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Biohazard (1985) is not a musical biopic about Biohazard (band). This becomes clear eventually, but not as quickly as one might think. This is because Biohazard (movie) is not exactly the most coherent film ever made.
Yet, this incoherence makes it a good candidate for our Sci-Why? Theater series. How does it compare to other dilithium gems like The Dark Side of the Moon, Inseminoid, Forbidden World, The Humanoid and Starcrash.
Biohazard
The nice thing about Biohazard is that it is only 78 minutes long. Add up opening and closing credits, and its pain is debilitating, yes, but short-lived.
Biohazard starts with a vector grid, along with an EKG pulse line. The title font looks pseudo-digital. It’s that font that was used on every video game cabinet in 1978 and hasn’t been seen since.
The music transports a viewer to a time when robots came from the future to dance the Electric Slide. A robot doing the Electric Slide is a bit on-the-nose, don’t you think? It’s like an astronaut doing the Moonwalk… or John Coffey doing the Jitterbug.
The film is written, produced and directed by Fred Olen Ray. We’ve run into him before in our Gabrielle Monique Triple Feature. Some of the more negative folks among us might opine that we should have just run him over…
“With this helmet, I will make women fall in love with me without the need for messy lobotomies.”
Biohazardous Material
Biohazard starts with an army truck cruising through the desert at golden hour. This displays a lot of effort. Someone probably had to set an alarm.
A man in a silver jump suit and helmet simultaneously wanders about. Perhaps, he is on his way to a grassroots theater production of the Towering Inferno.
No, he carries a Geiger counter. A grassroots theater production of a 1950s movie like The Magnetic Monster is more likely. Actually, a grassroots theater production of The Magnetic Monster would probably have a larger budget than the original The Magnetic Monster.
The army truck guys are lost. Their characters are named…I honestly don’t know. Let’s just call them Mike and Tom. That’s close enough.
Mike and Tom stop to look at a map and bicker. They display the kind of chemistry rarely seen this side of a Hayden Christensen/Natalie Portman dynamic.
Meanwhile, Radiation Suit Man follows cables. The ability of his suit to resist radiation is put into question. It appears to be made from terry cloth, and its feet look like someone stitched cardboard to the bottom of them.
Bioshock Hazard
Cut to a research facility. A scientist, a suited man and a general experiment on Angelique Pettyjohn, who looks like a poor man’s Loretta Swit. Angelique appeared in the Star Trek episode The Gamesters of Triskelion.
Scientist Man, Suit Man and General Man perform that test from the beginning of Ghostbusters on Angelique, where they ask her to tell them what is on various cards she can’t see. For whatever reason, her shirt is unbuttoned halfway down her chest for this test. Maybe they wanted to attach sensors to her and forgot. That does not surprise. This doesn’t look like Area 51. More like IQ 51, amirite?
They explain how Angelique acquired her powers. She was in an accident and given an experimental drug to heal her. This is important because the facility is trying to transport objects into our world from another dimension.
What do those two things have to do with each other, you might wonder?
See there you go again, bringing a brain to a moron fight. Don’t ask questions. Pretend you are in a work meeting and keep your mouth shut.
We learn Radiation Suit Guy is looking for a break in the power cable so Scientist Man can start his experiment. Riveting stuff…
Mike and Tom arrive. Scientist Man demands to know who they are because complete strangers are apparently allowed to walk right into his secret research facility and observe classified operations.
Don’t Know Much About Biohazard
The experiment begins. Scientist Man puts a “metal” helmet on Angelique that somehow bends and warps like it was made of a softer substance — foam latex, for example.
Angelique’s eyes go wide. Optical inserts of a starfield and something like a hyperspace jump happen. Radiation Suit Guy gets microwaved because Scientist Man couldn’t be bothered to make sure he completed his repair before starting the experiment. This facility obviously did not watch their OSHA safety videos as required.
“That’s the most incredible thing I’ve ever seen in my life,” Suit Man says.
As for what Angelique brought in from another dimension — it looks like a crate from the Nostromo with a porcelain figure of a woman on top of it. The porcelain figure is something Goodwill sneaks into your bag, just to get rid of it, when you make a purchase.
The crate/figurine combination is so random that Fred Olen Ray is either a genius or in awe of people with an IQ of 51. You be the judge.
The crate is put on the army truck and they all leave. At one point, the truck stops to pick up a sentry. The lead vehicle looks back, and its occupants discuss this development.
“What is going on?”
“I think they are getting the sentry into the truck.”
I want everyone involved with Biohazard to get into that truck…so I can force it off a bridge License To Kill-style.
“You owe me a new roll of duct tape…”
Biohazard All In The Green
I admire the wardrobe wrangler of this film. It’s clear that everything was bought at JC Penny and “militarized” with sew-on patches also bought at JC Penny. The sentry wears red shoelaces on his boots. One guy’s camouflage uniform looks like it came in a blister pack with a plastic gun that goes “ratatatatatata” when you pull its trigger.
A creature pops out of the crate. It is a standard Alien ripoff with a twist. Instead of being big, it is child size. Fred Olen Ray had his eight-year-old son play the part. He reasoned a small creature made more sense because it could pop out of tight spaces.
That was Fred Olen Ray’s first mistake — he reasoned.
Regardless, it’s time for Angelique to take off her shirt. Her and Mike develop a relationship before hunting the creature. Surely, their love will forge them into a formidable pair that is more formidable than Angelique’s pair alone.
The creature also has a gold canister that grows. It starts out at 13 inches and increases to 14 inches. That’s not the most interesting thing about it, though. Its endcap is featured in a closeup, and you can clearly see the endcap is made of duct tape. You can also see the cardboard cross section of its upper ridge. Another piece of it might be a cut-up egg carton.
It’s like they robbed the prop from some poor grade school kid walking home with the Valentine’s Day box he made in art class.
Who are the real monsters here?
“No, please don’t kill me, Mr. Creature, I wanna be in the sequel.”
Biohazard 101
The creature starts killing townsfolk, which allows the movie to add more breasts.
The gold container/Valentine’s Day box opens and adds another creature to the mix. It’s a snake-thing that growls like a dog. It rips out throats and makes people foam at the mouth. It kills Tom. His death is so somber that Angelique can only turn and walk away from the camera with sloped shoulders. Or maybe her shoulders are just tired from holding up her chesticles…
Fred Olen Rey throws caution to the wind and allows a full reveal shot of his costumed eight-year-old son running across a lawn. It’s adorable.
At this stage, the screenplay stops telling a story and becomes a list of vague suggestions to use up an allotment of film before it deteriorates.
How about a subplot where an old couple runs the creature over and decides to use its body as an opportunity to get rich? Sure, why not?
It looks like Biohazard lost access to its facility set. Normally, these movies spend their entire runtime at the facility set, but Biohazard has the characters gallivanting around a small town. This does not make low-budget, sci-fi movie sense.
Or does it? The original production company went broke and left Fred Olen Ray on his own to finish the film. He managed to secure additional funding. Leaving the facility set behind is probably a result of this development. This also explains why Scientist Man, Suit Man and General Man disappeared from the film, as well.
Biohazard Lifeforms
We are in the last 20 minutes. Biohazard kicks off this milestone by having the creature murder a dumpster diver and destroy a poster of ET.
See, this is a joke because the creature does not like ET. Yet, this simple action opens realms of complicated thought.
Why doesn’t the creature like ET? Did it see the movie? Is ET real in its world? If so, does that make the creature part of the Star Wars universe since ETs appeared in The Phantom Menace? Does that make Biohazard the best Star Wars spinoff?
“I had nothing to do with Biohazard. I only wish I could develop something that good. Maybe someday…”
Let’s move on. For reasons known only to — likely no one — Mike carries a Mauser Broomhandle Pistol as his weapon of choice. I’m not sure what US government agency or military unit ever carried the Mauser. Let’s check Google!
Oh wow, the US military did use the Mauser in limited numbers during the 1898 Spanish-American War. We must allow Mike’s adaption of it then. What we don’t have to allow is his insistence on wearing a tan leather jacket that looks like it was stolen from the Starsky & Hutch wardrobe department.
Let’s check in on the movie again…
Biohazard has now entered the walk-around-an-industrial-basement stage. Pseudo facehuggers appear for three seconds. The creature is shot and electrocuted. Angelique is revealed to be a laughing alien after she tears her breasts off.
I did not make up that last sentence. It really happened.
Biohazard then goes into seven minutes of outtakes, ala The Cannonball Run.
Biohazardous For Your Health
This movie may have changed my life. This might be rock bottom. I might be ready to finally get some help.
And yet…and yet, you remember that porcelain figurine? It was never explained. I’m going to watch Biohazard again. The answer has to be in it somewhere. Maybe it is the answer to everything. Maybe others can help me find it…
Yes, I shall plan a public viewing of Biohazard, and together we shall watch its marvel-shadowed scenes. We shall stare into its brooding depths and dive down through black abysses to Cyclopean and many-layered metaphor, and in that lair of dark brilliance we shall dwell amidst blissful confusion forever…
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