When sequels start dropping numbers from their titles is one sign consumers can take as caveat emptor. Another is when none of the franchise’s stars is willing to show up, even for an easy-paycheck cameo. And yet another is skipping theaters entirely.
Species: The Awakening checks all three of these boxes. You have been warned. And warned. And warned yet again.
With Natasha Henstridge in absentia, the direct-to-DVD flick falls upon the supple shoulders of Swedish actress Helena Mattsson (Guns Girls & Gambling) as the resident Hot Alien Who Kills When She Gets Horny. The twist here is that she just doesn’t know it yet. Her Miranda is a university professor in pure Sexy Librarian Fantasy mode; her first-scene lecture is nothing short of lascivious, with director Nick Lyon (Hercules Reborn) shooting through her parted legs and at her adoring male students, who all but have books strategically placed on their smoldering crotches. (These guys would appreciate being pointed to the 56-minute mark of the Blu-ray.)
On the faculty with Miranda is her only family member, Uncle Tom (!), played by a very sweaty Ben Cross (The Unholy). It is he who helped make her that way — not to mention help make her, period — by mucking around with alien DNA, thus providing screenwriter Ben Ripley (who also penned the slightly better Species III) a tenuous connection to the previous films.
However, Uncle Tom (!!) has kept this a secret from his niece until now, when the corpse of a young man is discovered in the park, shortly after Miranda comes home dazed from a date — a sexual Awakening, perhaps? The answer is as affirmative as Mattsson is strikingly beautiful, and sadly, that is not reason enough to sit through this fourth and (until the inevitable reboot) final Species. Once Uncle Tom (!!!) takes her to Mexico to meet her creator, the sci-fi slasher becomes increasingly dull, despite them being pursued in part by a tentacle-sprouting nun. While Mattsson and Cross do try their best, their efforts are not helped by Lyon’s contagious disengagement and shoddy effects that recall the heyday of CorelDRAW. —Rod Lott