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Now this one's almost impossible to summarize: As Jesus Christ (Franco Nero) explains in the prologue, aliens have visited earth and somehow inseminated earth women without their knowledge, and their offspring can turn out good or evil. Now one such offspring is Katy (Paige Connor), daughter of upper class Barbara (Joanne Nail), who has grown a bit suspicous of her daughter of late. But then Barbara throws a big birthday party where one present for Katy is replaced with a loaded gun, and in a freak accident Katy shoots Barbara in the back, paralyzing her for life. Fortunately, Barbara has a caring boyfriend, Raymond (Lance Henriksen), who desparately wants to marry her and impregnate her, but she refuses him time and again. However, Raymond's not actually in love with Barbara, he's merely acting on behalf of a committee led by Barbara's personal physician Dr. Walker (Mel Ferrer), who want Barbara to have more evil children because ... well, that's up to anyone's guess.

Meanwhile, Detective Durham (Glenn Ford) figures Katy must have had something to do with the accident that put her mother into a wheelchair, so he follows her around - without any level of discretion, so it's easy for Katy to evade him. And eventually, Durham dies in a freak car accident caused by ... Katy's pet hawk.

Eventually, the committee decide Raymond's doing too slow a job in getting Barbara pregnant, so they have her raped by two service truck drivers (Johnny Popwell, Lou Walker) - but she promptly makes a visit to her ex-husband (Sam Peckinpah) for an abortion.

Of course, where there's so much evil, good cannot be far, as to noone's knowledge, Barbara's housekeeper Jane (Shelley Winters) is of the same alien race as Katy, but was born good and now sees to it that nothing bad happens (but doesn't do a very good job of it), and then there's old man Jerzy (John Huston), a godlike overseer of the planet that Katy's race is originally from, who seems to appear to Katy everywhere, once as her babysitter even, and who eventually engages in a deadly game with her ...

Now if you're only slightly confused by above synopsis, it doesn't do the movie justice, as it's a narrative mess that was obviously inspired by the then recent success of The Omen and somehow feels like a hastily repurposed alien invasion script rushed into production to cash in on that movie (please note, there's no evidence for this claim, it's only a suspicion at best). However, what this movie lacks in plot it does make up in both visuals and direction, as this film often looks stunning, inventive even, and its suspense and action are expertly handled. Plus the star-studded cast alone is mouth-watering, and they all deliver, too. Now sure, this is a film that one best switches one's brain off while watching, but then it's unexpectedly enjoyable.

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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