User Reviews

They've got some nerve calling this film Alien 2: although certain elements have clearly been inspired by Ridley Scott's 1979 sci-fi horror classic, the film as a whole couldn't be more different…

Want tense, claustrophobic, space-bound, futuristic action? Not a chance. Sulla Terra, the film's subtitle, translates as On Earth, meaning that the film takes place on (present day) Earth, and under its surface in an admittedly impressive looking cavern. Unfortunately, this means we get endless tedious footage of the characters wandering around the cave, the director so preoccupied by the wonderful rock formations that he forgets all about telling a coherent story, throwing in such random nonsense as a telepathic speleologist just for the hell of it.

Looking forward to seeing a cool alien creature? Sorry. This film's extraterrestrial starts off as a blue rock, turns into a red hand puppet in a moment that rips off Alien's chest-burster (although I admit that the face-burster scene is pretty cool), and finally becomes a mass of indistinguishable and very unconvincing tentacle thingies.

Expecting ground-breaking special effects? No dice. This is a low-budget Italian production, so all we get is some grainy stock footage for scenes involving a space mission returning to Earth, and some cheap gore. Thankfully, the latter is pretty juicy: the aforementioned face-burster sees the victim's eyeball pushed from its socket before the creature erupts; one of the cavers has his head chewed off, the severed noggin (complete with assorted giblets) falling onto the rocks below with a satisfying 'thud'; and another guy's head explodes to reveal thrashing tentacles.

What about a thrilling finalé? I don't think so! After a couple of encounters with the creature, the last pair of survivors emerge from the cave to discover that the planet is totally deserted, with the exception of the alien, which chases them around for a while, director Ciro Ippolito employing dreadful alien POV shots. Eventually, Ippolito becomes as bored with proceedings as his viewers undoubtedly are, abruptly ending his film with a caption warning the audience "You may be next!". It's a lousy way to wrap up a fairly dismal film which is barely worth enduring for the gore (and a bit of gratuitous topless nudity from star Belinda Mayne).

The first hour of this film is so painfully slow that it took me over 10 years to finish it. I'm not kidding. I've had this on VHS since the mid-90s and every time I tried to watch it, I would give up. 1980 was a banner year for Italians doing ripoffs as the film world received ZOMBI 2 (aka ZOMBIE) and this "sequel" to ALIEN. Of course, the Italians wisely set it on earth, something the ALIEN series has been trying to do for almost 30 years now.

Three astronauts return to earth in a space capsule, but are all mysteriously missing when the device is recovered at sea. For some reason, this doesn't sit well with psychic Thelma (Belinda Mayne) but it doesn't prevent her from going spelunking with her friends. Along the way to the caves, Burt (Michele Soavi) picks up a curious looking rock which is actually an alien lifeform that spread over the desert upon the astronauts' re-entry. The group heads into the caves and, before you can scream THE DESCENT, find themselves getting bloodied up by our rock monster.

The last half hour or so is decent when the space monster finally attacks. Director Ciro Ippolito is someone whose work I am unfamiliar with. He certainly throws the gore around in parts but I can only imagine what a seasoned Italian exploiter would have done with this in the first hour. For some reason, Ippolito is intent on trying to make a bowling alley the scariest place on earth in the finale. He fails. The film does end on a grim note and the scenes of the lead actress running around a deserted San Diego, CA are pretty effective. The film concludes with the on screen line "...you may be next!" Gutterball.

A lot has been written and said about Alien 2. The unauthorized follow up of Alien. I watched it years ago and just could remember the falling head attacked by an alien. So I watched it again. But my only concern was to catch the uncut version, English language. A lot has been said about the running time too. I have seen versions that goes up to 100 minutes, here on IMDb and other sites they say 92 minutes but when you catch a seller of Alien 2 it's always 82 minutes long. So I did catch me the 82 full uncut version as said on the cover. The full uncut should contain the falling head, the exploding head and the head sucking. There is also a nudity scene taking place, my copy was intact. All I can tell is that it is a slow starter. A lot of blah blah and a lot of bowling scenes. When they finally descent the gore starts. But again in a slow way. Everybody hates this movie, strange, it is also one of the most searched OOP's due to the falling head. I have seen worser but don't expect a follow up of the original Alien, the budget is way to low for that. So it goes on and on, all those horrorgeeks will once in their live being caught by this flick. As said on the end credits, you could be next...

This massively incoherent, dumb, cheesy and amateurish Italian early-eighties "movie-thing" rewards itself with the title "Alien 2" but there's very little, even no relation with Ridley Scott's Sci-Fi masterpiece that single-handedly altered the status of the genre. This is written and directed by Ciro Ippolito. Who, you say? That's right, even in the gigantic world of Italian rip-off cinema he's an absolute nobody, and then still "Alien 2" appears to be his best work. Poor guy… Anyway, this definitely isn't the most blatant& shameless Alien imitation we've ever seen, as Ippolito actually just stole the claustrophobic setting aspect as well as the idea that the extraterrestrial perpetrator initially requires a host-body to grow in size and appetite. The story opens with reports from a spacecraft having encountered severe 'problems' on their way back to earth. Next thing we know the ship crash-landed in the sea and the nearby area lies strew with intergalactic blue stones. Meanwhile, an 8-headed group of young amateur-speleologists descends a cave with one of them blue stones in their backpacks. Naturally, it isn't just a stone but an alien's egg, and when the critter emerges from it, it goes straight for attacking the face. Oh, and did I mention there's a cautious attempt to a sub plot about one of the lead girls being telepathically gifted and trying to communicate with the alien? Okay, the cave-setting admittedly was a nifty idea and it's much more original than other Alien wannabes like, say, "Inseminoid" and "Forbidden World". But the script is so damn stupid and the first 40-45 minutes are dreadfully boring. The gore is good and rather repulsive to behold, but there nearly isn't enough of it! The schlock-highlights include someone's head slowly getting separated from the rest of his body and, a couple of minutes later, another guy's head gets blown to pieces. That's pretty much it, apart from a few cheesy images of human faces reduced to messy bits of pulp. The ending is fairly atmospheric and tense, even though it doesn't make the slightest bit of sense like so many other parts of the film. Don't expect to receive any explications, neither, because you just get cool-sounding warnings at the end, like "You May Be Next!". Next for what? To have my face chewed off by a blue stone? The Angelis Brothers' music is surprisingly good & catchy, albeit quite overused, and there's a nice bit of totally gratuitous nudity as well. "Alien 2" is a truly bad film, but there still are far worse ways to kill 80 minutes of your precious time.

If you have ever wanted to visit Italy's incredible Castellana Grotto, here is your chance to see the caverns. This gorgeous cave was discovered January 23, 1938, by Franco Anelli and Vito Matarrese. The photography of the Grotto is spectacular. Unfortunately the movie "Alien 2" is not so spectacular. It opens with stock astronaut splash down film footage, moves on to a bowling alley, then a beach, and finally the cave. Blue rocks that somehow turn into sock puppets are the "Aliens" that attack the group of spelunkers. Like I said, if you want to see the caverns, this is your movie. Simply ignore the ridiculous, boring story. - MERK

HOW did Kevin M Gates, who wrote the opening critique here NOT win the Pulitzer Prize in 1999 for his "essay" on this eminently forgettable ALIEN rip-off. How did he WRITE so many words I want to know? How long does it take to scribble "puerile rubbish?" And yet...he's right the flick is so bad its almost fascinating.

Here in Australia, I bought a BETA copy of this flick in 1986. It still plays unfortunately! (on the only one of five BETA machines we have that still work) Here, it was simply titled ALIEN 2 and long before the IMdb came into existence I used to win a fortune from friends betting them that there WAS a film called ALIEN 2. After I'd scooped the cash up, I'd play the flick and laugh in their faces!

Cute touch that....."Directed by Sam Cromwell" sounds major league Hollywood. Cromwell it turns out is Ciro Ippolito...just a few rungs below Ridley Scott!

Anyway, I digress. Read Kevin Gates' plot summary and you'll have some idea (not much) what to expect. As he says, the special effects consist of whatever offal was left at the abattoir the day they were filming. Ah, Belinda Mayne, still I dream of you!

I have been trying to see this film for years as I love to watch old obscure horror films. They do not have to be good or considered classic for me to hunt them down, I just enjoy watching them whether they be good, bad or ugly. Upon finally seeing this one, I have to say it has some things going for it, but overall it is a bit slow and underdone. The film at the beginning talks about this space pod returning to earth, we have an interview with the star female of the piece where we learn she is apparently psychic. She then heads to the ocean where she meets this guy who I have no clue who he is or what his purpose other than to introduce us to the fact that our heroine suffers from fears of monsters. We are soon treated to a scene with a mother and small girl that ends very nicely in one of the few good scenes of the movie. She then goes to the bowling alley to meet up with her fellow spelunkers and they proceed to have a long drawn out drive. They end up at a little place where outside one of the group finds a beautiful rock he just has to pick up. They finally make it to the cave where we get the privilege of seeing every member of the group repel down a line in the dark with their headlamp shining. They then pitch tents in the cave, which silly me, I figure all one really needs in a cave is a sleeping bag. Finally, after more cavorting in the cave the alien attacks and general mayhem ensues. Well not really, we are treated to every second of a rescue then a slow moving camera going across a body of a female and then some more cool stuff happens followed by another long stretch of nothing. You can see the problem, I am afraid the makers of this film were so enthralled with the cave that they forgot multiple times that they were supposed to be making an alien horror movie. There is some potential in this one, as there is a great kill involving a guy losing his head, also a nice attack on a couple as the cave seems to be alive. All the on screen kills are pretty good, just to much padding. The finale is particularly weak as we do not get to see any more cool deaths only a woman running from a point of view monster that at one point looked as if the monster was running from her. The makers of this film really did not seem to have a vision on what they wanted their monster to look like. Suffice to say at its best it looked like snakes, at worst hosepipe. More cool deaths, a faster moving story would have helped here immensely as would have a more climatic ending. Seriously, they showed nothing at the end to make the end cool. So just a bit of a bore for the most part with some very nice death scenes scattered here and there and a very nice topless shot of the lead girl. And you find out the best way out of a cave too, it is apparently to run fast, then in slow motion all at the same time to the point the fast you far surpasses the slow motion you.

This was originally known as "Alien 2", but the only thing it has in common with the original "Alien" is...an alien. Maybe they should have called it "Alien Too". In any case, they were sued to change the name, and this is grade-z crap under any title. A couple of astronauts are missing from a shuttle after its re-entry to earth, and mysterious blue "rocks" appear at the same time. Twenty-some pointless minutes later and a research crew is in an underground cave, with one of the blue rocks in tow. The dubs here are awful, especially the female protagonist, whose breathless delivery verges on vomit-inducing (which is more than can be said for the gore effects). I must admit, I did not watch the entire movie, as five minutes of it were spent making a sandwich while the movie wandered on aimlessly in the background. The best part is when a guy's head flies off while he's hanging upside down, and the head hits the earth with a resounding thud. That got a few chuckles out of me. The dialog is fittingly moronic. "How could those astronauts disappear?" asks one woman, "I wish I knew" responds her dim-witted compatriot, even though this is AFTER the aliens have already attacked them. Hmmm, maybe their disappearance has something to do with these dang aliens. Add in a cringe-worthy ending, complete with a "...you might be next!" warning and you have a competitor for worst movie of all time, in my humble opinion. This probably ended up as a MST3K episode (I wouldn't know, I hate that stupid show) but if it didn't, it is surely ripe for that treatment. Luckily this movie is long out of print, but if you do stumble upon it, heed my warning: AVOID AT ALL COSTS!!!

When I watched this film I knew almost nothing about the original Alien series. I just had heard about them and, so I thought this would be the original' s movie sequel. The Greek title confused me a little bit ("A monster on earth"). When I found out that this was not the movie I expected to be I became furious. You can understand only from the last scene how silly this movie was (I decided to watch it all because I should pay for it). The heroine found out that she was alone in the city and then a title came out saying: YOU COULD BE THE NEXT!(No other comments for that) I can't advice you to watch it because I'm not sure if your local video store would have it (it is a very popular movie, you see) but I would recommend this movie to anyone loves gore (Too gory with very silly special effects)

Here's the main plot: The heroine (I can't remember her name) discovers caves and has terrible headaches because of the alien's arrival on earth. Anyway, they (there were some others too) decide to go to a cave to find out that they were carrying an alien rock with them witch turns them to disgusting monsters/aliens which are after the rest of them (or something like that). Funny for children but too gory. 2/10

I'd heard bad things about this, like it was too slow, confusing, had too much potholing in it, but after finally watching this I feel the bad dubbing and general stupidity of the script (not to mention the great soundtrack by Oliver Onions) carried everything through. Sure, the ending was a bit of a let down, but still, where else do you have a guy explaining his wife's meltdown on live television as "It's okay- she's just telepathic".

A spaceship is due to land in the sea and while waiting for that, a TV show interviews a potholer on live television for some reason. She breaks down as she has a vision of sorts about something bad happening. When the spaceship lands, they find the pod empty, even though the astronauts reported that everything was okay. Meanwhile, our potholers go bowling for some reason, probably to introduce our characters. There's our telepathic lady, her boyfriend, another guy, yet another guy (dubbed by Nick Alexander), another guy played by Michele Soavi, a chick, and another chick (not dubbed by Nick Alexander.

As our bunch of victims prepare to go potholing, the telepathic spots a girl picking up a pulsating blue rock but is taken away by the boyfriend. Lucky for her, as the blue rock has torn off the face of the little girl! You know your watching an Italian film when a small kid is graphically mauled by an alien creature. Also, you know your watching an Italian film when Michele Soavi finds a similar blue rock on the ground while he's having a pee up against a building.

And now it's time for potholing! Our bunch of fuds head into the ground for a while, eventually settling down for the night so Michele Soavi can talk b*ll*cks about writing with candles. The next day, everyone rather stupidly splits up (and not for the last time), resulted in the blue rock bursting open, tearing a girls face off, and sending her down a ravine, where our numpties find her, face intact! After a long, long sequence getting this girl back up the ravine, one guy goes back up with her and we have the longest tracking shot in film history, as the camera pans from the guys shoes up the entire length of this girl's body (it takes ages). This pays off, however. You know how in alien they've got a chest burster? How about a face burster? You get that here as our alien makes an appearance, bursts out the girls face, and attacks the other guy causing his head to fall off onto the rest of our idiots.

From then on out it's alien (or aliens, it's quite confusing) versus potholers as they get lost in the dark, split up (again), and run around trying to find a way out – There's some gore, exploding heads, aliens bursting from bodies, people being killed and a bit of a psychic battle that's not even remotely explained. Needless to say a couple of people escape back to the world, which is strangely empty (save for one shot where there's people walking down the street and traffic and what not).

While strangely focusing on things ignored in other films (cars driving down the street for ages, bowling alleys, potholing) and kind of fizzling out towards the end there (although I loved the POV shot through the alien's mouth!), Alien 2 (which I'm sure is an official sequel) has enough extreme gore, bad dubbing and stupid characters to entertain a jaded Italian splatter fan. I will say that the soundtrack is great, as you would expect from Oliver Onions.

Most of the film is slooooow paced, at about 50 min in it starts to get a bit more interesting. The practical effects are pretty good which is why I give it 5 stars, and seems realistic enough. The musical score doesn't seem to fit in most of the scenes. The idea of the alien is intriguing but not well executed, and the acting is about as good as a high-school play. The way the alien escapes a body, and the old jeep wagoneer are the best things about this film. I have enjoyed many of the Italian films and after seeing 1979 Alien decided to give it a go, at least it's shorter. 3 overall + 2 for effects.

The budget in this one is VERY VERY low, the colors are not right, and the gore is not very bloody and FAKE looking. The blood almost looks like paint and the aliens make me laugh. For an Italian horror film, this one ranks as one of the worst. I purchased the UNCUT Japan release thinking I was going to see some cool Italian splatter. Boy was I disappointed! The acting of course is bad (It's ITALIAN after all) and the movie pretty much all takes place in a cavern-like place. As far as Italian cinema goes, there are plenty of better and more violent horror/sci-fi pictures than this, including SHOCKING DARK and CONTAMINATION. I would seek those out instead of this piece of trash.

Rating: 3/10 because of some LAME but bloody not-so-special F/x.

Horrid film that follows eight cave explorers on an expedition that gets ruined by a blood-thirsty alien rock. A fair few bloody deaths, (face sucks, heads falling off; stuff like that) but mainly very hard to watch or understand.

True enough, many modern sci-fi monster movies have issues with pacing, too, beginning with scenes of little or no import to the narrative. We can all imagine examples. Even so, 'Alien 2: On Earth' seems to especially struggle with its exposition. In a movie that barely approximates 90 minutes in length, the first quarter gives us only fits and starts of content: a glance at the main character, even smaller glimpses of supporting characters, and fleeting, shoehorned plot ideas (Space! Caves! What happened to that kid?!) with no detail at all, nor any meaningful connections. It's a rough start.

Once the story does more meaningfully pick up: Dubbing of dialogue is unwelcome in any film, but when it comes to finding some older features such as this, it's an unfortunate reality that sometimes a dubbed version is all that may be available to us. I assume that facet does much to account for what are often unconvincing displays of acting, as spoken dialogue fails to wholly comport with facial expressions and body language. But surely Ciro Ippolito's direction, his guidance of the cast and orchestration of scenes, also bears some responsibility - forcing the assembled actors into instances of delivery that just don't cut it. While some of the performances as they present to us are outright bad, I don't think they all are (I know I've certainly seen worse) - yet in any event, as a whole they definitely add to the burden put upon us by the other deficiencies. This is extra unfortunate since, for my part, the only reason I came across 'Alien 2' to begin with, or sat to watch it, was because of star Belinda Mayne. Which, by the way - her role, protagonist Thelma, is given a single defining trait, and it's wholly irrelevant to the plot. Sorry, Belinda. You deserved better.

We're treated to some shots (and for that matter, uses of lighting) that seem inventive, others that are kitschy and excessive, and a few that are wholly unnecessary. Many of those fitting the latter two descriptions serve little or no purpose except to highlight the caves that were used as filming locations - admittedly, very fetching locales. Some of the the special effects - that is to say, blood and gore - look fine, while others are more questionable. At least they're all practical, and not computer-generated. I appreciate the score of Guido and Maurizio De Angelis as it provides some atmosphere - though it too often cuts out abruptly from the soundtrack, and is at times simply overdone in its employment. I think there are some swell ideas scattered throughout this screenplay, even if some of them are borrowed from or very similar to other movies that explored comparable notions to much greater success. However, I'm at best unsure if the disparate concepts herein were at all suitable to stitch together into a single screenplay, and the way they are woven together is less than cohesive - the connective threads between ideas are as thin as split hairs, and all but invisible and intangible. Consider the wildly uneven narrative in combination with weak dialogue, meager characters, and sketchy and undependable scene writing, and it becomes a struggle to find real value to hold onto.

For as slowly as 'Alien 2' begins, it moves quickly thereafter; before I knew it, the movie was almost over. Yet at the same time, the bulk of the movie carries so little substance that even as the picture approached its very end, it felt like scarcely anything had happened. Just as narrative concepts aren't believably tied together, the execution of story beats (including the ending!), and connections between them, leave much to be desired, rather straining suspension of disbelief. It's as though Ippolito hadn't fully developed his screenplay before production began, and as cameras started rolling, everyone involved just winged it with what they had.

I began watching with low expectations, but all the same, I wanted so much to enjoy this - and I don't. There are some good ideas here, but far too many shortcomings that outweigh the worth. Dubious direction is nothing compared to feeble, specious writing that gives too much of the movie the feeling of being unfinished. This is hardly the worst feature I've ever seen, but I'd also be lying if I said I specifically found the experience to be entertaining. There's no broad reason to watch 'Alien 2: On Earth' unless you have a very particular motivation, and even at that, steel yourself for a frustratingly disappointing view.

Alas.

Don't be fooled into thinking that this has anything to do with the Alien franchise beyond trying to ride on its coattails (obviously). This isn't even a "so bad, it's good" movie -- it's just bad. You know what to expect from the typical Italian giallo film, over-the-top gore, some soft-core nudity, faux "American" actors in contrived situations. Think "Demons" by Dario Argento as a perfect example of this genre.

This movie offers nothing, not even comedy relief. The most laughable thing is that one of the tags for the film is "strong female protagonist". She's boring, exceedingly stupid, and prone to stating her insecurities vocally. Why bother trying to act when you can just blurt out what you're feeling even if it's out of context?

Skip this unless they release a Rifftrax version of it someday (unlikely).

"A spaceship lands back on Earth after a failed mission, but the astronauts have been replaced by hideous creatures that can penetrate people's bodies and make them explode. A group of cave explorers are attacked by the monsters inside an underground cave, but the survivors are in for a surprise when they finally manage to escape the trap..."

And all of this can only be guessed at when it comes up in about 3 minutes of this 1 hour and 32 minute long piece of whatever, in which you almost explode from yawning boredom ...

Anyone who finds this exciting and entertaining urgently needs a good psychiatrist, friends, drugs or, best of all, everything at the same time.

Same with terminator ll this is a alien rip off and it sucks I couldn't get pass the five minutes mark and naming it alien 2 is just shady and wrong sad they got away from the lawsuit.

I had never heard about this 1980 sci-fi horror movie titled "Alien 2: Sulla Terra" (aka "Alien 2 - On Earth") before now in 2022, as I happened to stumble upon it by random chance. And of course I opted to watch it, on the account of it being a movie that I hadn't already seen.

Sure, I wasn't exactly harboring a whole lot of expectations to a 1980s alien-based movie from what appeared to be Italian production. But hey, maybe it would be a cheesy fun movie to watch.

Writer and director Ciro Ippolito didn't exactly managed to put together a wholesome movie with "Alien 2: Sulla Terra". In fact, it felt very disjointed, erratic and lacking a coherent storyline. Every scene in the movie felt like it was shot and directed independently of the scene before and after it. So there was no red thread throughout the 92 minutes that "Alien 2: Sulla Terra" ran for.

The acting performances in "Alien 2: Sulla Terra" were dubious and questionable. Needless to say that I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress in this particular movie, nor that anyone stood out as being particularly memorable though.

Visually then you're not in for a great treat if you watch "Alien 2: Sulla Terra". The special effects were not great, and in comparison to other movies from the same time, then the effects in "Alien 2: Sulla Terra" were sort of low budget and sort of bad.

I can now check "Alien 2: Sulla Terra" off of the watched-movie-list, and I can honestly say that I am never returning to watch it a second time.

My rating of "Alien 2: Sulla Terra" lands on a two out of ten stars.

A space module lands back to Earth after a failed mission, but the astronauts have been replaced by hideous creatures that can penetrate into people's bodies and make them explode. A group of speleologists are attacked by the monsters inside an underground cave.

For fans of Italian horror cinema, the most notable name attached to this movie is probably Michele Soavi, who plays Burt. Soavi has acted many times, but really came into his own as a director of such films as "Stagefright" and "Cemetery Man". This was one of his earlier film projects, before he became a protégé of Dario Argento.

The effects in the film are fairly simple but effective, and I really liked the music. If I had to make a complaint, it would be that the pace was a bit too slow at times. That, and it seems the person who wrote the script did not try very hard to connect the astronauts, caves and the psychic aspects.