Creature (1985)

aka: The Titan Find
Scientists uncover an alien that's not too happy about having its beauty sleep disturbed.
Starring: Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward, Diane Salinger, and Klaus Kinksi

Link to IMDB

After an accident occurs at a space lab on Saturn's largest moon, Titan, a crew is assembled to investigate a possible alien archaeological discovery and to secure the geological site from being held by a rival German company.
It's a small crew consisting of scientists and engineers, and they work together as an efficient team, except there's tension between Cpt. Davison and the mission leader, Perkins, who is more of a corporate figure than an astronaut. The missions starts to fall apart as soon as they land on Titan, when their spaceship gets damaged and the oxygen supply is running low. Searching the base reveals that the Germans have been killed by some type of vicious alien, and it quickly claims its first crew member for lunch!

The only surviving German astronaut is Hofner (Kinski) and he offers to help them stop the deadly creature and get home. The alien doesn't just kill its victims, it can also implant a parasite into their brain and control them until they decompose. This creates a nice layer of suspense and paranoia when it's realized that not everyone could still be themselves, and the idea is rather chilling when we see that the alien can lure more crew to their deaths by using their friends against them. Basically, there's freaking space zombies!!

Hofner

Space zombie !

"Wherever it came from, it wasn't bred for looks." - Ted

Get space faced !

It becomes an all out survival thriller, and there's plenty of gore and blood as the body count rises. The alien is usually kept in the shadows because it does look a bit silly, especially since it moves as graceful as an inside-out sloth. The third act suffers from some very lazy writing, but people are still dying so it's not a total loss.
Borrowing heavily from Alien with aspects of The Thing mixed in, it's still one of the better rip-offs of the genre that I've seen. The small budget tries its best to emulate pretty much every aspect of those movies including the atmosphere, pacing and music. It does this all without shame, and the lack of pretentiousness is actually an enjoyable quality. It's Alien with more nudity, zombies and exploding heads! I can't argue with that.


Be sure not to miss:
- Lots of sound effects seem to be stolen from Star Wars and Star Trek, etc.
- The longest 30 second bomb-timer (over 2 minutes!)
- Beth is reading a book called "Scared to Death" which is a nod to Scared to Death, from the same director.

Internet review:
"Space cheese, with buckets of blood!" - ctomvelu

Should I watch it?
It's better than expected, and still sloppy enough for some fun. You also get Kinksi in space!!!

Where can I find it?
Here on YouTube.

Creature gets...