Parasite

The clock is ticking. A scientist is in a race against time to prevent a parasite from being loosed upon the world, to paraphrase Yeats.

Parasite, not to be confused with the eponymous (and far superior) jet-black South Korean comedy – comes to us instead from Charles Band Land.

Parasite (1982) has the plot of many of its post-apocalyptic contemporaries (roving gangs, limited resources) but there’s a decided lack of leather and muscle car mods. There’s also no oasis in the desert so that humanity can repopulate.

Instead of a resourceful tough as the lead, it’s got a tweedy geek, Dr Paul Dean, who carries with him lab equipment and a cannister – basically a giant thermos as per the poster artwork above.

Dean has been compelled by corporate overlords in Xyrex, strong-armed by its brown shirt army of Merchants, to create a bio-weapon. And this makes him face a crisis of conscience, like Oppenheimer. And that’s where comparisons to superior films ends, promise.

Much of Parasite is Dean on the lam in mostly deserted, desert California, stopping in at the establishments which haven’t yet shuttered, and doing ad hoc experiments to kill his own creation before baddies do with it as they please.

Parasite marks the film debut of a very young Demi Moore who provides the only bar in a town with lemons, which could be interpreted as a lemons/lemonade metaphor – after all, she does what she can in a pretty middling and unintentionally hilarious horror. A notch above Leprechaun in entertainment value (take that, Jen Anniston) Parasite also features some VERY early practical effects by Aliens/Pumpkinhead/Predator maestro, Stan Winston.

**3/4 (out of 5)

[Check out the Really Awful Movies Parasite Podcast discussion!]