Review of Parasite (1982) by Jason D — 24 Jan 2010

Before Charles Band rose to cult fame with his development of Full Moon Pictures and his creation of so many low-budget, campy horror & sci-fi film franchises (Trancers, Gingerdead Man, Puppetmaster, Demonic Toys), he directed this early film about a futuristic, slightly post-apocalyptic world where toxins have killed off a good bit of the planet's population and resources, and a scientist is inflicted by a small parasite that has latched onto him and growing at a fast rate until it can explode out of him and kill the rest of the world.

With one other parasite, the scientist (Robert Glaudini) takes up shop in a small desolate town where a gang bullies him around and unleashes the parasite which goes from person to person, draining them of their lifeforce and growing to monstrous proportions.

With the assistance of a lovely gardener (a young Demi Moore in a very early role), they try to stop the parasite before an evil merchant takes it and before it can destroy them all. Nicely done, low-budget sci-fi horror film from Charles Band.

While being a dated, early 80's film, Parasite manages to come off looking and flowing much better than a lot of Bands' latest work as of late like Skullheads (yuck!). The characters and storyline is ultimately pretty campy and cheesy, but the effects are fun to watch (seeing that I'm in favor of the old school form of special effects rather than a lot of the crap CGI used today), and the actors manage to do about as well as they can with such over-the-top material.

The beginning fight sequence is amusing simply for the fact that the unstable marauder chick seems to completely forget that her tops gone and she runs around crazy and belligerent with titties flying all around.

Given the general look and feel of the movie, there's a surprising amount of monster shots, and the film doesn't get going really until the final 20-25 minutes. Still, not bad.