Contamination, Organs-Exploding-Out-Of-Chest Cinema

An Italy/Germany co-production from 1980 is our feature today.  Written and directed by Luigi Cozzi ("Starcrash", see my review of this from May 24th), "Contamination" is a B movie, badly dubbed, with tons of exploding organs.  Set in New York City and the jungles of Colombia, and complete with a beautiful damsel and square jawed hero, this film never forgets what adds ooomph...torsos exploding.  Definitely a man's movie, if made in 2014, many of the scenes would have ended up on the cutting room floor.

The plot:  A derelict freighter sails into New York harbor.  The NYPD board the ship only to find crew members who seem to have exploded.  After pulsating green eggs are found in boxes that purported to contain coffee from Colombia, the ship is quarantined and a crew of health department officials in containment suits then board.  After an incredible inedible egg pops open, spurting green slime on our health department peeps, they all explode...as their innards are flung all over the walls of the cargo hold.  The beautiful and icy Colonel Stella Holmes (Louise Marleau) from a top secret government agency arrives and takes command.  She has the eggs frozen (just like her demeanor) and studied.  The eggs are determined to be from an alien civilization, and very much alive.  Uh oh!  It appears the frigid Stella had an astronaut named Hubbard (Ian McCulloch) committed for stating that he saw pulsating eggs on Mars which seemed to be alive.

The cold Stella shows up at Hubbard's apartment to enlist him in tracking down the eggs.  It seems the eggs were sent from a coffee plantation in Colombia.  Hubbard refuses, as he is a drooling drunk, now.  Stella the ice queen questions his virility, then Hubbard slaps her around a bit, and now she is real sweet on him (Hubbard must've read the NFL's dating guide).  Together they head to Colombia with a NYPD Lieutenant.  Immediately someone tries to kill the now hot Stella, who just happens to be in the shower, by placing an egg in her hotel bathroom.  Hubbard saves her.  Hot Stella and the Lieutenant head to the plantation and are immediately taken prisoner by the sexy, but deadly coffee magnate, Perla de la Cruz (Gisela Hahn).  This plantation, in fact, harvests the alien eggs which serve a cyclops monster who turns earthlings into it's drones.  Now the amorous Stella and the Lieutenant are sent to the cyclops to be eaten.  Their only hope...Hubbard, who crash landed in the jungle.

Will Hubbard reach the plantation in time to save the beautiful  Stella?  Who is the mysterious man helping Perla de la Cruz, and what are their plans in shipping these eggs all over the world?  Is the exploitation of Colombians by the cyclops a metaphor for the exploitation off the third-world by the industrial powers?  The DVD from Blue Underground is reasonably priced.  Feel free to tell your arrogant friends that you don't want to go to the movies with them to see any of the Oscar nominated garbage, and stay home to watch this horror/scifi gore-fest.