The Weird World of Andrea Ricca

Italian director, Andrea Ricca, makes the types of movies I like.  Short, straight to the action and with an array of monsters.  I watched recently watched four of them in a row.  "Alien Monster", "The Giant Scorpion" and "The Spirit Board" were all viewed on Amazon and all three featured the acting talent of Ilaria Lamberti.  Most of Ricca's films seem to be dialogue free, so there is no language barrier to worry about.  Lamberti has no problem expressing emotion through facial expression and her characters have plenty of action to play out.  

The fourth film I watched, "Aliens Night", is available in YouTube with ad support, so I'll share that with you here.  As you'll see, it's light on story, much like my own "A Night Alone" and Ricca's other films.  Once again a woman is suddenly besieged by monsters.  This time from an alien invasion.  And once again she must fight her way through on her own.  Here is the movie below.

So, if you've got an itch to skip the dialogue and go straight to the monster action, seek out the work of Andrea Ricca on YouTube or Amazon.  The graphics are definitely low budget and there's no dialogue to create complex backstories, but Ricca does give us glimpses into the characters' lives through visual storytelling.  If nothing else you'll have an action packed few minutes.

Project D: Classified - Familiar Classic Sci-Fi Meets The X-Files

Okay, first read the title, "Project D: Classified" out loud.  Now, do it without pausing for the colon.  Clever, right?  You see what they did there?  You know I like a pun title. ("Jack vs Lanterns" - ahem ), so right off this movie, currently available on Amazon Prime, scores points with me.  Although, I'll be honest, I was about 30 minutes into it before I actually caught it.

The movie's premise is familiar to any sci-fi fan who likes 50s and 60s movies or 70s and 80s sci-fi TV.  The idea of an astronaut returning to Earth infected with an alien influence of some kind isn't new.  It was the foundation for 1955's "The Quatermass Xperiment" (remade several times), 1959's "First Man Into Space", an homage to that movie, "First Man On Mars", an episode of the classic "Doctor Who", "The Ark in Space" and even played a part in 1998's "Species II".   I would suggest watching at least one of these movies (If you choose only one go with "The Quatermass Xperiment") before diving into "Project D: Classified".

I believe as a nod to many of these originals, especially Qautermass, "Project D: Classified" has the alien infection first manifest itself as a single hand upon the astronaut victim.  Jeff Kirkendall does an excellent job in his role of Astronaut Brent Taylor.  His first appearance is very sympathetic and he carries that through most of the film.

For much of the time it's like watching two movies, and with a running time of over two hours it can feel like two movies at points also.  There's the drive-in horror of Astronaut Taylor on his blood lust fueled rampage through the woods and suburbs near his crash site coupled with the story of professor Crater ( Bruce G. Hallenback) and his young partner, an investigative reporter, Carl Wolf ( Sean Bagnardi) trying to unravel the mystery of the crashed spacecraft.  Meanwhile political intrigue led by Sergeant Stone ( Gary Secor ) and his two "Silencers", (Gloom and Doom) intercept the mystery hunters now and then.  A cast of other characters fill each of this simultaneous stories until the whole thing comes to a head and they intersect towards the end of the film.

Some of the F/X are clearly achieved using pre-existing props and costumes (Like the astronaut uniforms and I suspect the alien hand), but they're often augmented and used well.  Digital F/X seem to be kept to a minimum and for this movie I really liked that.

This was a very ambitious project. Washington D.C. plays a major role in this movie and location shots were used with varying effect.  Probably the only bad audio moment was when Colonel X is on the phone at the Lincoln Memorial and his dialogue is nearly drowned out by a group of school kids on a field trip just off camera.  It just doesn't seem like the situation a guy named "Colonel X" would choose to make a "need to know" phone call during.

Another sign of the ambition involved is the size of the cast.  There are so  many characters and at times this works against the movie.  Clearly Gloom and Doom are largely involved for comedy relief, even though they're portrayed as deadly hunters with no mercy.  And it works to keep the movie entertaining. But there are members of the cast whose acting falls far shorter than the rest.  For the most part the core cast is pretty solid with Jeff Kirkendall, as I mentioned, giving a stand out performance as the sympathetic man made monster.

There are quite a few action sequences, including hand to hand, swords, knives and guns.  About half of these sequences fall short of being convincing, but they're all fun to watch.  It's not easy keeping things safe on an indie budget and making it look convincing.  My fight scenes in movies like "The Lunar Pack" and "Stopped Dead" were only possible because I had pros like Mia Morse and Joel D. Wynkoop willing to help me out and do the choreography and fighting themselves.

So, a familiar but CLASSIC story with some neat modern twists, a mixed bag of acting, f/x and action and a sense of self-aware humor throughout.  What more can  you ask for?  An after credits sequence, you say?  Well stick around after the credits start rolling because this retro styled movie doesn't disappoint when it comes that modern movie convention.  And once again, we're given a clever way to achieve an ambitious scene on a modest budget.

Overall I'd say this one is for any fan of old drive-in sci-fi or anything made for TV up through the 90s.   Completists of "Men infected by space monsters" movies and TV may even want to own it.
(Oh! I just remembered, "The Six Million Dollar Man" had its own version of this where the astronaut was driven mad and given super strength by an experimental serum! The episode was "The Pioneers", season 2.)


I couldn't find a trailer, but here's a placeholder video for now with some looks behind the scenes.

Some of the other movies I mentioned.

("Quatermass Xperiment" aka, "The Creeping Unknown")