This is another horror classic that I've somehow managed to avoid seeing over the years. I've wanted to see it since I was a kid, when visions of space vampires danced in my head, so I was excited to finally get to check it out. Like any popular horror movie that the majority of people seem to like, this one has its detractors as well. I've heard that the ending is really stupid, but I was hoping that I'd be one of the people who enjoyed this movie. I could use a good movie after the crappy one I just watched.
This is one of those movies that has a plot, but that's what seems to be happening on the surface, while secretly, what's actually going on is something else entirely. Lying liar faces. So it starts with a spaceship orbiting the earth, which soon discovers another spacecraft that contains humanoid creatures sealed in crystal cases. The astronauts bring these cases on board their own ship (because they're idiots who have never seen a movie in their lives). Meanwhile, on earth (in london) the humanoid alien woman we recognize from the spaceship is running around sucking the life out of people and turning them into zombie like creatures. The government investigates, discovers what happened with the alien ship, and questions the only survivor of the crew, hoping to figure out how to stop the alien woman before it's too late.
Some people claim this isn't a horror movie, but I beg to differ. There's some really cool gore, including a scene where blood shoots out of the mouth of one of the victims that's disgustingly awesome. Once the streets are full of people who've had the lives sucked out of them running around, the movie is much like other people zombie movies, with the added stress of the government and scientists trying to find the alien responsible for all this and kill her.
Let's talk about the government guys and the scientists and the surviving astronaut guy. This is going to make me sound really mean, but these are some of the dumbest characters I've ever seen in a movie. They keep doing the dumbest thing possible in every situation, they run around yelling and screaming and acting crazy but expecting everyone to do what they say, and they blame everyone else when their own stupidity is what caused these events in the first place. I sincerely hope that if evil space creatures ever do attack earth, that the people fighting them will be smarter than these morons.
Patrick Stewart has a small role as a doctor, and he's great, as always. He might be my favorite thing about this movie. It's not that the movie is bad, it's just that the main characters are such idiots and such slimy, unlikable people that I couldn't really root for them. I can see why people didn't like the ending, too. It's not THAT bad, but it feels like an afterthought, and after watching two hours of this, I expected (and deserved) a better wrap-up than that. Overall, the movie isn't bad, but i wish i could have had one good character to like in the mix.
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