Bruno Mattei brings THE TERMINATOR to Venice (or is it ALIENS) in the Italian sci-fi mash-up SHOCKING DARK, on Blu-ray from Severin Films.

Venice of the year 2000 is a dead city. Seaweed has killed off the oxygen in the water, and the high tides have corroded the foundation. The city is now off limits due to the high toxicity of the waters, and armed guards keep out the curious as scientists sponsored by The Tubular Corporation carry out biological experiments to reclaim Venice and its waters. Mainland headquarters receives a distress call from Venice but all video surveillance and radio communications go dead after the warning "They're coming!" Colonel Parson (Bruce McFarland) tasks Captain Dalton Bond (Mark Steinborn) with assembling a team – the usual misfits including ballbuster Koster (Geretta Geretta, DEMONS), Latin lover Franzini (Fausto Lombardi, DIAL: HELP), pretty boy Caine (Cortland Reilly), gun nut Kowalsky (Paul Norman Allen, THE GAMBLE), and martial artist Price (Richard Ross) – and infiltrating Venice to discover what happened and to rescue any survivors. Also along for the trip are compassionate scientist Dr. Sara Drumball (Haven Tyler) and Samuel Fuller (Christopher Ahrens, RAIDERS OF THE MAGIC IVORY), a mysterious company representative with military training whose goal is to retrieve the diary of project head Professor Raphaelson (Al McFarland). Upon entering the territory through the tube system developed by Tubular Corporation to avoid the toxic waters, they think they may have already solved the issue when crazy scientist Drake (Clive Riche, MOTHER OF TEARS) starts shooting at them, but he also warms that they are going to die before uttering an inhuman, ear-splitting howl and disappearing with Price in the chaos. As the group splits up to investigate, they are attacked by monstrous creatures that make short work of even the toughest. The question is, however, are they alien invaders or the mutant offspring of Professor Raphaelson's experiment. The only person who may be able to help them find the answer is Raphaelson's traumatized daughter Samantha (Dominica Coulson), but Fuller may have reasons to make sure no one finds out the truth.

Simultaneously ripping off THE TERMINATOR and ALIENS as only the Italians could – the producers gave it the title TERMINATOR 2 in its native Italy and the Japanese called it ALIENATORS – SHOCKING DARK manages to be pure batshit crazy fun in spite of all its incongruous elements. Venice is only seen in the contemporary prologue as second unit tourist board footage and during the climax, with the bulk of the film set "underground" at a nuclear power station. Tyler makes for a shrill "strong female" heroine and Coulson equally annoying, but both are livelier than their male counterparts including Steinborn's captain who does not take the threat of "Something's out here," seriously when uttered by Italian Lombardi but flips to "Come back immediately," when given the same intel by surfer dude Reilly. The crack team is interchangeable with their specific traits coming to little use while the racial tension between Giancarlo and Lombardi is never given the screentime to turn them into the equivalents of Jeanette Goldstein and Bill Paxton in the Cameron film. "Go takes a look outside," always results in death or cocooning, although the gore of Franco Di Girolamo (ZOMBI 3) takes a backseat some underwhelming creature effects by twins Francesco and Gaetano Paolocci (ROBOWAR) who also provided some outdated post-production optical effects. In spite of its demerits, it moves at a nice clip, throwing out new concepts as quickly as it abandons others, so it just feels natural when a character turns out to be a cyborg or time travel gets tossed into the loop. Director Bruno Mattei (THE OTHER HELL) and writers Claudio Fragasso (TROLL 2) and his wife Rossella Drudi (VIOLENCE IN A WOMEN'S PRISON) would also pair up for the PREDATOR/ROBOCOP mash-up ROBOWAR – along with actors/stuntmen Massimo Vanni (WAX MASK) and Ottaviano dell'Acqua (ZOMBIE) who also have small roles here – for Franco Gaudenzi who also produced Lucio Fulci's ZOMBI 3 (which Mattei finished) and Fragasso's ZOMBIE 4: AFTER DEATH.

One of the late 1980s Italian exploitation films that did not even make it to American video stores, SHOCKING DARK was long available in English-friendly form only as a Japanese VHS titled ALIENATORS. Severin Film's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.78:1 widescreen Blu-ray is derived from a new 2K scan of the original camera negative. The elements have not been kept in pristine form, although some of the dirt, scratches, and specks in the image possibly happened during filming and during the optical compositing, and the cinematography of Riccardo Grassetti employs diffusion in exteriors, although not to the extent of ZOMBI 3 – and the crisper second unit work of DP Luigi Ciccarese (AENIGMA) stands out from the rest – so sharpness is variable throughout and probably looks about as good as one can expect a late 1980s direct-to-video bound Italian low budget genre film to look without extensive digital restoration. Audio options include an okay English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono track with some sibilance issues along with lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 dubs in Italian, German, Spanish, and Chinese (!) with optional English SDH subtitles.