SCARED TO DEATH It's the Steven Seagal of horror movies! That is, the title fits in perfectly with Seagal's movies. You know: "Steven Seagal is...Scared To Death!" Cinema clone-ism doesn't get much more complete than this, but perhaps we should count ourselves lucky that this one doesn't take place in outer space. In fact, plot-wise, this movie doesn't bear that much of a resemblance to Alien (actually, it seems like a cinema-ization of any dozen or so Dean Koontz books), but boy, its creature and music sure do! Something ugly's on the loose, and it's using its tongue in ways you don't want it used on you. No, it's not Gene Simmons - it's the Syngenor, the synthesized genetic organism (there are non-genetic organisms?). The IMDb insists that the movie Syngenor, made ten years after this one, is the sequel, but something doesn't ring right there. Who would make a sequel ten years after a film that scarcely anybody saw? But if it's not a sequel, what is it? Is "Syngenor" a real word? Hell if I know. Anyway, like I said, this one's got Alien all over it. Look at its creature. The skin's the same, it's got the same weird shoulderpads, it's even got these weird protrusions coming out of its back, the function of which we can only guess on. The music is a nearly note-for-note copy of Goldsmith's immortal score. And even some of the fright scenes are carried out the same way (the creature raises its head, the victim gapes in horror, the creature takes quite some time to open its mouth, out comes the tongue...). That's not to say that this movie cannot be enjoyed. In fact, it can probably be enjoyed by Alien fans the same way that the Macbeth-inspired gangster flick Men Of Respect can be enjoyed by Shakespeare fans: sometimes it's fun to watch a beloved classic raped through a bullethole in the forehead. Besides, the movie opens up with a) a naked woman standing in full view of an open window, b) the power going out, and c) said woman actually saying "Oh, great. Now I can't paint my toenails." Yeah, it's bad, but not unenjoyably so. I just wonder what the deal is with showing after the credits, in a completely different color and typeface as the rest of them, that the still photography (there was still photography?) was done by Michael E. Stern. Also known as The Aberdeen Experiment. BACK TO THE S's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE