There are so many things wrong with this movie it's just too wrong to enjoy in the least, even under heavy drug abuse conditions. Hell, I don't even think a gang of lesbians rolling around on top of me and dripping stuff all over me while stuffing $100 bills in my pants as I watched could make this movie any good. Just from the stats you can tell it's gonna be one uncomfortable and agonizing minute after the next. The movie's directed by Vincent Dawn, alias Bruno Mattei, the Italian director responsible for such cinemasochistic journeys into pain as Night Of The Zombies, Zombi 3 and The Other Hell, along with a slew of other atrocities to movie viewers. Mattei, obviously not wanting to embarrass his mother, has used 16 different aliases in his run as director... SIX-FUCKING-TEEN! But, he's not the only one with a slew of aliases, as his movies get name changes frequently as well. Take a look here at Shocking Dark. In addition to it's alternate title of Alienators, it's also been known under Alien 3 and Terminator II... "But there's already an Alien 3 and Terminator II!", and you're right, these sequels DO exist... in the U.S. In order to capitalize on the popularity of the original titles when they were translated to the boot shaped nation, Mattei created this unofficial sequel, which will never be officially released here for obvious reasons. Sound familiar? It should, some dick named Fulci did the same thing when he made a little movie called Zombie to make money off of the popularity of Dawn Of The Dead... Boy, the Italians must not have much in the way of copyright laws... or originality for that matter.

Our tale takes place in the post-apocalyptic future, popular setting for any low budget sci-fi flick that needs an excuse to dress people up in Salvation Army wardrobe and discarded sports equipment and beat the snot out of each other with pieces of scrap iron or cars straight from the producer's junkyard. However, not all "after the big one" flicks are that "ambitious", and Shocking Dark is a perfect example of just such an underachiever. It starts with a lovely image of Venice, Italy "Before the year 2000", before we jump ahead to what's obviously "After the year 2000". What happens "After the year 2000" you ask? Well, since this is a movie about killer robots and man-eating mutants, I'd say there was a typical celluloid atomic holocaust... see what happens when George W. Bush is made president? Whatever the cause, Venice gets turned into a toxic wasteland (at least a bad matte painting of such a place), where pollution has made it impossible for human lungs to breath the air and the canals have become filthy boiling pots of unnatural life and mutation... well, moreso than "Before the year 2000" anyway. This conveniently puts our story 98% underground, in the subterranean sewers and basements of the city and saving any need for elaborate wasteland settings or devastated cityscapes... not that those things helped Battlefield Earth not to suck the dingleberries from my movie reviewing ass...

So, we all know the drill: end of the world and man struggles to blah blah blah against yada yada yada with nothing more than etcetera etcetera etcetera to guide the future of nothing. The once proud city of floating greaseballs and drowned rats now plays home to a race of savage mutants who have a tendency to take their frustrations out on any and all scientists and security officers who threaten their domain of floating ass loaves, a veritable rainbow of gurgling sludges and fleets of half-digested vermin carcasses. As with about 2/3 of the killer mutant populace in Bad Movie Land, these beasts are the product of a failed government experiment, in this case to clean the waters of the Venice canals... that's right ladies and gents, don't let your dog anywhere near your Brita™, a Roger Corman movie might break out. So, when "the man" fucks things up for the rest of us, whose job is it to play janitor (or "custodial engineer" as the janitors put it) and apply the scented saw dust to this growing pool of vomit? Why, it's a job for Bucky O'Hare! No, wait, he was trapped and skinned in an intergalactic rabbit trap and stewed up for Darth Vader's dinner. Okay then, how about Megaforce! Yes, Megaforce of course of course! Cuz a force is a force of course of course, unless it's Barry Bostwick's Megaforce!... uh, what was I doin'? Oh, right, the janitors. Actually, the good guys here really are called Megaforce, only sans Mr. Bostwick as "Ace Hunter". Don't count your transvestites before they crap on your chest though, because though the bearded Barry ain't around, the Megaforce in question obviously wasn't chosen for their ability to act out of a paper bag... because they can't!

Can this Italian Megaforce succeed in "Operation: Delta Venice" even without Ace and his flying motorcycle? Well, who needs Ace when they've got the racist Italian answer to Grace Jones on their elite squadron! Come to think of it, I really don't like their odds here, but I might just be a dumb cracker... The odds I DO like though, are that these clods have a 99% chance of being rended into bacon strips before this nightmare is over with! Wahoo! The standard issue uniform for this pussy posse? Grey tunics with standard issue "futuristic" shoulder pad accessories; matching slacks and combat boots; a vulgar, homoerotic and racially slurred vocabulary that would make Jason Mewes cry; and whatever piece of headgear may be available at the time, whether it be a motorcycle helmet, bandana, Jerri Curl™ grease/oil or a combination of the three... basically, the height of Italian commando wear. Anyway, enough with the fashion show, let's get this "elite" super team of mercenary muscle on the way to their death beds... I mean, uhm, their, err, "mission". Upon arrival in the Venice sewers, Megaforce locates an assistant from the failed water purification operation named Drake, who paralyzes the 'Force with his shrill womanly screams, then kidnaps one of the troops and exits stage left! This leaves the m'f'n m'f'ers (motherfucking Megaforcers) with more work to do as they seek out their missing comrade, finding him trapped in near-infringing-on-copyright slime trap situation ala Aliens, including a siege of slime drooling, razor-toothed beasties to complete the illegal illusion. While escaping the monsters, they also find a young girl in the subterranean maze (which looks like the basement of the industrial complex I used to work in)... okay, this is overstepping the line of infringement and doing a Mexican hat dance into the Blatant Plagiarism Zone!... a zone of sight and of sound... sorry, I always wait for a good 'Zone' joke, they come along so rarely... not that that was anything LIKE a good 'Zone' joke...

Split up now, Fuller, Megaforce's corporate representative member (you know, the guy sent by the big wigs to make sure the grunts don't find incriminating evidence other than their jugular's being ripped out and a fountain of blood spouting forth), discovers the science crew's biogenetic mutations formula (which can mutate people Being style viz airborne contagion). Meanwhile, the Grace Jones clone/Vasquez understudy gets assaulted by the roving monsters while her partner takes a long dive over a short railing... what the fuck is this now, Space Mutiny?! Oh, wait, the next victim also takes a sailing header over another railing! This IS Space Mutiny! Damn, does this mean Mattei can't even stick to ripping off GOOD American movies at this point?! Where does this guy get funding for this shit!? Hey, I just noticed that 'this' is 'shit' when you rearrange the first and last letters... heh heh, I think everything's gonna be alright boys and girls. :D.... NO! NO! THAT'S NOT GOING TO FIX THIS MOVIE DAMN IT! THAT WILL NOT FIX WHAT BRUNO MATTEI IS DOING TO MYSELF AND COUNTLESS OTHERS WITH THIS DRIVEL! NOOOOOOOOOOO! I DEMAND THE DEATH PENALTY! ARRRRRRRRRRRRRGH!....

It's okay, I'm okay, the tranquilizers are kicking in and the world's one big runny nose of blues and reds and greens and yellows. Where was I now? Oh, right, people dying. That's good, right? Yeah, this is what I'm talking about: hating the cast and gettin' wood when they die. Yep, I'm groooooooovin' on a Sunday afternoon, heh heh... or in this case, Tuesday... I think. Ah, who cares, because drugs are good and the world is at peace, so let's continue. When our fearless squadron of ignorant and racist guidos make their stand against the monsters, we discover something interesting about their biological structure. Instead of a brain, their big crunchy heads are filled with delicious nougat! Yes, not only are the mutant disasters of the future Venice a by-product of water purification gone wrong, but they were created by a joint coalition with the Mars Corporation! Those talking M&Ms™ are just a prototype for the true horrors the future of sugary confections hold for us... It's like a supermarket check out version of SkyNet™ people! Take a cue from Terminator 2 (no, not this one, the real one) and throw all the M&Ms™ into a vat of molten steel while we still have a chance to save the Venice waterways!... well, from getting any worse. Back to our "movie", sadly no one else dies in this stand-off against the delicious beasts and their chewy centers, as Newt the-dirty-orphan-girl-who-isn't-kidnapped-from-the-Aliens-set leads the grunts to the safety of the abandoned Tubular Corporation facility nearby. For those unaware, Tubular's the evil corporate warlord dynasty responsible for this mess, and not a manufacturing plant for '80s and '90s slang or Nintendo games about white water rafting in big inner tubes... chances anybody picked up that last reference joke? Forecast says 98% chance of mental hazing and bong resin.

On another note, the further this movie drags it's crippled ass along, the more apparent it is that the group's Tubular Corp representative is living up to the part of Paul Riser as the "protect the company's secrets at all costs" go-to guy, when he encourages the remaining members of Megaforce not to delve further into the mystery, also ignoring cries of help from soon-to-be-dead 'Forcers. Speaking of further delvings, a video made for Tubular investors is discovered in the facility that outlines to corporation's plan to pollute Venice beyond inhabitable, making it a dead city with real estate that will go for a song. Then, after buying up every square inch of the place, they'll go in, clean it all up, and sell everything for a cool 70% profit. Hmmmm, for a top secret, covert, illegal operation, the Tubular Corporation sure made a professional looking presentation for their evil scheme... including a constantly smiling and disturbingly chipper hostess! Following this discovery, the Megaforce team decide this mission's a bust and instead turn their attention (and their firearms) on Mr. Fuller, pumping with enough lead to fill a thousand pencils or poison the Tromaville reservoir. The bullets have no effect though, because Fuller's not just an Aliens Paul Reiser, he's an Alien Ian Holm!... because Ian Holm played Ash in Alien... and Ash was revealed to be an evil robot... and Fuller's an evil robot... where'd I put those tranquilizers? What, I've only got darts left? Somebody get the gun while I drop my ceremonial "reviewing and sacrificing" robe.

Of course it's now Fuller's job to rub out the remaining Megaforce chumps, leaving Sarah and Samantha (NOT Ripley and Newt mind you, so stop thinking that... like I am) to scamper away in panty pissing terror as Fuller does his Terminator power walk menacingly in pursuit. And boy does he power walk with the best of them! Fuller could easily compete professionally with Jason Vorhees and Michael Myers in the annual "International Bad Movie Power Walk Championshits"!... yes, that's a 't', it's a joke... kinda. Meanwhile, a second Megaforce team is dispatched to the Venice toilet waterways, more or less to serve as meat for the mutant food processor. In Italy, it's a requirement that a certain amount of blood and assorted bits of gore MUST be put into a movie before it can receive approval for release, hence this second patrol. In his "chase", Fuller too takes the Nestea™ plunge, falling backwards over, you guessed it, another railing... deep breaths Anubis, deep breaths. While all this is going on, there's a self-destruct sequence in the running too, which is always good because that usually sets a limit for the movie's remaining running time. The current count? 10 minutes! Alright, I see a light at the end of the sewer! In this ten minutes, Sarah must rescue Sam from a nest of mutants that she fell into (what's that, Aliens plagiarism case evidence #17?!) before the plant goes *POP*. The second class of 'Force members were meant to cut the self-destruct wires, but like I said, they become monster chow.

Pulling off the heroine gig, Sarah saves Sam and the two happen upon a conveniently placed Tubular Timepod™, complete with easy to view instructional video hosted by the same tooth-achingly pleasant woman. Using the pod, the girls beam themselves into the past, to a world that isn't all painted pollution, industrial basements, monsters with candy-coated cerebral cortexes and homicidal railings. Yes, they've gone back to the Venice of our time, "Before the year 2000". Oh, and you fans of brainless slasher fare out there will be glad to know that RoboFuller, in movie killer fashion, also goes back in time via a second timepod to complete his mission. That's right kiddies, it'll take more than a railing with a slight disposition to stop this bad guy! Using the timepod's remote control (yes, even timepod developers are thinking with the lazy man in mind), Sarah and Sam send their tin-plated terrorist to a random point in the timeline to who-knows-where, leaving the ladies to live in a world where Venice is a nice place to live OR visit and spend their lives as activists trying to prevent the world of "After the year 2000". Oops, too late, we're already post-2K, so it looks like they failed... or succeeded... either way I'm glad this shit is finally over... heh heh, "this" and "shit".

As you can guess, this movie is swimming in a very deep cesspool of ass candy and monkey vomit. Everything's bad, so I won't take the precious time or space to list everything that sucks. After all, I've gotta be to work in the morning. Aside from all the story elements blatantly stolen from a certain Sigourney Weaver movie series featuring phallic looking space creatures with a lust for blood and that handy "second jaw", the second most grievous offense of the accused was the cast's soul suckingly (though "soul" wasn't the word I'd usually associate with a movie's suck-i-tude in this case) horrible lack of the ability to convey any type of acting ability. With all the broken lines and frequent stuttering, I'd say it's a good bet that probably 75 minutes of the dialogue was taken from the first take to save on film, with 60 of those dedicated to ad libbing. Few movies can make me beg for a long and painful death by testicular cancer as an alternative, but the Italians seem to hold the record for the biggest number of entries into said category. I feel no need to continue on, as any further comments would simply serve to insult my intelligence and that of you, the viewer, and threaten both of our futures as sane members of society, so it's time to get out the hedge clippers and cut this piece of dick off as the hilt.