Review of Species (1995) by Kai82 — 30 Oct 2022

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.