Every hardcore film buff worth his weight in celluloid has a certain special favorite film which struck a peculiarly responsive chord in him when it was first seen at a young, tender, impressionable age. The fan’s deep-seated affection for this picture defies a logical, rational explanation, but holds strong throughout the years nonetheless. “Parasite,” an admittedly cheesy handy dandy low budget sci-fi/horror rip-off of “ALIEN,” “They Came from Within,” and “Mad Max” which tells the bleak futuristic story of a man with a dangerous scientifically created killer slug growing in his belly, is that type of movie for me.
Sure, there are numerous concrete bits and pieces of “Parasite” which can be singled out as key attractive attributes. Neither Charles Band’s inert direction nor the murky, uninspired script amount to anything other than merely blah, although both do considerably add to the film’s overall bizarrely beguiling mediocre quality. Scrawny, swarthy, long-faced and bug-eyed longtime unsung favorite Robert Glaudini portrays the sweaty, frazzle-nerved protagonist with his customary enthralling humorless solemnity. The adorable Cheryl “Rainbeaux” Smith, looking like a scraggly, haggard, totally strung-out heroin junkie (all dingy frizzy hair, indecipherable feral grumbling and sneering facial expressions), does a welcome, albeit fleeting topless cameo as a deranged “sickie.” Al Fann contributes a wonderfully warm and engaging performance as a nice guy diner proprietor. Luca Bercovici as a brutish punk gang leader makes for a perfectly hateful villain. Cherie Currie, the former lead singer of the seminal all-girl punk-rock group the Runaways, isn’t given much to do, but still catches the eye with her sweetly pretty tall drink of dirty blonde water looks all the same. Mac Ahlberg’s grainy, washed-out cinematography somehow manages to be oddly apropos. Richard Band’s redundantly rattling score likewise weirdly works.
The lead pipe firmly embedded in a guy’s abdomen profusely leaking blood gag is a genuine pip. The scene where the parasite attacks and kills Vivian Blaine by dropping from the ceiling is a corker; the moment when foul thing reduces Blaine to a dessicated, prune-faced husk before gorily bursting out of her shriveled head really hits the splattery spot. The sporadic use of strained, drawn-out and overamplified slow motion provides a few solid belly laughs. The lethargic pace slogs along at a hypnotically gradual clip. Watching the eternally obnoxious Demi Moore in her first starring role have her lip split open will forever remain a sadistically satisfying sight to behold. Stan Winston’s black, slimy, and truly revolting monster design is deliciously disgusting. While all these cited specifics are credible reasons for liking — no, scratch that, seriously loving — “Parasite,” the film ultimately gets to me and bowls me over in a way that I simply can’t describe, but inevitably feel quite profoundly whenever I rewatch it. I guess you can say that for me “Parasite” has that inexplicable, yet undeniable and unmistakable mondo schlock flick zing.
