Aberration starts promisingly enough, with some suspense-building scenes in the woods. Nothing spectacular, and standard POV monster-fare, but at least it's mildly hair-rising.
We're also introduced to Pamela Gidley as the "heroine." I use the term loosely, because besides having some kind of hidden agenda, she's generally obnoxious and nasty and seems to be doing her "Brigitte" character from "The Pretender."
Naturally, this leads to the local zoologist (looking suspiciously like Skippy from "Family Ties") taking a liking to her. They go back to her cabin for reasons I don't recall, and sure enough, mutant lizards come crawling out of the woodwork. They spit like a cobra, have teeth like a piranha, climb on walls like a gekko, grow gills as necessary, and lay Alien-ish eggs for their offspring. They've already killed Gidley's neighbor *gasp* but after his house gets blown up, they come over to her cabin for the heat, warmth, and extra servings of ham.
Some hilariously bad dialogue now ensues ("Why are you scientist guys always so smart?"), Skippy gets blinded by lizard spit (but heals suspiciously fast), and then Gidley's character's boyfriend shows up 60 minutes into the movie. He's played hilariously by Valeri Nikolayev, who seems to think he's wandered into Desperado by mistake and he's doing Banderas. Turns out he's after money Gidley stole. He sneers, threatens, does some two-fisted shooting of the lizards, and eventually gets a hole gnawed through his head.
That leaves it to our protagonists to blow up the house (Skippy sets himself on fire in the process - whoops), fight the lizards that have hidden in the engine block of Uri's car (??), indulge in some gratuitous bloodletting as one of the lizards eats its way into Gidley's leg (?!?), kill off another of the only five characters in the movie at her grocery store, and eventually kill the last lizard. We're left with our characters slowly bleeding to death in a town with an apparent population of three (and 2 of them are dead).
The lizards are the best part of this movie, although why there are heat-seeking lizards in Minnesota (much less ones that mutate) is never explained. The lizards can seemingly adapt to anything (even bullets!) but they never adapt to surviving in a cold climate, and keep coming after our warm-blooded heroes.
It's like the producers decided after the first half hour that they'd go for comedy, so despite some gory effects, most of it is Gidley and Skippy sniping at each other in your standard "hate you/love you" relationship. Nikolayev's appearance late in the movie is inexplicable, and only seems to provide a way to up the body count and explain the heroine's backstory, even though we never cared anyway.
Other fun things to watch for, besides the hokey lizard F/X, is the landscape of "Minnesota" (New Zealand, actually - where's Hercules and Xena when you need them?). Half the time the characters are marching through the woods, half the time the landscape disappears entirely and it looks like they're wandering through the Arctic.
There's a kinda roller-coaster "sweep you along" effect that keeps you going despite the unlikeable characters and goofy plot, so if you've got a spare 1-1/2 hour, plug this one into the VCR or tape it off Cinemax for a few laughs. Pity MST3K is going off the air: this would be perfect for them. On the other hand, a repeat viewing or two and you can probably MSTify it yourself.
We're also introduced to Pamela Gidley as the "heroine." I use the term loosely, because besides having some kind of hidden agenda, she's generally obnoxious and nasty and seems to be doing her "Brigitte" character from "The Pretender."
Naturally, this leads to the local zoologist (looking suspiciously like Skippy from "Family Ties") taking a liking to her. They go back to her cabin for reasons I don't recall, and sure enough, mutant lizards come crawling out of the woodwork. They spit like a cobra, have teeth like a piranha, climb on walls like a gekko, grow gills as necessary, and lay Alien-ish eggs for their offspring. They've already killed Gidley's neighbor *gasp* but after his house gets blown up, they come over to her cabin for the heat, warmth, and extra servings of ham.
Some hilariously bad dialogue now ensues ("Why are you scientist guys always so smart?"), Skippy gets blinded by lizard spit (but heals suspiciously fast), and then Gidley's character's boyfriend shows up 60 minutes into the movie. He's played hilariously by Valeri Nikolayev, who seems to think he's wandered into Desperado by mistake and he's doing Banderas. Turns out he's after money Gidley stole. He sneers, threatens, does some two-fisted shooting of the lizards, and eventually gets a hole gnawed through his head.
That leaves it to our protagonists to blow up the house (Skippy sets himself on fire in the process - whoops), fight the lizards that have hidden in the engine block of Uri's car (??), indulge in some gratuitous bloodletting as one of the lizards eats its way into Gidley's leg (?!?), kill off another of the only five characters in the movie at her grocery store, and eventually kill the last lizard. We're left with our characters slowly bleeding to death in a town with an apparent population of three (and 2 of them are dead).
The lizards are the best part of this movie, although why there are heat-seeking lizards in Minnesota (much less ones that mutate) is never explained. The lizards can seemingly adapt to anything (even bullets!) but they never adapt to surviving in a cold climate, and keep coming after our warm-blooded heroes.
It's like the producers decided after the first half hour that they'd go for comedy, so despite some gory effects, most of it is Gidley and Skippy sniping at each other in your standard "hate you/love you" relationship. Nikolayev's appearance late in the movie is inexplicable, and only seems to provide a way to up the body count and explain the heroine's backstory, even though we never cared anyway.
Other fun things to watch for, besides the hokey lizard F/X, is the landscape of "Minnesota" (New Zealand, actually - where's Hercules and Xena when you need them?). Half the time the characters are marching through the woods, half the time the landscape disappears entirely and it looks like they're wandering through the Arctic.
There's a kinda roller-coaster "sweep you along" effect that keeps you going despite the unlikeable characters and goofy plot, so if you've got a spare 1-1/2 hour, plug this one into the VCR or tape it off Cinemax for a few laughs. Pity MST3K is going off the air: this would be perfect for them. On the other hand, a repeat viewing or two and you can probably MSTify it yourself.