SPECIES
6/10
Creature features weren’t as prevalent in the mid ‘90s as they are today. Back then, when a movie like SPECIES came around in the middle of summer, it was something of a novelty – a sexy sci-fi thriller that assembled an atypical A-list cast including Ben Kingsley, Michael Madsen, Alfred Molina, Forest Whitaker and future “CSI” star Marg Helgenberger. The movie was a sleeper hit, earned the venerated “Two Thumbs Up” from Siskel and Ebert and spawned a mini-franchise of its own, starting with an especially bad theatrical sequel in 1998.
For cash-strapped MGM, “Species” was one of its few bona-fide hits from that era, and its uncanny premise of a frequently naked blonde alien walking around Los Angeles trying to procreate found a willing audience. In fact, between Dennis Feldman’s fascinating premise – what if an alien signal sent from deep in space housed DNA instructions that scientists would use to breed an extraterrestrial being on Earth – and the creature designs of H.R. Giger, “Species” captivated adult viewers worn out on pedestrian summer-time fare like “Casper,” “Congo,” “First Knight” and “Batman Forever” (forget 2017 — 1995 was also a really bad summer at the movies!).
Kingsley plays the scientist who breeds “Sil” from that DNA strand – one that’s been injected with some human attributes, resulting first in a young Michelle Williams, who quickly mutates into the nubile Natasha Henstridge once Sil escapes from a lab. With Sil hoping to mate with anyone and everyone on the L.A. singles scene, Kingsley assembles a crack team including hitman Madsen, anthropologist Molina, empath Whitaker and scientist Helgenberger to find her before she threatens all of mankind – not just those she’s trying to sleep with.
I remember enjoying “Species” back at the time of its original release, but truth be told, the film has dated in a bad way, as have many films from that era. The overly serious script doesn’t produce much in the way of humor (even of the camp variety) even while adhering to a standard horror framework, just with a larger budget than is usually found with this kind of material. The primitive CGI, however, was never impressive, even by its era’s standards. That early digital work looks, unsurprisingly, even more inadequate today: Giger’s designs basically fused the female body with the title creature from “Alien,” yet there’s a glut of CGI, especially at the climax, that fails to do justice to his concept and is poorly executed, particularly considering the pedigree of effects artist Richard Edlund.
Christopher Young’s fine score gives “Species” a touch of class along with its central cast, but too much of this played like a leftover relic from a decade when the quality of summer blockbusters was already on a decline.
Shout Factory’s Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray -- out July 11th -- offers a brand-new 4K scan of the movie’s Interpositive (2.35). Given that MGM’s US Blu-Ray was an early-format MPEG-2 transfer (it was released during that brief window when Sony was distributing MGM’s home video releases), this is an appreciable enhancement with excellent detail. The 5.1 DTS MA soundtrack does a solid job replicating the theatrical audio, and extras are highlighted by a brand new 36-minute documentary on the film. The featurette includes interviews with Roger Donaldson, cinematographer Andrzej Bartokiwak, Christopher Young and numerous special effects/make-up artists, with much of the (technical) talk comprised of how the FX were put together. All the other extras have been housed elsewhere on MGM’s “Species” DVDs (but were mostly left off the prior Blu-Ray), including an alternate ending, Making Of featurettes, two commentaries and trailers. Also ported over from the “Species II” Shout Factory Blu-Ray is a wide-ranging interview with Natasha Henstridge, recalling her work on both pictures.