Virus

Remember when I reviewed 1997's Phantoms for the nationally-observed month of Koontztober?  It's okay; I can barely remember what I wrote sixty seconds ago.  In any event, remember when I reviewed 1997's Phantoms for the nationally-observed month of Koontztober?  It's okay; I...can see that this joke has already been herded into old sod.  My point!  My point is that I reminded my darling readers that monster movies trudged on through a fusillade of spacey (no pun intended), incurious slashers.  The Ghostfaces of the film industry didn't make it easy, but evidence suggests that the good old-fashioned creature feature can - and will - survive a shelling of shit. I'm talking about a real rogering!

Taking the glossy production values out of the equation, you would never guess that Virus was birthed in the late 90's.  From what I've gathered, it was a natural birth.  Donald Sutherland could be seen waving as he scuttered down the cervix by the Satanic agency of gravity.  Here is something else you won't believe; the lion's share of the special effects on display are perfectly practical.  Actually, the CGI is refined.  Again, it was 1999.  If you adjust your expectations accordingly, you'll enjoy a cinematic meteor shower of biomech mercenaries and sliced borg flesh.

So what the fuck would a Virus synopsis look like?  I'll try to avoid details, as I tend to...well, I despise plot summaries.  Why can't you just click your dick over to IMDb and leave me alone? If pressed for comment (and at knifepoint), I'd say that this flick concerns an American boating crew salvaging the cargo of a seemingly deserted Russian ship.  Granted reprieve from the eye of a typhoon, mariners such as William Baldwin and Jamie Lee Curtis begin to connect the dots as they relate to the mysterious disappearances of both people and equipment.  It turns out that an alien force of some description has been hard at work marrying the most sensible attributes of man and machine.

The characters are bland.  They lack a certain punch.  To be frighteningly specific, they lack Hawaiian Punch Polar Blast.  This thing is gory as hell.  Why doesn't anyone ever mention the "body horror" hecatomb that Virus brings to the table?  I mean, blood is let in toe-curling, sinew-gnawing ways.  You want memorable?  To paraphrase D-Generation-X, I got two words for ya...MECHA-SUTHERLAND!  Motherfucker deserved his own franchise.  Look, I get that Virus is a stale sci-fi product that has "major studio" tattooed on its taint, but sometimes, fun spontaneously combusts and cameras are there to catch it.

This sweetheart is a hodgepodge of Robocop, Carpenter's The Thing, and a sheepish dram of Deep Rising.  Z'Dar says, "If I were a movie, I would be Virus, only sexier."