Rish's Reviews
A while back, the local art house had a 3-D film festival that lasted a full week. They showed Sci-Fi, disaster flicks, X-rated fare, and a lot of horror movies. Unfortunately, I was either busy or lazy (or easily burned out) and only went to three of the films (Friday the 13th 3-D, Andy Warhol's Frankenstein, and this film, Parasite). If I had it to do over again, I would have taken better advantage of it, if not for my sake, for yours.
Touted as "the first futuristic monster movie in 3-D," Parasite told the story of a scientist who is accidentally infected by a deadly experimental parasite. On the run from the evil government agency he worked for, he attempts to find a cure for the huge parasite now inhabiting his stomach, and runs afoul of several crazy people, a sex-crazed ex-movie actress, a bunch of redneck gang members, and the last attractive young woman on the face of the earth. Oh, and it was set in the post-apocalyptic future of 1992.
The 3-D in Parasite didn't work as well as the other films I saw that week. I don't know if it was projected badly, if it was a lower-quality print, or if the effects were just shoddy, but it got hard to watch at times and halfway through I started getting a headache.
A low-budget, unpleasant film, pretty much all it had going for it was its nice, though often overboard Richard Band score. The large worm puppet is rather ridiculous, but it's always so bloody and writhing that it's still frightening. Though dated and obviously cheap, the production does manage to present a couple of nice post-apoc ideas and makes good use of a lot of wrecked junk. This was Demi Moore's first movie, a fact trumpeted on the video and DVD covers. Moore, while very cute, isn't especially charismatic in this film, and has a voice like sandpaper in a blender.
The audience I saw it with was laughing throughout, but mostly AT the movie. I didn't find it nearly as amusing as they did, or even remotely like Friday the 13th: 3-D, which I saw the day before. Like I said, the movie was unpleasant. It was also slow-moving, especially at the beginning. Except for the 3-D (in which some revolting gore, breaking glass, and the parasite itself leap right at you), there's not a lot to recommend here.