who also starred in Albert Pyun's VICIOUS LIPS [1986] under the name "Dru-Anne Perry"). Sam, of course, falls hard for Jasmine even though he can't quite explain why she's suddenly materialized in his closet, while Desmon goes on a killing spree; gleefully offing various guests and family members in bizarre ways.

This plot seems to have been inspired not only by H.P. Lovecraft's writings but also Stuart Gordon's hit Lovecraft adaptations Re-Animator (1985) and From Beyond (1986). As for the rest, it appears they swiped elements from The Deadly Spawn (1983), Gremlins (1984), Weird Science (1985), Terror Vision (1986), Critters 2 (1988), the Nightmare on Elm Street films, Beetlejuice and numerous other then-popular films, put them in a blender and hit “Mix “ Thankfully, this is still filled with fun sequences that make the film worth a look. During one, a man's penis turns into a giant snake-like monster. During another, a woman's fox stole comes to life and attacks her before she's transformed into a cockroach. One guy gets electrocuted with jumper cables, the obnoxious daughter (Allison Rachel Golde) gets a telephone shoved down her throat and Sam's best friend (Andrew Ross Litzky) is squashed down to where he fits inside of a fish bowl. The bad creature takes on several forms throughout, including that of a chair.

Because this was clearly made in good spirits, isn't all that sleazy (there's no nudity, very little bad language and no real gore) and has a rather upbeat tone, it maintains a sort of innocent, infectious old fashioned charm throughout. The acting's mixed (and downright wooden in a few instances) but decent for the most part and the production values, photography, lighting, sets and all that are adequate. Despite what the director and co-writer have said in regards to the editing and score, I didn't notice any major problems with the continuity or flow of the film. I'm sure it's not the complete vision they had for it and they have every right to be disappointed, but what's here and how it's presented certainly isn't bad either. 

After filming was completed, Anderson returned home feeling bummed about his experiences, not to mention broke. The tide soon turned though when he got a job working on a little animated show that was still in its infancy back in 1990: The Simpsons. He worked his way up on the series, starting as a character layout artist and finally becoming a director, winning several Emmy Awards in the process. Robins would later become well-known in the gamer world for providing the voice Dr. Isaac Kleiner in the Half-Life video game series, while cinematographer Kathleen Beeler went on to a successful career working for Industrial Light & Magic. Assistant director William Rice co-directed his own weird horror flick, The Vineyard (1989), at the Dunsmuir House at around the same time.

Trivia Note: The was supposed to be called (the properly-spelled) Chameleons but one of the Hong Kong investors insisted that be changed to Kamillions because he feared people would mispronounce the title! Incidentally, this name change actually ends up suiting the film perfectly because of its comedic tone, the fact that these chameleons are from another dimension and it's how the dumb sister character spells it on a piece of paper.

★★1/2