Dir: William Malone
Star: Stan Ivar, Wendy Schaal, Lyman Ward, Klaus Kinski
a.k.a. Titan Find, The Titan Find

“Klaus Kinski is dead now, and the world is a better place for it.”
— William Malone

This combines elements from both Alien (1979) and The Thing (1982) – and it wasn’t the first time Malone had gone to the former well, a couple of years previously having put together Scared to Death, about a monster that lives in the Los Angeles sewer system, coming up at night to suck spinal fluid out of people [as you do…] And in 2000, he’d complete the trilogy of Alien knockoffs with Supernova. But it’s Creature, whether under that name or Titan Find, with which most people are likely familiar.

The movie starts on Titan with the discovery of an alien in a capsule, which – to no-0ne’s surprise except the two poor slobs who find it – turns out not to be dead. One has his head explodes inside his spacesuit, and the other, apparently driven insane, flies back to Earth and rams his craft into an orbiting space-station. The final frontier has become the property of corporations in this future, specifically the American NTI and German company Richter Dynamics. The Americans send a ship out to Titan to find out what happened to the first expedition: there’s the captain (Ivar), corporate boss (Ward), engineering type (Schaal) and a “security officer” (Diane Salinger), who doesn’t speak to anyone else, even though they wonder why on Earth/Titan they would need one of those.

On their arrival, it becomes clear. Richter has also sent a ship, and have already landed. NTI’s craft sets down too, but it’s more of a “crash”, leaving their vessel crippled, running out of oxygen. Heading over, they discover a number of dead bodies, and their craft is visited by Hans Rudy Hofner (Kinski), the last survivor of the 20+ members of the German expedition. He informs them that what was discovered was an alien’s collection of life-forms, like a child’s butterfly collection, except a great deal more lethal. The particular creature they’re up against has the ability to take over the bodies of its victims and use them to lure in further prey, as well as generate visions that serve the same purpose.

You can probably work out the rest of the plot from there: the creature gnaws its way through the minor members of the cast, working his way up to the front of the credits, while they try to figure out a way to defeat it. Interestingly, the method eventually used is directly inspired – the film only stops short of mentioning its name – by 1951’s The Thing From Another World, based on the same source SF novel as The Thing. There are the usual false endings where the survivors are probably the only people who believe the creature has been killed (the viewer likely having checked their watch and realized there are still 20 minutes left), but to its credit, the story ties itself up more or less neatly, without having to resort to cliches like a final shot of an alien egg.

As a B-movie, this isn’t terrible: the main problem is that the two films from which it most obviously borrows, were both far superior in just about every way. Some of the effects crew supposedly went on to work on Aliens, and from a technical standpoint, it’s pretty respectable, considering the budget was less than three-quarter of a million dollars. There’s a very good exploding head scene, and plenty of prosthetic effects, but the creature is too blatantly a man in a rubber suit to provoke more than snorts of derision. The other performances are mostly forgettable: Diane Salinger, who played security officer Bryce, perhaps comes off best, simply because she has least to say, and the script is probably the film’s weakest link. Witness the thoroughly ludicrous explanation she offers for her absence toward the end, which is something an 11-year-old child would have rejected as implausible.

This is, extremely obviously, one of those roles which Kinski took for the money, but as usual, even if his motivation may have been mercenary, he’s good value in it. Particularly, keep an eye out for the scene, as noted and broken down by Du Dumme Sau in detail, where Klaus apparently acts and has lunch at the same time (below). Very considerate that, on a tight shooting schedule.

If Kinski’s role feels like a bit of an afterthought, that’s for the very good reason that it apparently was: “During the production they got more money – and the producers suddenly hired Klaus Kinski, even if there wasn’t a part for him in the movie, so Malone and screenwriter Alan Reed had to invent a character.” By Malone’s account, communication between director and actor largely consisted of screaming from both sides, which appeared to work best for both of them. The quote opening this review came from a 1999 interview Malone did with Fangoria, and it’s perhaps worth quoting some more of the director’s thoughts.

“Kinski was the craziest person I’ve ever met. I had him for a week on that picture, out of a seven-week shoot. I remember the first words out of his mouth. He put his arm around me on the set and said, ‘You know, Bill, when Nastassja was 12, I raped her.’ And things went downhill from there…. “

In the light of subsequent events – albeit involving Klaus’s other daughter, Pola – that’s an extremely unfortunate statement, though of course, Kinski was well known for behaving outrageously, purely  for shock purposes.  Malone’s opinion did seem to mellow subsequently, later saying: “He was a funny guy, and I think he would be happy I said the world was a better place without him. He reveled in that kind of thing.” Salinger also has some interesting stories of working with Klaus on the film, but overall, appears to remember him fondly, saying:

“Klaus taught me a great deal! We were wearing these padded, quilted space suits, and he taught me how to act [in them] with my back. I knew he was brilliant, but he would never hit his marks. He was basically ‘Fuck you, I’m the actor, you’re the camera. I’m not gonna follow you, you follow me.’ I remember Bill [Malone] saying to me that a lot of the great, brilliant footage that he had of Klaus he couldn’t use, because he was out of focus.”

The movie was re-released on DVD earlier this year, in a nicely letterboxed version: the copy I saw was streamed on Netflix, in a 4:3 ratio, and was probably too dark. The DVD comes with Malone’s commentary, as well as interviews with the surviving cast members, both of which I would be very interested to hear, so I’ll update this one if I get hold of it.