Species

The best monster movie to come slithering out of the muck since Jurassic Park. Species is an exploitation picture while Jurassic Park was mainstream, but the new one is lots of fun if you're in the mood for B-movie thrills. [07 July 1995, p.19]

A propulsive sci-fi actioner genetically engineered from spores of the Alien and Terminator series, Roger Donaldson's Species provides a gripping if not overly original account of an extraterrestrial species attempting to overwhelm our own.

Despite the ridiculous premise and casting this is still a pacey little sci-thriller.

Alien meets Basic Instinct in this textbook illustration of what happens when millions of dollars' worth of technical expertise is brought to bear on a cheap, exploitative script.

I can imagine a film in which a creature like Sil struggles with her dual nature, and tries to find self-knowledge. Like Frankenstein's monster, she would be an object of pity. But that would be way too subtle for Species, which just adds a slick front end to the basic horror vocabulary of things jumping out from behind stuff.

Species doesn't scare or dazzle you. [07 July 1995, p.H25]

Like some state-of-the-art remake of Lifeforce, this is every bit as bad as Tobe Hooper's film, but nothing like as enjoyable. Worst is the transition in the final scenes from snatched glimpses of a woman in a rubber suit to some oddly alienating motion-control effects. Floating like the ghosting on a poorly tuned TV, these are far too clean and artificial to be believable or remotely scary. Deserves extinction.

To be fair while I liked the movie it is a bit in „The so bad it is good“ realm. However the ideas are good, they got talented actors and H. R. Giger for the practical effects. This saved the movie. The story starts with the SETI project (Search for extraterrestrial intelligence). Like in real life they search for alien life aka signals. After sending a message out with information about Earth, mankind and our civilization including our DNA structure they receive an answer. The first message is an instruction for a device that produce large amounts of clean energy. The second message is an introduction how to splice Alien DNA into humans. Because of the benefaction first message they do this expecting a teacher of knowledge and a human looking girl named Sil is conceived. I stop to avoid spoilers. I like the ideas and story. There is a lot to like and discuss but I have to admit that it is a bit in the B movie territory. If you expect something more artistic you will be disappointed. Surprisingly they got a really good cast of actors for a science fiction horror movie with Ben Kingsley, Forest Whitaker, Alfred Molina and Michael Madsen. Also I like the performance of Natasha Henstridge as Sil. For the genre we get a good performance by the whole cast. The special effects are top notch as H. R. Giger delivers disturbingly good effects. It improves the movie for me. Overall I enjoyed this movie but think it barely doges the guilty pleasures realm for me. However it also created a franchise and was a success by Hollywood standards (= Earning 2,5 / 3 times its production costs). Worth to watch but will probably not end on many top 10 lists. Bonus knowledge: There is the dark forest theory to explain why there are no signals out there for SETI. The premise is that it is safer to annihilate any intelligent species you discover before they do it in reverse. Because of the limit of light speed and great distances it will be far to late if you learn that those became something dangerous. It is like a hunter in a dark forest that does not know what is lurking in the shadows and should be cautious. It is best to not be seen.

Great casting and creature effects aren't enough to go blow the audience away. If you're a fan of body horror/SciFi then this will entertain you!

Una alienígena que siempre está caliente y que ni leyendo la Biblia se le quita. Por añadir: Natasha Henstridge se ve hermosísima aquí.

Ortalama ve altı bir yapım. Alien serisinin yan ürünü gibi bir yapım-seri. Gerçi o zamanlar için fena değilmiş...

I expected "Dollar Store Alien" but got so much worse. Barely qualifies as "B Horror" the story is so bad. Not worth watching.