The shamelessness with which ‘Species‘ intended to be a belated unofficial sequel to ‘Alien’ worked in its favor and made it a success. Three sequels later (the first two, along with the original film, have just arrived on Prime Video), it remains in the memory of viewers as one of the funniest, and progressively craziest, shamelessness of the wildest genre cinema in the world. ninety.
It all started in 1995 – no doubt already arriving late to present itself as a sequel to the use of ‘Alien’ -, when Roger Donaldson (who did the same for you as ‘A Town Called Dante’s Peak’, as ‘Thirteen Days’, blessed great artisans of the Hollywood of the nineties) released this movie about alien invasions. The Department of marketing I had the job done: star cast (Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Forest Whitaker), starlette introduction (Natasha Henstridge), and creature design by the great HR Giger.
The result is pure B-series charcuterie in which the most impressive part of Ridley Scott’s classic is removed with (rusty) tweezers and retreaded on Earth, which is cheaper to film than the Nostromo. A lot of detail in the reproductive cycle of the thing, funny eroticism, biological horror, and above all, a magnificent monster. Clearly a not-too-distant cousin of the xenomorph from ‘Alien’, because that is Giger’s biomechanical style, but with a very own and very suggestive sensuality.
Even the sequels (which brought back Henstridge) are a lot of fun, especially the first one. ‘Species II’ has the spirit almost of a Spanish-Italian exploration of the first (like the first one had from ‘Alien’) and it is even wilder and bloodier than the first. It is not that it is the most philosophical science fiction in the world, but not everything in this life is going to be reflecting on the origin of the cosmos.
In Xataka | Deciding once and for all whether ‘Star Wars’ is science fiction or fantasy is not an easy task. But let’s try
In Xataka | The 23 best science fiction movies
