“Read my mind.”

Justin’s rating: Call CPS on this little alien tyke already!

Justin’s review: If I was tasked with single-handedly conquering an entire planet, you can bet I wouldn’t be putting my own neck on the line. No, I’d take a cue from Biohazard and hijack a native psychic to ESP the population under my control. That way I can master a whole planet while sitting on my couch. It’s ConquestDash!

A group of scientists in Death Valley prove yet again that teleportation is begging for horrific monstrosities to become your new waking nightmare. They fiddle with other universes, and one of those universes obliges by sending an elementary school alien to easily slaughter them all.

Now it’s up to a military disgrace named Mitchell (William Fair) and a platinum-haired psychic named Lisa (Angelique Pettyjohn, Repo Man) to counter the threat and kick this alien right back to the dimension from whence they came. Mitchell’s got to do this while taking crap from an old acquaintance who doesn’t want to let Mitchell forget how much of a screw-up he is.

There’s another little alien critter who likes to snuggle with people’s necks, but mostly the main threat is the little Japanese-style rubber suited monster. I hope that kid got paid in more than Reeses Pieces.

Subtle!

Directed by schlock legend Fred Olen Ray (Cyclone, Alienator), Biohazard teeters between competent B-movie making and ham-handed hokeyness. He starred his seven-year-old son as the main pint-sized alien critter, because that kind of child labor is free when you can threaten a bad take with a timeout!

I was always hoping for the alien to show up, because at least then everyone else would stop spitting out wooden lines and acting with their hands as if they were Week One theater students. Even better would’ve been the shadowy silhouettes of Tom, Crow, and Mike, who would’ve had a field day with this one (and the convenient pauses between every line of dialogue).

Unfortunately, there’s about five minutes of good stuff here spread way, way too thin over 78 minutes of pointless conversations and foreboding synthesizer score. The movie even seems to know it’s stretching things, because it ends abruptly (you can hear the director yell “Cut!”) and then a bunch of outtakes are shown to pad out the runtime.

No matter how low you set your standards, Biohazard is going to have a tough time clearing them. It lacks imagination, interesting characters, and a villain of note. But I guess they showed that E.T. poster, eh?

Intermission!

• Fred Olen Ray created a spiritual sequel to this (1987’s Deep Space) and an actual sequel (1995’s Biohazard: The Alien Force)
• The 21st century was presenting things back in the 20th century!
• If you burp during your lines, just forge ahead
• Death Valley is the perfect place to take your air condition-free truck
• Lisa’s got a big ol’ hat that reminds of of Doc Brown’s in Back to the Future
• Anyone want to follow up with the technician who just got fried to a crisp while on the job?
• I like that the generals get a super-sporty Jeep for their transportation
• When an alien canister is acting up, real men just whack it with a hammer and then cover their mouths with fingers instead of a gas mask
• Hammer 1, Alien 0
• You can shoot a revolver right by your ear without any detrimental effects
• OK that’s a weird ending with a giggling alien and “cut” and “I think that’s it”