If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then 1979's Alien had better be blushing. Ridley Scott's sci-fi/horror hit saw many copycats in its wake with legendary b-movie producer Roger Corman bringing us Forbidden World and Galaxy of Terror, British director Norman J. Warren delivering Horror Planet (also known as the more offensively, yet awesomely, titled Inseminoid), the Italians getting into the act with Contamination, and the flick I'm about to talk about: Creature. Originally titled Titan Find, this early effort from William Malone (the House on Haunted Hill remake and most recently Parasomnia) is probably the most obvious riff on its influence from the opening moments right on down to a monster that isn't too far removed from H.R. Giger's legendary designs. However, what makes this an entertaining time boils down to a few crazy moments of gore, one bizzarro performance, and Malone and co-writer Alan Reed throwing in enough wacky wrinkles to make it a worthwhile clone.

We get right to the Alien similarities immediately as the opening shot has a group of guys in spacesuits finding an odd capsule that just happens to contain a toothy creature within it. This leads to a crew of scientists being sent in by a mining corporation to the planet Titan after the last crew has disappeared. It's your usual ragtag group of characters with Stan Ivar as the macho Mike, Wendy Schaal taking on the heroine role as Beth, and Diane Salinger delivering the goods as weirdo security office Bryce. The rest of the crew is padded out with the typical clichés and they're all forced to deliver some dopey dialogue while having the minimal amount of character development.

But that doesn't matter, because we didn't come here to see people dramatically argue, and things take a turn for the worst when, upon arrival, they land in a crater that not only effectively disables their ship but discover their German rivals are there and are all dead with the exception of Hans (Klaus Kinski) who's snuck onto the ship. After a fairly tedious first hour, Creature ramps into high gear as our crew fall victim to our imposing alien baddie, Kinski is at his creepy/pervy best in his brief screen time, Susan (Marie Laurin) has her mind taken over by a parasite that chews on and controls human brains - and also gives the flick the first of a batch of zombie action as well as supplying the necessary nudity - and a whole slew of fairly impressive gore arrives (one guy even gets the bottom of his face bloodily ripped off!). This all leads to a mildly exciting finale, a totally transparent reference to The Thing in the last third, and even our title beastie, who actually looks pretty cool, being drop kicked!

Referring to the whacked-out performance I mentioned earlier, one look at the cast should make it obvious who it is. That's right, Kinski. Here's a guy who became infamous for being difficult to work with and his eccentricities and you only have to point at his turns as a sleazy hotel owning psycho in 1986's Crawlspace and in Jess Franco's Jack the Ripper to solidify this reputation. It has to say something about him when fellow German director Werner Herzog, who made Nosferatu the Vampyre with him among others, released a documentary about him entitled My Best Fiend. The rest of the cast can't quite match Klaus' briefly nuttiness but TV veteran Schaal (Munchies, the voice of the mom on "American Dad") makes a serviceable 'final girl' and Salinger, in her film debut, is certainly watchable.

With its decent effects work, swelling musical score, and low-budget production values that are better than expected with a nice industrial look bathed in fog; Creature is a lot better than I was expecting. Sure, it's sort of a rip-off and it suffers from its wooden acting and chintzy dialogue at times, but I had a pretty enjoyable time with it. Malone independently released this in a widescreen and uncut form (under its original title and in very limited numbers) last year with talk of there being a blu-ray to follow closely behind it. As of this writing, there hasn't been any news but, if and when it arrives, I'll be sure to grab a copy. If you're into this type of flick, you should too. (Chris Hartley, 11/20/14)

Directed By: William Malone.
Written By: William Malone, Alan Reed.

Starring: Stan Ivar, Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward, Robert Jaffe.

aka: Titan Find.