Original subtitles

Greetings, everyone.

This is Chris Alexander.

I guess, as of this recording, I'm best known as being the editor of Fangoria

Magazine, the legendary now, again, as of this recording, 36 -year -old horror

film magazine based in New York. I run the magazine primarily out of my home

office in Toronto, Canada.

I'm also the editor of Gorzon Magazine, Fango's splattery little six -sister

magazine, and I also edit and curate Charlie Band's

House Magazine, Delirium.

Among other things, I'm also a filmmaker, a composer of some note, a

do a lot of stuff.

And all of it primarily is centered around my love of strange cinema.

So that's who I am. And now you may be wondering why I am hosting the

for this film, for Luigi Cozzi's 1980 film, Contamination.

I warn you that this is not an academic

This is not a commentary in which you will glean a lot of first -hand

about the production of the movie because, frankly, I was not there.

I was about five or six years old when this movie was released.

And my entry point into this universe comes as a fan. So this is primarily a

commentary, although an unusual one because being a fan and loving what I've

loved literally since I was three years old, I have managed to make my living...

based on this love, and have become friendly with many of the participants

involved in not just this film, but many of the European, especially. I love

European horror films, Italian primarily.

I know a lot of these guys now. So although I was not here on set making

Contamination, I have spent many hours with Luigi Cozzi on phone and in the

flesh.

as well as actor Ian McCulloch, to know enough about the movie that I can relate

to you anecdotally.

Third hand.

And again, primarily what this will be is a fan commentary in which I talk

my adoration of this movie.

Not a lot of people really love Contamination. I think a lot of people

A lot of people appreciate elements of it. But by and large, I think it's kind

of the...

You know, the ugly duckling of the golden period of late 70s, early 80s

extreme splatter cinema.

It doesn't get the love that Argento's work does or Fulci's work or any of the

other. Even Bruno Mattia, I think, probably gets a little bit more

than Luigi Cozzi does, which is a great shame because I think Cozzi is one of

the great Italian filmmakers. He doesn't have the flourish and the

eccentricities of Argento or the...

kind of operatic bombast of Fulci and the weird transgressive elements of

or the cross -eyed delusional mania of Matai or any of those other guys. But

what he does is create films that are unpretentious, plot -driven, briskly

paced, and always fun.

Coetzee's a guy that just loves fantasy films, and that shows in all of his own

work.

Now here we open up in the New York Harbor.

A very similar way to another film which we'll reference often in this

commentary, and that's Lucio Fulci's 1979 film Zombie 2, Zombie Flesh Eaters,

Zombie, depending on where you live and what you know it as.

That film also opens up an Italian production that was shot, had sequences

in New York City, and opens up with a boat drifting into the New York Harbor

that carries some dead cargo.

Now, in Zombie, it's a yacht.

a sailboat of some kind, but here it's a giant rusty old freighter ship.

Radically different film, but the same kind of beat. And one would presume that

this being a low -budget film, a lot of the money probably went to shooting some

of these scenes in New York.

The tropics, we're checking on it now.

Now there's actor Marino Maze, who maybe some of you non -general film fans

might remember from The Godfather 3. He played Lupo.

If you're an Italian horror film aficionado, you know him from Tenebrae.

you're a sleaze movie fan, maybe you're familiar with a little movie called The

Night Porter.

Marino's in that as well.

Here he plays Lieutenant Aris, who you'd think from the opening...

would be our point of entry into the picture and our hero, perhaps. There's

actually three heroes in this movie, and the movie shifts its allegiance to them

as the narrative progresses.

So I guess in Act 1, Lieutenant Aris is our kind of protagonist.

As he leads an investigation, a biohazard -clad people, police

officers, I believe, onto this ship.

to see what's up. This mystery ghost ship that has arrived ominously in the

harbor with no response from any kind of crew members or anybody on board.

The movie begins like the movie it's trying to rip off in many respects.

Contamination is known, and I first saw it under the title Alien Contamination.

It was also filmed, I believe, as or scripted under the title The Alien

on Earth.

So obviously it was an answer to the success of Ridley Scott and Dan O

film Alien.

In fact, the eggs, which we're about to see, look like those, you know, ova from

the poster of Alien as well. And obviously the facehugger eggs themselves

movie. Now, Claudio Mancini was the producer of the movie. He was well aware

the success of Alien and wanted a movie that was very similar, that he could

market internationally very quickly with no fuss, no muss. He was also a fan of

Ian Fleming books and James Bond movies.

So that's why this movie has kind of a brisk melting pot spy thriller caper

to it.

Again, it's less flowery and less abstract than a lot of Italian films of

period. It's more plot driven and more about...

megalomaniacal villains and daring do and globetrotting than it is about the

blood and guts, although there is certainly, the contamination has its

share of really nasty, nasty stuff, which we'll see a little bit of that in

moment.

Incidentally, when we're looking at some of the, this is our first bit of gore

coming up.

I love the music in this movie, which we'll get into a little bit later.

Obviously, you know, maybe you don't, but you should. The music is composed by

the great Italian progressive rock band Goblin, and that was another Mancini

request. He wanted all the familiar elements that he could market, and Dawn

the Dead was a huge hit in Italy under the title Zombie, and obviously Goblin's

music for Dawn of the Dead was instantly iconic.

He wanted the guys that did the Goblin music, that did the Dawn of the Dead

music. And there we go.

Our first Frison in the film.

Expertly timed, too, by Kotze.

And editor Nino Baragal, who did... Baragal also cut a lot of Leone

which were known for their languid pacing, punctuated by...

bursts and shocks of violence.

Now we have to suspend a lot of disbelief to love contamination.

Because all the criticism it gleans from being incoherent and

ridiculous, I'm not going to debate, because it is incoherent and ridiculous,

and it's plotting anyways.

It doesn't make much sense. It's actually quite silly.

An ill thought out.

Which is no real insult to Luigi Cozzi. He's too in love with his own source.

But it's pretty goofy.

For instance, that captain, or sailor, whatever the hell he was, a dead body

that just fell out of the closet, presumably walled himself up in there

the ride to escape something.

And yet, as we'll find out very soon...

The threat, these glowing, pulsating, zit -like orbs, these eggs that are

with the poisonous acid that caused their victims to explode when they

are pretty easily avoided.

All you've got to do is, if you see one, get away from it. I mean, that's it.

Just maybe close the door and say, well, I'm not going to go in that room.

They're not going to come after you. They're not zombies, but you know the

Italians, right? I mean, if you watch Zombie 2, or Zombie, Zombie Flesh

a movie that we'll keep referencing, there's a lot of people that kind of get

their comeuppance from the ghouls in that movie.

They don't exactly flee for their lives. They wait. There's a lot of waiting

around.

Erudite gets her throat ripped out by the conquistador zombie in one of the

ridiculous sequences in the film. She's just standing there, slowly staring at

this

ghoul coming up out of the ground and stands there placidly while she gets her

throat torn.

But that's irrelevant, because these movies don't necessarily take place in

real world, and it's all style.

It's all about the build -up and the foreplay leading to the punctuation,

is the money shot, the splatter shot.

And if you love these movies, you're in it for that. You're not in it for any

kind of realism.

Realism is for the bourgeois.

We first discovered that the threat is, oddly enough, being

imported into the United States via coffee.

Evil alien coffee.

The deadliest brew.

Not that it means anything, but when you're watching these Italian movies,

instance, when we talk about Marino Maze, we mention his

performance. I mean, really, we're judging two performances. We're judging

physical presence of Marino Maze, but we're also judging the guy who dubbed

into English.

Because these movies...

primarily were shot phonetically with an international cast without sound.

And then they were dubbed according to what country they would be shipped to.

So I wouldn't even think that Contamination was even shot in any

mean, everyone was kind of mumbling vague English syllables, I guess, in the

film.

then they were just dubbed accordingly.

But there probably is no original Italian track of this film. I could be

wrong, but most of the time in these films, they were never shot with any

of native sound. So even when you watch them in their native Italian cuts or

versions, they're dubbed. I mean, I saw this movie recently for the 50

,000th time in Rome, or in the Tuno, which is just outside of Rome on the

This was in the summer of 2000.

with Luigi Cozzi, which was the most surreal thing.

At like 2 in the morning, they were screening it as part of the Italian

Film Fest, which is an amazing time.

If you ever get a chance to get out to Nettuno in the summer, Luigi Pastore,

filmmaker, hosts this brilliant festival that takes place on the beaches of

Nettuno.

So I watched this movie, and it was the Italian cut.

But again, it was dubbed, completely dubbed with Italian voices.

And let me tell you, you've never lived until you've watched this movie in a

language you don't fully understand because it just adds to the weirdness.

On the beaches of Natuna with bats flying around the top of the screen. I

that was unbelievable.

There's like the ruins of a castle right beside the screen.

I was drinking Coronas and it was one of the most zen, transformative

experiences cinematically I've ever had.

Here we go. Love that sound. Always love that sound.

Eruption time.

Our first bit of nasty, nasty -ass gore.

Blood spitting, skin bubbling.

Now Marina Maze got off good because he shielded himself with his arm?

This is corrosive acid that eats through anything, and yet... Oh well, we won't

ask too many questions.

Ready, set, blow!

Oh, look at that. Gorgeous.

We can thank FX wizard Giovanni Corradori for that.

Who, um...

Among his many credits, also did much of the gore effects for, you guessed it,

Zombie 2.

Now, these effects were handled primarily, if you read the liner notes

release that I penned myself, with words from Mr. Kotze, they

were bladders, which were, you know, pretty...

ahead of their time in many respects.

The only bladder movie outside of Alien I can think of, but even Alien, I'm

trying to think.

I mean, the scene with John Hurt's infamous chestburster scene, which

contamination takes to the oomph level in this movie, I'm trying to think if it

was even bladder, if it was just a fake chest with the bum -bum -bum -bum -bum

protrusions and splatters.

Squibs, I'm not sure, but...

Alien, in many respects, borrows elements of David Cronenberg's 1975

Shivers, a .k .a. They Came From Within, a .k .a. The Parasite Murders, again,

depending on where you saw it.

And the reason we can say that there's a lot of that in there, but for sure

there was a famous interview which David actually is still somewhat bitter about

if you ask him.

It was an interview with O 'Bannon where he was asked about his inspiration.

And he said, I'm a big fan of, you know, I was a big fan of the Canadian films.

And certainly there weren't too many Canadian fantasy and horror films of the

1970s. Really, David was the only guy doing them.

And Rabbit and Shivers being the ones.

And certainly, certainly Alien takes tons from Shivers. So

O 'Bannon never quite.

came out and said he ripped off Shivers, but certainly he borrowed elements from

it and implied that good things were coming from Canada.

Inspiration was coming from Canada.

And if you remember the scene in Shivers where Barbara Steele kisses Susan

Petrie in that lesbian transplant sequence, and their bladder, Joe

bladder, goes from one neck to the other. Blub, blub.

That's, to me, what I think of as kind of proto...

bladder effects, but contamination just goes ten times further and fills entire

torsos with these giant bladders that, in turn, are filled with butcher

spoils and fake blood.

And then blows, blows, blows, blows those fuckers up until people just

And then, of course, Coetzee, being a huge fan of Sam Peckinpah, which is

Again, here's a guy who just loves movies, right?

Ends up slowing the fucking thing down to a snail. So we feel every painful

gynecological detail.

And then the sound designer would obviously throw in for maximum ick.

And they're great, painfully violent sequences.

Beautifully rendered in that ridiculous slow motion.

We're not quite in act two yet. There's more than three acts in this movie.

There's a million acts, actually. There's so many.

So maybe this is Act 1B. I'm not sure. But we're just being introduced

to Colonel Stella Holmes, who will now shift our attentions from Lieutenant

Aerith to Colonel Stella Holmes, played by French -Canadian actress Louise

Marlowe, who was a...

An actor, and still is quite a, you know, I wouldn't say legendary, I think

that's probably an extreme word, but a very noted actor in Quebec, French

Canada.

In Quebec, they have their own star system.

Even though they are part of Canada, they are kind of a world unto

It's very insulated, and you can live and die in Quebec and not be exposed,

really, to the outside world's pop culture strains if you choose not to be,

because they have their own star systems, they have their own music

have their own culture, their own pop culture. It exists, and it's lucrative

within the confines of their own borders.

And Louise Marleau was a star in Quebec.

As far as the genre is concerned, she was starred in a movie called Satan's

Sabbath, which was the first...

horror film produced by the Cinepix boys, who in turn, guess who, discovered

David Cronenberg and produced and distributed Shivers to much notoriety in

Canada at the time, and later David's Rabid, as well as several other, and

were pretty much the American international pictures of Canada.

And they all started in Quebec, breaking taboos, because the Quebec censor board

was actually the Catholic Church at one point.

actually for decades.

And it was Cinepix, John Dunning and Andre Link, who broke that taboo and

decided to start producing and distributing softcore pornography, kung

and eventually horror films throughout not just French Canada, but throughout

all of Canada and eventually the world.

But Louise Marlowe was one of their stars.

And she was in Satan's Sabbath, which was known, I guess, known in French as

Diable et Pas Mes Nus, I think.

Not a great movie, but a fairly famous and important Canadian horror film,

also stars Daniela Ouimet from Harry Carmel's Daughter of the Darkness.

And that leads me to wonder why Louise Marlowe's even in this movie, because

really, Coetzee did not want her.

Coetzee wanted Carolyn Monroe, who was the female lead in his 1979 film Star

Crash, famously in that incredible... What the hell is her name? I want to say

Stella Star. No, what's her name?

Stella something, I forget.

I don't really remember that movie very well. I've seen it a couple times

vaguely. It's never been a huge favorite of mine. I'm not a space opera guy

necessarily.

Anyways, but I certainly remember Carolyn Monroe in that, as do many.

young red -blooded men and select women.

But he wanted Carolyn Monroe for the role of Colonel Stella Holmes, and I'm

really glad that Claudia Mancini talked him out of that and made the call not

to, because I like Louise Marlowe in this movie a lot.

She's not traditionally beautiful, and she's not... Actually, her femininity is

kind of second to her character, which I find...

to be really compelling in this role because she's tough, she's serious,

roll up her sleeves, get the job done, she's like a detective, and really we

don't need to be lusting over her. It's not a part of the deal. We don't need to

be doing that. We just want to like this person and be on side with her as she

tries to uncover the layers of this mystery.

So I wonder why, and I can't...

You know, I know why she was chosen, because there was money coming from all

over the world to make this movie. It was a German, Canadian, British, Italian

co -production. There might even have been more money from elsewhere in there.

These movies were always put together through various deals internationally.

And what would happen is whoever was putting up the money in whatever country

would provide some star or some...

element of their own culture that they could in turn sell back to their own

people.

Hence why you get later, and we'll get into that, Ian McCulloch as the other

star in the film who ends up becoming the lead soon.

You know, he was the British blood.

And then, you know, the movie was co -written by Eric Tomek.

who was German, and Eric Zemecki actually wrote Jess Franco's Bloody

some respects, this movie reminds me of Bloody Moon in a weird way.

It's kind of got the same kind of strange vibe to it.

You can't quite put your finger on why you love it, but it's there.

And then with Louise Marlowe with The Canadian Money, and I wonder with, now I

always used to be really good friends with John Dunning, and I was with him

actually when he passed from leukemia a few years ago.

I've known him for years, but he's not around anymore for me to ask him this,

and I never asked him at the time.

And I don't know if Cinepix distributed contamination.

If they did, then one would presume that Louise Marlowe was being one of

Cinepix's girls, was kind of inserted into the film at the request of Dunning

and Link.

As was Danielle, we met in Daughters of Darkness, because Cinepix did distribute

Daughters of Darkness, and Danielle was their superstar.

But I don't know how Louise got involved, if it was a Cinefix deal or

there goes that mouse. More bladders.

No mice were harmed in the making of this movie, I don't think.

But that's an incredibly effective sequence and a great sound effect.

love these movies right from the early days of Leone, who, yeah, it's the

right? It's the in -your -face, larger -than -life, louder -than -bomb sounds

that hammer home every bit of weird violence in these pictures. Love that

explosive sound.

So, yeah, I don't know how Louise Marlowe got involved, but I'm glad she

because I think it would have been a radically different film. Certainly a

erotic film if Carolyn Monroe was in it, but it wouldn't have the same kind of

straight -faced, serious thrust, I don't think. Different kind of thrust.

Now, I saw

this movie, as I mentioned, a lot of these movies being in Canada at the

My video store days, I came of age in a video store like my generation did.

But it wasn't until my early teens that I saw, I think it was maybe 12 or 13,

I think that would be accurate, maybe 14, maybe, my young teens or pre -teens

that I saw contamination.

The reason I even knew what it was, I had read about it in the magazine I now

edit. Gore Zone, my hero Chaz Ballin's column, Peace of Mind.

I forget which column it was, but he was as he was wont to do, itemizing and

detailing in his beatnik -esque style some of the great films that had those

great money shots, those great moments, and he would give you these amazing

lists, and you always felt like you were being taken by your hand and led into

this weird world by this amazing writer, and Chaz Ballin primarily.

If you know him, I'm preaching to the choir. If you don't, he was a writer who

wrote for Fangoria and for Gorezone and then started his own magazine, Deep Red.

He was an artist, designed t -shirts, you name it.

Novelist. But first and foremost, a man with a fucking brilliant writer who

chose horror.

in particular European and lower -end gore horror, as his kind of window to

world, as his vessel to preach his own gospel, his own words.

And he was an amazing writer. And I think because he chose this genre to

in, never quite turned over his motor to become the great presence he should

have been.

And I've made it my mission, you know, to really keep that spirit alive in gore

zone.

scrappy, great writing, weird vibe, and just the sheer love and joy

and cathartic release of these really dirty, nasty illusions in these movies.

And so there was a picture, I think, of Marino Mazzei getting swallowed up, and

sorry, that's a spoiler if you haven't seen the movie, but presumably you have

seen the movie if you're listening to this rambling commentary of mine.

It was a scene of Marino Mazzei being swallowed by the Cyclops at the end of

film.

Wait till we get to the Cyclops. I fucking love the Cyclops. But anyways,

talk about him later.

And there was some sort of glib, you know, one line underneath it. I

forget what it said.

Presumably Mike Gingold wrote it because Gingold back then wrote them all and

still does write the photo captions for the book. Some people think I do it. I

never do. I would never change that.

I do when I get a chance to do it. I like doing it, but it's Mike's beat and

Mike's fucking funny guy.

He's a funny guy.

Great sense of humor.

Anyway, so there was some caption, and then there was Coetzee mentioning,

you know... Sorry, I got distracted by the movie here. This is a great scene. I

should shut up and actually comment on some of the stuff we're about to see.

But anyways, I read about it under the title Alien Contamination, where Chaz

Ballin was raving about it as being this fun and gooey film.

and it wasn't until years later that I caught up to the movie, and I'll tell

how I caught up to the movie in a second.

Let's just sit back, and while I shut up, and you can enjoy this amazing

sequence, because you really hear how powerful the Goblin score is in this

movie. I love this theme.

The big standoff.

You're surrounded. There's no way out.

Keep moving.

See that dude there?

That's Martin Sorrentino, who I don't think gets any credit in this movie,

because that was kind of his curse. He was in all these Italian horror films.

I don't know if it's because he was a brother or what, but he never got any

credit. I think he's really... He's got such a great, sinister look to him,

doesn't he?

These guys were suicide bombers before we even knew what suicide bombers were

our pop culture, really, did we?

Love that sound effect.

Screaming dinosaurs.

But Sorrentino, if you know your Italian horror, I mean, to me, you remember him

as the blustery, screaming police chief or captain or lieutenant or whatever the

hell he was at the beginning of City of the Living Dead or The Gates of Hell.

Lucio Fulci's 1980 masterpiece.

Right after the seance sequence, which we initially believe kills Catriona

McCall, of course does not, Sorrentino's the guy investigating the scene,

yelling at everybody and being belligerent. And here he's just a really

minion to these psychic eggs or whatever the hell they are.

Again, we're not quite sure why these guys blow themselves up.

The jig is up, right? I mean, you're killing yourself.

That's great. What, because now you can't talk? I guess so. I mean, that's

way it is, right?

But, I mean, why do these guys even love this stuff?

I mean, why are they aligned to this? Well, we'll find out later.

Sort of.

But who cares? You just go with it.

You just go to watch the bladders blow.

And why are we calling in the flamethrowers?

Colonel Stella Holmes, why?

Why?

I think we are aware at this point that yonder eggs will blow the fuck up once

you burn them.

So why don't you freeze the eggs? Freeze your eggs, Louise. No, no, no. Just

burn them.

Yeah, and sorry if I get distracted while I'm talking here on this rambling

verbal diarrhea track that you're being exposed to. Hopefully you're enjoying

some of it, getting something out of it.

But I do, I've seen this movie so many times, but I really love it, and

especially when the goblin music starts kicking in, I really kind of get lost in

its groove.

And so if I start to kind of trip over my own tongue and then start to shut up,

it's because I'm watching the movie a bit.

But I did, I was talking about my first exposure to contamination.

I did mention that it was via Chad's Ballad and the pages of Gorzone, but it

years before I actually saw the movie.

I couldn't, you know, I could not find it in my local video store. It wasn't

until a video store chain called Bandito Video in my area, which was, I grew up

in Mississauga, Ontario, which is just outside of Toronto, a suburb.

A Bandito video superstore, and I don't know if they had those in the United

States, but we had them in Canada, a couple here and there scattered

the suburbs. But it was one of those giant video superstores that had, you

the horror area through the...

creepy you know there are tombstones there on the you know like hundreds and

hundreds and hundreds of titles and it was the low -end stuff that i really

in love with because that was the stuff that bellin would always jerk off on

right that was the stuff he loved and i could never find it anywhere way before

the internet way before anything and to mail order you you know to order a video

cassette from the united states would have run me over a hundred dollars which

did not have as a child and i certainly can convince my parents to buy me a A

video cassette.

So, you know, what I would do is I'd stay up late at night and I would

through the week. I'd get the TV guide on the Saturday with the Saturday paper.

And with a highlighter, I would highlight the week if I saw anything

horrific. And if it was Italian, I mean, if it had Italian names in it or

something, I'm like, oh, my God.

I mean, I found Jess Franco movies under different names. I remember watching

Franco's Lesbian.

prison masterpiece 99 women under the title island of despair and i just knew

was franco because the name maria rom was in there and i remember reading in

fangoria about franco and the name maria rom popped up and i said well this

might be franco and it's women in prison it might be but i had no way of

referencing it because there was no internet so i'd have to stay up late or

i would do is i would sleep with an alarm clock under my pillow and it would

wake me up at select times, and I'd come downstairs, and I'd either watch the

movies, and when I got a VCR, I would diligently stay up, and I'd tape these

movies and edit out the commercials. So I didn't, even as a kid, I was a night

owl. I didn't sleep very much. Probably why I fucked up my school in high school

so bad is that I was just such a rabid savage for these horror movies, and the

only way I could build my library was to do that, stay up late.

So pre -Bandito video, we finally got...

A huge part of my childhood.

You know, I'm not saying Elvira, Cassandra Peterson, the Elvira character

necessarily a fun, campy character, but not exactly a major vital force when it

comes to horror films.

But as far as horror film culture goes, without the Elvira show, I wouldn't know

jack shit. I wouldn't have been exposed to this stuff.

because Elvira had a lot of these European films. You know, The Devil's

Night, which I still adore with Mark Damon and the Rosalba Neri. I mean, I

remember seeing that for the first time and just being blown away by how weird

it was.

But I'll never forget the night when I got the TV guy, and I looked, it was

always a Saturday night, and we didn't get Elvira in Canada until about 12

after, I think, it was syndicated in the States.

We got it on global TV, finally picked up a bunch of them.

I would blow them out, I think, at 12 .30 or 1 in the morning. So it was a

commitment to stay up.

But I'll never forget opening that TV guide and seeing that Alien

was playing. Like, Jesus fucking Christ.

So I stayed up, had a brand new video cassette, recorded. It was a T120,

recorded on the SP mode, so it would be maximum quality.

And I stayed up and I recorded it and cut out all of, as much as I loved

the lady bits, I didn't want her.

destroying some of these movies.

She would mock them primarily, and I felt that sometimes it was a disrespect

the films themselves, so I would cut her out, but I would stay up all night and

edit out the commercials as I went.

And I fell in love with this movie right away.

The Goblin music was huge, and I was already a Goblin music fan because I

Dawn of the Dead, and had discovered, I think at that point, Deep Red, maybe, I

don't remember, but I certainly was well aware of Goblin.

And I was like, man, this music is amazing.

But more importantly, the movie was so much fun.

You know, I had seen a couple Italian films at this point, and I knew he had

be very forgiving, because after the operatic set pieces of gore and

sometimes the narrative was incoherent or went out for a smoke. He really

have anything to grasp onto. But this movie had a plot, and it was fun.

And it moved.

I was engaged.

I loved this movie. So it was almost like a pre -Ringu. I then made copies

of this tape because I had a second VCR, and I would make copies.

And then I would distribute them to my friends and say, you know, you've got to

watch Alien Contamination. It's amazing.

I'd give them these little mini master classes of what the movie was.

And to my despair, nobody liked this movie.

I was like the only kid in my little group that liked the weirder shit, you

know. They all liked movies, but nobody really liked the weird European stuff.

They didn't know what the hell I was doing.

They just thought I gave them some bad movie and that I had bad taste in

I'm like, no, no, no, you don't get it.

It's a lot like trying to tell a stranger about rock and roll, friends.

And now we move into the second, I'd say officially this is the second act.

where we meet the one and only, inimitable Ian McCulloch,

playing Commander Ian Hubbard.

I always want to call him Peter, because I think he played Peter in his other

two European horror films, Zombie 2, there's Zombie 2 again, and Dr.

Butcher MD, a .k .a. Zombie Holocaust, Queen of the Cannibals.

I think his name was Peter in both of those movies. I always want to call him

Peter when I see him.

Even when I see him in the flesh, I want to call him Peter.

Now, Ian was in a cult British post -apocalyptic science fiction series

Survivors.

And I think that's really what kind of got him the gig starring in Zombie 2.

At this point, McCulloch, I'm going to say his career was in decline.

He had been in a few horror films.

I say a few, maybe one. Well, Survivors, you can kind of throw into the genre

because it definitely was darker and had some horrific elements into it. But he

was also in the, was it a Tygon film?

The Ghoul.

I think in some markets it's called Night of the Ghoul. But The Ghoul with

Hurt and Ian McCulloch.

You know, if you talk to Ian about this, and you can't tell because Ian had the

best comb -over ever in these movies.

There's sequences in Zombie 2 where the wind is blowing him on the yacht, and I

remember quite shocking when you see him at the end of the movie, and he's,

like, crowned. He's basically bald.

But he looks like he's, like, thick, lustrous head of hair. He's actually

It's just a really badass comb -over.

So I say that, you know, I don't exactly have the most lustrous full head of

hair either, but I'm not saying that it's some sort of mocking Ian at all.

What I'm saying is that while a lot of women will say, you know, I was getting

older, I was losing my look, hence why my career kind of went down and I

couldn't get the role.

So it's true for men like Ian McCulloch, who were handsome, young, virile

British actors who never quite got the big role.

And then what would happen was his hair started thinning out, and the office

just didn't come fast and furious as they used to.

And so like a lot of actors that weren't finding success on their home turf,

they went where the money was and the sizable roles were.

And not only that, a little vacation in Italy and other exotic locales where

these movies were shot?

Why not?

So McCulloch really didn't think that anyone would ever actually remember

movies or see them even. These were just junky little exploitation movies he

made to get out of the country, make a few bucks, have a vacation, travel, meet

new people, have a good time.

The first one was, of course, Zombie 2, followed almost back -to -back with

Jiril Ami's Zombie Holocaust.

And then Claudia Mancini, again, putting together this movie, seeing some of the

successful elements in the other Italian horror films of the period.

Actually,

other horror films full stop.

Alien does well, check. We'll rip off Alien.

Goblin knows their shit, has a following, boom, throw Goblin into it.

And we want Ian McCulloch from Zombie, too, because the guy has a...

Really great look, plus he's British and kind of reminds me of Roger Moore.

There's a James Bond kind of vibe there, and I love James Bond, so let's get Ian

for this movie.

And that's why Ian McCulloch ended up in Contamination.

This is a great sequence.

I would have guessed that Crypticon Seattle, I think right when I took over

Fangori about six years ago.

It's a great matte painting, I love it.

So simple and effective.

And I was asked to pick some scenes from some of my favorite movies with how

music works well in collusion with images to create environments.

And I chose this as one of them, which obviously is a direct quote of Alien,

but with really badass goblin music and

histrionic McCulloch voiceover.

You know, that Birthing Canal scene.

A direct quote from Alien and has been ripped off in many Alien -like movies

over the years.

So visually nothing exactly ominous and revolutionary in the sequence. Just the

way it's put together I find maybe even accidentally masterful.

...with this blinding hypnotic light.

As it came towards us I looked at Hamilton and his eye...

He was beginning.

But I remember at the end of it, once we hit that, McCulloch screaming,

Hamilton!

Hamilton!

Mars has always simulated.

And the lights went up, and I was forced to defend the sequence or explain as to

why I chose it. I remember my co -host at the panelist at the time smacking his

forehead, going, why the hell would you choose that stupid -ass movie?

You know, out of all the great moments in cinema you could have chosen, you

chose that?

And I remember the audience, too, like, what?

Whatever. And I was doing a shuck and jive trying to make people believe.

I was trying to, you know, and I'm generally quite persuasive when talking

things I love.

But that was a tough sell. And again, I was forced to defend contamination.

I feel very angry about having to do that through the years.

I came close to a nervous breakdown, too, more than once.

I was just luckier than my poor friend.

That's all.

Son of a bitch.

He even convinced me.

Now we know that Hamilton lied.

But I don't understand.

The chap with the mustache, obviously, and I forget his name, but he's in a lot

of Italian horror films as well, and my God, isn't he in City of the Living

Dead, right?

He's one of the heroes. He's actually the male hero, is he not, at the end of

City of the Living Dead.

And I'm an idiot because I didn't even make a note as to what his name was.

So apologies, I've just revealed myself to be the great pretender when it comes

to being an Italian horror film know -it -all. I don't remember that actor's

name.

Buffoon that I am.

But further to the German money, Siegfried Rauch, Rauch, Rauch, Rauch,

Rauch.

who plays Hamilton, obviously, as I just fumbled through his last name, was a

very, very famous, and still is, I think he's still with us, a German actor.

And so he was there, you know, the German money, he was there insertion

film, a recognizable German face.

He was in, speaking of, well, Roger Moore was in the sequel, but, no, no, he

in the original too. He was in Fire, Ice, and Dynamite.

He was also in Patton.

And I want to say he was in Where Eagles Dare.

I think everybody was in We're Eagles there. Were they not?

Did Washington okay it?

Yes, but with strings as usual.

One thing I didn't mention as well, as I talked about earlier, when you're

judging performances in a film like this, you're, again, judging the

presence of the actors themselves, but then you have to judge the voice

performance. It's almost like...

a hybrid of animation.

Because, you know, when you're watching a cartoon and you're judging the voice

performance, you're not judging the actual performance of what has been

But that's Susan Spafford doing the voice of Stella Holmes, you know,

it to Louise Merlot's lips as Susan Spafford's voice.

And the reason I mention her, again, it's further perpetuating this

to Zombie 2.

In that, if you close your eyes and listen to her voice.

I don't know if you can, if you know Zabito, if you can recognize her voice,

she was Mrs.

Menard, Olga Carlitos, the poor lass who, of course, the big central money

in that movie is Olga getting her eyeball penetrated by a slab of wood in

motion.

And that was Susan Spafford's voice, who was also the voice of Stella Holmes.

McCulloch, however, dubs himself, as he did in all three of these films, his

holy trinity of European horror and fantasy.

So McCulloch, again, really had no idea. He cheerfully went through his career

through the 1980s, 90s, and he still works from time to time.

Well into his 70s, and just a hell of a guy. I spent a lot of time with him

again in Seattle at a different convention, a ZombieCon, I think it was.

And I just didn't want to stop being with him. He's just a wonderful

storyteller, a warm person.

Humble, unpretentious, and funny as hell.

Caustic, acerbic, and just a wonderful guy to hang out with.

And I'm recording this commentary in April 2015, and I run a convention here

Toronto called Horrorama, and I've just booked Ian in to come in from the UK to

hang out with me for a few days. And I'm just so excited watching this movie now

with you, knowing that in a few short months, I'll be able to hang out with

again. I really, really like the guy.

But again, he had no idea that anyone would ever see these movies. And it

until, I want to say like around the time maybe Anchor Bay first blasted

out on DVD, which would have been in the 90s, right? I think it was about like

97, 96, 97 at that point.

Maybe a little bit later, 97, late 90s anyway.

And I think it was around this period when McCulloch really started to realize

that people actually gave a goddamn about these movies, that there was

a huge, substantial, international cult built up around these films and that

people deified them and actually dissected them and worshipped them and

elevated their legacy to that of a kind of high art, which at the time, these

were not high art. These were products. These were programs spat out onto

screens to make a few clams.

The difference being what is product and programming today shot by monkeys with

video cameras back then were made by real European international craftsmen.

You know, again, some of the people I've talked about, like, you know, Baragal's

editing. I mean, he's one of the greatest editors in film history, you

having edited the Dollars Trilogy. I mean, no slouch, not some, like, punk

kid out of high school.

fucking around with his laptop, a real guy with a real sense of cinema.

And the photography is by Giuseppe Pinari, who later would do Fulci's

Rock, and who also shot a really great thriller from the early

80s with Harvey Keitel and Johnny Rotten called The Order of Death.

The last time I saw The Order of Death was on VHS in a dump bin at Kmart. So

presumably it had...

It has or had lapped into the public domain. I don't know if that's still the

case. But find this movie if you can. It's a really grotty, gritty, early 80s

thriller.

And what's cool about it is that it's called The Order of Death. So if you

the song The Order of Death, if you're a fan of Richard Stanley's Hardware, you

know the song. This is what you want. Or if you're a fan of Miami Vice, one of

the great episodes of Miami Vice were Tubbs.

is tied up by a female serial killer, and they play the song almost in its

entirety in both entertainments. This is what you want, want. This is what you

get, get.

Right? That's The Order of Death by Public Image Limited, which was Johnny

Rotten's band that followed after the demise of the Sex Pistols.

That song was written for The Order of Death, the movie.

And Pinotti shot that as well. And, man, my God, is that a great fucking movie.

So good. I wish somebody would dig up The Order of Death.

And do something proper with it. Put it on Blu -ray and really give it some love

and respect.

I mean, Keitel's still around.

Johnny Rotten's still around. I think Pinori's still around, too.

Get him to talk.

If he even speaks English, I have no idea.

But again, the point being is that from stem to stern, it's a professional work.

So all these movies that were products about in the theaters, greasy and

forgettable. ripping off more successful American or international counterparts

or even other Italian exploitation films, as is the case of this movie,

made by people who understood how to make movies, hence why they still stand

powerful films today, alien and unusual, and against the grain of other low

-budget exploitation films made today, which are, again, generally made by kids

right out of film school, who really...

You know, know about shortcuts and know about cheating budgets, but really don't

understand about having lived through cinema history and to operate

complex machinery and really manipulate light and sound and image and

circumnavigate budgetary restrictions.

Now, Roach is really good in this.

Because, again, further to Mancini's fetish for Ian Fleming, for James Bond.

But the presence of Rouch, especially now, as he hangs out in Columbia,

his mole, his gangster mole, and in his white suit.

All he needs is a fucking cat to stroke. I mean, he's a Bondian villain.

He's a megalomaniacal Bondian villain seeking world domination. It just so

happens, because this is a science fiction movie.

that he is being controlled by a giant, gloppy alien son of a bitch. I mean,

that's just the icing on the cake.

That should have been incorporated into later Bond films. I don't think they

ever brought in... Moonraker certainly blasted off into space, but there was

never a kind of preternatural or cosmic influence in those movies. It would have

been great if... I would love a Bond movie that actually brought in a

alien threat. I mean, how great would that have been?

Bond fighting aliens.

For some reason, Bond fans would never be able to suspend disbelief. That's why

Moonraker has been so poorly thought of as far as a Bond film, is that it's just

too pulpy and too outrageous for even Bond fans to swallow.

But anyways, Mancini really wanted a Bond vibe, so Cozzi kind of created this

story in collusion with Tomek to make this kind of James Bond science fiction

film. And Roach is the perfect Bond villain.

Yeah, Marlowe's not traditionally beautiful, and she wears a shit ton of

in this movie, but I really like her.

Now, a clumsy kind of quasi -romantic subplot, like right now they're even

talking about her, objectifying her, like they both want to fuck her, but it

doesn't even make any sense because she's...

She's more of a man than these dudes are. These guys are slouchy.

Somehow, Lieutenant Aris, Marina Mazzei, started as being a somewhat serious

character at the very beginning of the film, and quickly he dissolves into

comedy relief.

I mean, by this point, he even looks like fucking Kramer, doesn't he? He

like Michael Richards. Oh, my God, I never really noticed that.

He looks exactly like Kramer, and he acts like Kramer.

He is the Kramer of contaminant. He's the Kramer of Italian films.

Look, even dresses like Kramer.

I never even thought about that.

Wow. I've seen this movie how many times?

This is like a hard day's night. They should open up into the same room.

I wonder if that was Coetzee. I would ask Coetzee about that. If that was kind

of like a... That must have been. I mean, Luigi Coetzee loves the Beatles.

loves rock and roll. He must have seen... Was it a hard day's night or was

hell where they all enter into the same house?

That's definitely a Beatles moment.

It's Kramer.

Holy shit. Why didn't I notice that before?

In my mind, I can't watch this movie anymore.

I keep waiting for a funky bass line for Agostino Marangolo to bring in his

bass.

Now once we get past this kind of comedy relief, now we do the first person

Giallo style shooting with a camera where the audience now becomes complicit

becomes the villain who is now stalking.

the hallways, something that Cozzi would have gleaned from, well, Argento, who

obviously took it from Bava, but Cozzi and Argento, in case you're not aware,

are partners and have been friends, and Cozzi has done a lot of special effects

and various work, second unit for Dario, and they're very good friends and

business partners. If you go to Rome, there's a little store called

Profondoroso. Deep Red, named, of course, after Argento's 1975

That is, you know, the de facto Italian horror culture store in the city.

It has a museum in the basement dedicated to both recreating tableaus

Dario's movies, as well as other famous horror films as well. And Cozzi is the

guy, if you go, he's the guy pretty much running the store.

Argento being the silent partner.

Now, again, these are the moments where the general fan

starts to laugh at contamination.

Because if Hamilton or the

Cyclops, whoever wanted these guys dead, wanted Colonel Holmes dead, it would be

very easy to creep into a room as someone just did and just pop, pop, pop,

silencer. No one would be the wiser.

She dead.

No. Instead, we got to plant a fucking egg in there.

Now, why?

If we're trying to keep this kind of under wraps, we're shipping all these

everywhere for whatever reason to blow up on random people, why are we...

Doing these big operatic dramatic assassinations where someone's going to

alien pulp and launch a new investigation.

Again, why am I even calling attention to this? I call attention to it because

it calls attention to itself.

And the reason why a lot of fans, and even Italian horror film fans, giggle at

Contamination is that there is such a linear plot to the film and that you do

get hooked into it and do follow it. And then when it starts to go into the

abstract,

it's very hard to reconcile the two halves of the movie, the two aesthetics,

dichotomy of the film.

It takes place in the real world, and yet very unreal things happen, so you're

never quite at ease with the tone.

Fair enough. That is a criticism that I will accept.

But I admire it in the sense that I've seen this movie so many times, it's just

part of the rhythm of the film.

Whereas most Italian horror films, again, go right for the abstract from

one and lean more heavily into the nonlinear so that it just becomes

acceptable that anything can happen in a kind of dreamscape way.

But here we're really not playing in that sandbox, so it is kind of an odd

Did I mention who was dubbing Marino Maze? Larry Dooligan, who, again, tons

of... These guys had a lucrative career in the 80s just dubbing every Italian

horror film. I remember him from Nightmare City, primarily.

And one of the big names for dubbing, in fact, I think he was the dubbing

director for this movie, was Nick Alexander.

An American actor who was,

if you've seen any, you know, in Zombie 2 or any of the Italian films starring

Al Cliver, Nick Alexander was almost exclusively the guy that would dub Al

Cliver. In fact, at the beginning of the movie of Contamination, when Lieutenant

Aris is on the, before they even get into their white suits when they're

discussing at night at the harbor, one of the dudes, I don't know if it's a cop

or just like a...

one of the security guards in the harbor, it's actually Nick Alexander.

So it sounds like Al Cliver shows up to the party at some point, but he doesn't.

It's just Nick Alexander's jumping in, doing an odd voice, and then going back

to bossing everyone else around to tell them how to act.

I was just waiting for you.

Who did the sound design for this? Because I really like the... I think

maybe the Anzalone brothers, with Simone Luciano.

But I don't know what the sound is that the egg makes, but I really like it.

You know, she could.

Why am I bothering?

Chris, what are you doing?

Throw a shower curtain over her. Do something.

Some cold water.

Or jump in the shower yourself.

Scream.

Ah, well.

McCulloch has a similar thing at the end of, um, when in the last, uh...

the last reel of Dr. Butcher MD, or Zombie Holocaust, where it's like he's

walking away from a dangerous scene, and it's like, okay, all good, let's go,

let's go to the boat, let's get out of here, and then he starts to think, hmm,

hmm, what, what, what, what, and then goes back, and of course he's thrust

into mega danger.

Don't worry, I'll take the blame.

Now she says something.

Get me out of here!

There's an egg!

Help!

Get me out of here!

They really do look like giant tumors that's

so gross.

So cool.

I'd like to actually, you know what, I know we live in an age of remakes and

and remountings and regurgitations, and we can sneer at that because there's no

new Rhea, there's no new ideas left in Hollywood. It's like, well, come on, of

course there is, and the remakes are okay.

I remember the same people would sneer when Hammer released Carissa

and Horror of Dracula.

The purists who were still swooning over Bella and Boris had no time for a full

-color, bloody remake of their favorites.

But obviously today we view those Hammer films as masterpieces and classics.

And the same thing about these Italian movies. They take on a life of their

even though they are remakes and ripoffs of a superior, quote -unquote superior

product, domestic product of the time. So really, please, have a little

perspective and don't, you know, shoot down the idea of remakes because

sometimes, you know, there are no new ideas left and it's okay.

Sometimes remakes can fill in the blanks, especially a smaller film like

Contamination. I think it would be really, really cool to remake

with the idea of these eggs, but flesh out the idea a little bit more of what

they do, what they become, how they're distributed, and maybe the effect of the

acid or what it does. Maybe it becomes like a disease, which is called

Contamination. That's exactly what it should have been.

is that the acid hits you, and instead of just blowing up like a piñata, you

up carrying some kind of disease that spreads.

Now then, of course, it would become a zombie movie, but that's okay, too.

As long as you can incorporate a new kind of mythology with these galactic

and then bring the Cyclops back, because I love the Cyclops, and just make it

bigger and more interesting, and maybe a little more serious when it comes to

its plot, or strip the plot away and make it a little bit more visceral.

Which is not to say I negate how much I love this movie, but there is still a

solid idea there for a more serious -minded genre film, I think.

Now, here's an atypically groovy passage from this soundtrack.

This version of Goblin that made this score.

Now, if you're even vaguely aware of the band Goblin, you have probably heard

and you're probably aware of the fact that Goblin is kind of the Pink Floyd of

Italian...

horror soundtrack bands.

There are too many Italian horror soundtrack bands, Goblin being the

of them all.

But Pink Floyd, in the sense that, A, the type of music they were creating was

obviously influenced by a lot of the progressive, more art rock bands of the

period, and Pink Floyd being one of the leaders.

But also the fact that nobody in the band can get along for five fucking

minutes. Even to this day.

The version of Goblin that exists does not get along.

As of this recording, they've just released a new movie called, I want to

it's called Four of a Kind.

But it was recorded, you know, Maurizio Guarini lives in Toronto, and Davi

Pintelli's in Italy, and they're all spread to the four winds. And they

they could never exist together in a recording studio, because they all have

very different ideas, and they have very different personalities.

And Ego, that looks like it's out of Zombie 2 right there, that scene,

it? I think so.

The dusty scene where the goat passes by and the lone cadaver saunters through

with his eyes closed.

Anyways, yeah, these boys cannot get along.

So the version of Goblin, I think this lineup consists of, well, Maurizio,

Maurizio Guarini, who features prominently on this release with an

did with him in the special features. If you haven't watched it yet, please do.

Great guy and a major talent.

also Fabio Pignaciali, and then Antonio Marangolo and Agostino Marangolo,

Agostino, Fabio, and Maurizio being some of the original members, and then

Roberto Pulio on the select passages of guitar, although I don't think he was

actually an official member of the lineup at the period he did play on the

soundtrack.

But this version of Goblin is different than the one that had created Dawn of

the Dead.

or Suspiria, or Deep Red. Now, Maurizio was not part of Goblin during Deep Red,

but he did join the band shortly after to tour and to play.

And then he left before Suspiria, so he kind of missed that big soundtrack,

those two pinnacle soundtracks he didn't play on.

And then after Suspiria, a founding member, Claudio Simonetti, who now tours

under the name

Claudio Simonetti's Goblin, while the other band performs either as Goblin or

New Goblin.

At one time they were called Back to the Goblin.

I mean, is there one called Friends of Goblin? It's more convoluted than the

Beach Boys at this point.

But after Claudio quit the band and kind of went solo, I say

kind of because even then you still get soundtracks.

Like, I think he came back for Dawn of the Dead. I believe he plays on that.

Yeah, yeah, actually he does. Yeah, so Claudio was there and he quit right

Dawn of the Dead. Okay, so that's this version here.

But then Claudio would record with various members and even solo for Dario.

And sometimes, you know, the music for Phenomena is primarily Claudio Simonetti

solo.

Is it with Pignatelli? I think so, maybe.

but their credit is Goblin, I think, on the print and on the soundtrack CD,

though it's not really officially Goblin. At that point, there was another

version of Goblin doing their thing, and that's this version here, which after

Simonetti left in 79, this lineup of Goblin would continue making several

throughout the early 1980s to mid -1980s.

Primarily this score and...

Joe D 'Amato's Buio Omega, his masterpiece Buio Omega.

Two incredibly evocative works that I think stand as the best, I say the best

non -Semedetti goblin, but, you know, the best goblin, period.

I think in many respects, Contamination is my favorite goblin score.

It just kicks all kinds of ass.

I think Maurizio's keyboards are a huge part of this. And again, Maurizio was a

session player as well.

And after he quit Goblin the first round, before he came back, he was

with Fabio Fritzi with several Fulci films.

And again, Zombie 2, the iconic music,

that's Maurizio.

That's Maurizio's keyboards getting all freaky all over that score.

Very, very, very talented man.

More silliness. If this is the big beard

for the production and distribution of supposedly

world -decimating, acid -filled...

ovaries. And then why to God are they doing little random tours for people?

Goofy, goofy, goofy.

Oh, no, no. Actually, I'm wrong because I think it ends with... I think it's all

a sting. I think it ends with a... It ends at gunpoint.

Yeah, sorry.

Shut up, Chris.

This part does make sense.

It was a trap.

But I'm not alone.

I'm the head of the operation.

Hamilton.

Alive.

It's a pity you won't be able to tell anyone.

Come on, Dr. No. Tell us the whole story.

He even looks like a... His outfit, he looks like some Bond villain, doesn't

I really think Ian could have been one of the great actors, the great British

actors.

I want to say that maybe even just starring, taking the detour into this

may have derailed him to some degree. I mean, as I mentioned, his star wasn't

quite taking off.

at the time, but he really has a presence.

He just never quite got out of TV, did he?

You can call me Stella.

Thanks.

My name is Tony.

Okay.

Well, Tony, if you would listen to your good old cop instinct.

Instead of my MIT -educated calculations.

Now, that Goblin score, even though we're not privy to any of it at this

in the narrative, gives us a chance to talk about other places where you can

hear that music.

I mentioned on the outset Luigi Cozzi and comparing him to his contemporaries,

and I did throw out the name Bruno Mattai. Now, Mattai did not make good

but I don't do his deathbed. I just finished watching...

Matai's last two movies, zombie films, is An Island of the Living Dead and

Zombies at the Beginning, which were shot on video and are terrible,

but uniquely terrible in that Matai way, which is just so go for broke, awful,

and derivative that you just can't help but love them.

But there's moments, you know, in Zombies at the Beginning, which cost

.99 to make.

There's moments in the submarine which are actually cut -in sequences from,

speaking of the Scott brothers, from Tony Scott's Crimson Tide. I mean, it's

like this nickel -and -dime movie with guys in, like, goodwill clothes. And

you cut into this, you know, top drawer, glossy Hollywood thriller, sequences of

guys in a submarine.

And then you cut back. It's just so funny. And Mattias always did stuff like

that. If you remember his...

His classic, the apex of his career, is Hell of the Living Dead, which is one of

my favorite zombie movies, although it's by no means a good movie at all. But

again, there's just something uniquely astonishing about this movie.

Half of the picture is cut -in footage from stock footage of what looks like

National Geographic shots of animals running around the third world and

doing stuff, and then awkwardly smashed in with these new scenes that really

don't make sense at all. But again, it's just part of the charm of the film.

Well, the images and the narrative weren't the only derivative things in

the Living Dead.

The music is credited to the Goblins, I think, which is weird because sometimes

they're called the Goblin or the Goblins. I think in the credits of Dawn

Dead, they're called the Goblins.

I think even in Deep Red, they're called the Goblins.

But it was the band called Goblins. I don't know who was asleep at the wheel

there.

The music is not an exclusive score for Hell of the Living Dead. It is pieces of

existing Goblin soundtracks cobbled together in

a very non -covert way.

The music is very much, the movies are very much a verbatim ripoff of Dawn of

the Dead with some of Full G's Zombie 2 in there.

And the music is just licensed either...

officially or unofficially, from Dawn of the Dead. It's the same score.

And then the rest of the music is made up of music, this music, from

Contamination.

So if you like this music a lot and you want to see it up against not exploding

alien eggs and torsos, you want to see it up against third world zombies taking

pieces out of other people and cats jumping out of old ladies' stomachs and

everything else, then definitely check out, if you have not, Hell of the Living

Dead.

Not just to see how...

sublimely stupid it is, but just to hear how awesome that music is put up

against a different, in a different context.

Similarly, the goblin music in Buyo Omega, which we discussed a little bit

earlier, beautiful, romantic score, ironic considering the movie's about

one of the most disgusting things I've ever seen, a love story about

and cannibalism and everything else.

Honestly, one of the greatest horror films ever made, I think, but I digress.

That score was recycled again in another Matai movie, The Other Hell, which is

the same damn score.

And I'm not quite sure if Zombie ever saw any money from that. I did ask

Maurizio about that, and he has no recollection at all.

And I don't even think he was aware.

I think he was aware of Hell of the Living Dead. I don't think he knew about

Other Hell.

That bass is so killer.

Here's

the

other thing that confuses me, right?

They're picking these eggs, like harvesting them.

As plants?

But aren't they being farted out by the cyclops?

The fuck?

It's funny, the first time I saw this, and I was young, but I was old enough to

know better, I guess I was just so swept away by the visceral impact and the joy

of discovering this movie late at night, or maybe just because it was so late at

night, I really didn't notice any flaws in it. I really thought it was this

flawless, kick -ass action.

science fiction horror thing.

Get up.

It's time for you to come.

Where?

To the Cyclops.

The Cyclops?

Yes.

The Cyclops.

Yeah, the Cyclops.

I did mention earlier that Coetzee and I have become friends. I'm not friends to

the point where on Friday night we go bowling, although I'm sure if I lived in

Rome or he lived in Toronto, we just might go bowling on a Friday night. But

don't. We live in completely different worlds.

But when I took over Fangoria, and I think it was 2009, the second issue I

which is issue 294, I believe, with Splice on the cover, was the first time

started a lengthy process of interviewing Luigi.

which still continues to this day. I still cobble together as much as I can.

liner notes in this release are actually cobbled together from many of the

quotes I've gotten from Coetzee on the record about contamination in other

over the years.

I tend to record every time I'm talking to him, just because there's so much

there.

But you can imagine the joy as far as the journey, my own personal journey and

relationship with this strange film.

from a young boy discovering it in a magazine that he would go on to edit, to

finding it late at night in all virus shows, to trying to share it with other

people and being rejected, and then rediscovering it again on DVD under its

original title, and again, loving it and being an admirer for years, and then

suddenly, fast forward through adulthood, being given the gift of

creative control over his favorite magazine.

and making it a point that the second issue he served as editor under would

a substantial interview with Luigi Cozzi for no other reason other than that he

likes contamination, to have that power to do that and to put that in that

magazine. That's kind of my M .O. with Fango, is that if I'm not engaged, I

don't think you're going to be either. So I try to make it a mix of

and classic, but it has to have passion. It has to be...

that whoever's writing the piece, myself or any one of us, Mike Gingold or any

other of the writers, there has to be a real love of the picture in there.

Otherwise, it doesn't really register in my book.

So it was a real honor to be able to track Kotsi down and have him do this

interview with me.

And again, we've stayed friends ever since. I've helped him out with things.

We've been in discussion about doing a book through his imprint, Profondo

his printing entity.

He releases some amazing books in both Italian and English under his label. Of

course, he makes no real money, such as the state of the Italian film industry

and entertainment industry on every conceivable level.

But we've remained friendly. And then to be able to go to Italy last year with

my own film, The Queen of Blood, and screen it alongside Contamination on the

beaches of Nettuno outside with Cozzi was just this amazing experience that

I'll never forget.

It shouldn't have happened in the real world, and yet it did. And then to be

able to be sitting here rambling away and have my name and thoughts and energy

somehow attached again to this movie is something I'll never, ever, ever take

for granted.

It's a joy, and it's an honor to be able to sit here and rave about

Contamination.

You know, again, Coetzee gets another bad rap, but I think he's dismissed

because of the kinds of films he makes. And, you know, of course, we're talking

about Hercules, the Hercules movies, especially the first one with Ferrigno,

which is such a great, fun fantasy movie. But it's also so against the

when it was released in 83 and even today from its American counterparts

and the special effects being completely ridiculous. And, you know, the bear

sequence, which is the most.

laughed at sequence in all of fantasy filmmaking, I swear to God.

Right up there with the astroturf and shaking tombstones in Plan 9 from Outer

Space. But I don't think people quite get it.

Just how much fun and how much life is in that movie.

And all of Coetzee's work.

Paganini Horror, another great one.

But, you know, Coetzee could really make, I mean, to me, Coetzee's The

Must Kill Again.

I want to say it's 74, 75.

It's just as good, if not better, than some of Argento's or Martino's Giala

films. Even though it's not quite a Giala film in the sense that there's no

mystery in the film, just style -wise, I think it's a masterpiece.

Cozzi's like a big kid, and when you meet him, I think Luigi must be well

his 60s, but he is like hanging out with this big 12 -year -old kid. He's just

such a happy, sweet, good -natured...

lover of this crap that it's infectious.

There's the Cyclops.

The big bad Cyclops built by Giorgio Ferrari who also

built the crazy shark in that Jaws ripoff movie, the Castellari Jaws

Last Shark.

It's like a flashlight eyeball but so cheap.

I mean, Coetzee really wanted the Cyclops to be completely animated and

and

You know, Giger -esque. He wanted it to be like Giger's alien.

Not quite there.

Didn't move at all. It's like basically a stationary glob with a blobbing eye.

But who gives a shit? Because look at this sequence here. So you cut.

Baragal's cutting under Luigi's overseeing between Reno Maze's eyes.

You know, the Italians love their super hyper close -ups of eyes. And Bergal

having cut the Leone Westerns, which again, which are all about eye versus

to eye to eye to eye, creating that rhythm.

He does a kind of similar voodoo here.

The underlighting is great.

The noir -esque bars that are coming up from that underlighting over the actor's

faces.

The vaginal mouth of the cyclops itself dribbling all its slime.

Undulating.

I think it's very effective.

The slow movement.

The sound effects.

And of course, that amazing, blistering, pummeling, pulsing goblin theme turned

up loud transforms what is really, you know, in Cudsey's mind, a failure

of special effects into something sublime and transformative.

So you know who I am.

And you also know... that I've got nothing to lose.

Now, where do you incubate those eggs?

It's too late.

Hamilton has got your friends.

Hamilton?

Yes.

Your old friend, Hamilton.

Where are they?

Where?

In the forbidden room.

Yeah, this is the scene where I first found the film in the pages of Corazon.

Poor Marino Mazzeg.

There goes Kramer, the death of comedy.

The movie's not funny anymore. You just killed off your funny man.

I love this. I love this shot here.

It's so gross, and it's such a fake dummy, but listen to the sound effects.

It would be really awesome if it spat out his shoe, but it doesn't. It eats

everything. It's a badass cyclops.

Back to that Fulci tip, though, as well.

Cyclops is essentially the same thing. It's the demon priest, right?

That hypnotizes.

Well, everybody who looks into his eyes. Of course, nobody cries blood in this.

It would have been cool if they did, but it's a different kind of movie.

Same deal, though. And the same underlighting, too. City of the Living

has that extreme underlighting in many sequences.

Very, very effective.

I love this ending.

That music. Fuck.

And no matter what you take on Marlowe, she's...

Attractive or not, feminine or not, she's got beautiful eyes.

When light's shining directly into them, it's quite powerful.

One word out of you and you're dead.

Just quickly, too, back to my own experience with Coetzee in the summer.

the things I'll never forget.

Today I was walking down the boardwalk, and there was a huge billboard about the

visiting, about all the talent that was there. My name was first above Dario

Argento and above Luigi Cozzi. Of course, having the last name of

alphabetical order is in my favor. But it was still surreal, and just, you've

got to be kidding. This can't be real. This cannot be true.

But it was.

But I'll never forget, after we watched Contamination.

This is not name -dropping. This is, again, talking from the point of view of

fan who was just like Alice in Wonderland with all these people.

Here we are on the beach, well past my bedtime. We're way after hours, jet

-lagged and drinking and watching this sublime movie.

Oh, there it goes.

Flip -top.

With Cozzi, Claudio Simonetti, Ruggiero Diodato, okay?

And who else was there? Cozzi.

Cozzi's wife.

And a couple of Italian heavy metal star and an Italian journalist,

female journalist.

Everyone could speak English to a degree. Mostly it was all Italian

me the lone English guy. So here we are in this little shuttle bus going back to

our hotel.

And suddenly Diodato has this freak out.

I lost my camera. Where's my fucking camera?

I was freaking out, as he was wont to do, you know. And, I mean, it was just

like something out of a movie. It was just losing his mind. But no one was

taking him seriously.

Cozzi was laughing his ass off. Simonetti was laughing. Everyone was

And my guide, journalist Roberto D 'Onofrio, leans into me and says, he

this all the time.

And Cozzi was sitting beside me and starts telling me all these stories of

Diodato.

How he's just like, he just freaks out over everything. And he's just, he's

ridiculous. He's like a human cartoon. And it's just, it's the funniest thing

just to watch him go off.

And that, you know, if he really looks, he's probably got the camera in his bag.

But no, no, no. He was convinced that someone stole his camera. So this huge

drama erupted. We couldn't go anywhere.

And then Simonetti starts making fun of him.

Saying, I think maybe you're worried because maybe you took a porno pictures

yourself on this.

I sound like Gomez Adams, but terrible Italian accent. Apologies.

He started totally roasting Diodato, and the more he antagonized him, the madder

he got.

This little Italian guy looks like a little Italian Larry David, freaking

And I'm sitting there just convulsing, absolutely convulsing in laughter,

because this is unreal.

Of course, after blustering and getting everyone to run around on the beach and

everything else, he looked in his bag, and there was his camera. And then we

went back to the hotel, where I fell into a deep, exhausted sleep.

This is the only one of the three films that McCulloch's in that really has a

real character in the sense that he has an arc, as crude as it is.

He goes from this heroic astronaut to being completely doubted, his sanity

called into question when he starts relating this story that his partner

Hamilton then refutes, so he looks like a complete lunatic about these alien

eggs and the cyclops, and then seeking it through an alcoholic.

haze and depression, living in anonymity, to becoming a hero.

So although it's a predictable, well -worn, cliche -ridden arc, it's still an

arc, and certainly the most fleshed -out character of the three roles that he

played in these three wonderful Italian films.

Goodbye, Hubbard.

I'm not Hubbard, pardon me.

Hamilton.

Hubbard's okay.

Well, goodbye, Hubbard. He's about to leave.

But goodnight, Hamilton.

Corridori's gonna blow you up. You ready?

No!

Funnily enough, my movie The Queen of Blood, which is a genre -land, Jess

-esque female vampire movie by way of Terrence Malick. Many influences in that

movie, obviously.

But the slow -motion death sequences in all my films, Blood for Arena, Queen of

Blood, my new one, Female Werewolf, to a lesser extent Female Werewolf, but

especially the first two movies, the slow -mo murders, are 100 % influenced

the deaths and contamination.

And the sound effects of the deaths and contamination.

Hopefully these guys were paid well. I can't imagine they were all under the

influence of the Cyclops. If he was that powerful, he could hypnotize the world.

And what's his endgame?

What was the Cyclops after?

What does he want?

He's just an asshole.

Well,

I got to tell you, this is the... And I really have been drifting watching this

movie while I've been talking.

Because near the end, I'm running out of things to really say that aren't being

said in the film itself.

But I must tell you that, again, this is probably at least the

50th time, maybe more, that I've seen this movie in its entirety.

Well, here we got the little enemy from space ending.

But watch the skies.

But I love it even more. Every time I see it, I love it a little bit more. I

never get tired of it.

There's no other movie, even though it's an amalgam of many movies, there's no

other movie quite like it.

And of course, this being an Italian horror film, it has to have its

denouement.

And there's those little blasts from the past with the buildings there.

Yeah, this dance I love it, brothers.

Luciano and Massimo. I was right. The sound effects.

Amazing.

We can just enjoy as the commentary winds down.

Just enjoy the goblin music.

All right. Well, my name is Chris Alexander. I'm out. I love

hope you had a little bit of fun watching it with me.

And yeah, man, if you love it, do what I used to do.

Well, don't dub it because Arrow Video will be mad, but spread the gospel.

Get it out there. Let people know that contamination is a movie that matters.

Good night and good luck.