Inseminoid

The rocky interior of Gozo, where the crew spent two days filming, represents the planet's surface.[2]

Nick Maley's effects work included the puppets of the alien twins.[2] In this shot, one of them is revealed to have killed Sharon (Heather Wright).

The Hong Kong Shaw Brothers agreed to provide half of the proposed £1 million budget and became partners in the production, with elder brother Run Run Shaw credited in the opening titles as the film's presenter.[4] Nick Maley reprised his special effects role to build the alien twin puppets.[3] Principal photography began on 12 May 1980 with a crew of 75. The production filmed for three weeks on location at Chislehurst Caves in Kent and one week at Lee International Studios in Wembley Park, London. A fifth week was devoted to effects and linking shots, completed by the second unit at Film House on London's Wardour Street. The crew then travelled to the island of Gozo, Malta for a final, two-day location shoot to film the long shots set on the planet's surface, capitalising on the strong Mediterranean sun to ensure good lighting.[2]

Warren says that shooting the base interior scenes at Chislehurst Caves produced more realistic results for the film's low budget than any possible studio alternative.[2] However, the cold, damp and airless conditions inside the caves, compounded by the uneven terrain, caused frequent minor injuries among the cast and crew as well as damage to filming equipment. Shooting often ran for 12 hours at a time and some of those present developed intense feelings of claustrophobia in the confined space. Gordon believed that the uncomfortable working conditions made the actors' performances more credible, once stating: "I think all this paid off in terms of what we got on the screen for the budget, but the circumstances were very difficult."[4] Due to the lack of space inside the caves, the crew were forced to set up their production office, as well as the dressing and make-up rooms, in a car park some distance from the location. When the filming started to fall behind schedule, Warren was forced to cut some of the scenes of Ricky's rampage inside the caves: "Three pages of script, which I had to condense into one shot. Having to make such an enormous compromise was not a happy choice for me, but it was the only way of getting us back on schedule." The shoot ultimately overran by two days.[2]

As filming progressed, the working relationship between Warren and Clarke broke down. According to Warren, Clarke routinely refused to follow instructions and instead offered his own, unsolicited interpretation of the script, which made every scene featuring him "an uphill struggle". He remembers that during preparations for a fight scene, Clarke's behaviour caused him to lose his temper: "Robin kept on ranting and raving about his ideas to the point where I couldn't take it any more. So I screamed at him to shut up and keep quiet. I told him I was the director and we would do the scene the way I said. He was shocked, he just stopped dead, and from that point on he hardly said a word."[2] Warren's rapports with the rest of the cast were positive. He has described Geeson as "an absolute dream to work with" and praised her acting, arguing that it avoids being unintentionally comic.[2] Gordon was similarly impressed, stating that Geeson fully embraced her role and did not complain that it demeaned her as an actress.[4] Warren also has fond memories of Beacham's "very professional" performance, recalling that "with tongue firmly in cheek, she would often wind me up by asking what her motivation was for a particular action, just as I about to call 'Action!', knowing full well that my answer would be, 'Because it's in the script'."[7]

Inseminoid was shot on 35 mm Eastman Kodak film with anamorphic lenses. Warren remembers that this format produced an "incredibly sharp image and what I would term as the 'American' look." During post-production, the picture was brightened as it was feared that if the film appeared too dimly lit it would be harder to sell to television broadcasters.[2] In addition, some of the more graphic shots of Sandy's labour were removed to ensure that the film would not be rejected by the British Board of Film Censors (BBFC).[8] According to Warren, editor Peter Boyle "had a natural feel for the material and managed to create just the right pace and rhythm throughout the film."[2] The title sequence was produced by Oxford Scientific Films.[9]

As the low budget precluded the use of an orchestra, Warren and composer John Scott agreed that the film would have an electronic score. The recording involved many hours of multi-tracking and overdubbing. Warren has described the completed soundtrack as an "amazing achievement", noting that electronic scores were "quite experimental" in the early 1980s.[2] The soundtrack was released as an LP record in 1982.[10]

Inseminoid has been criticised as a perceived imitation,[13][18] "knock-off"[19] or "rip-off"[12][16][17] of the 1979 science-fiction horror film Alien. Peter Wright, a film historian and lecturer at the University of Liverpool, believes that the "atmospheric" cave sequences and the mess hall scene preceding Ricky's madness may have been inspired by Ridley Scott's film, comparing the former to the sequences set on the desolate planetoid and the latter to the violent reveal of the alien "chestburster".[9] Wright considers the connection to Alien potentially "exploitative";[20] to Barry Langford of the University of London, it highlights the dependence of UK cinema on its US counterpart.[21] Alan Jones argues that "any similarity between Inseminoid and Alien is totally intentional. Except here is the basic idea contained in Alien taken to its sleaziest extreme." He finds one such parallel in the character of Kate (Stephanie Beacham), whom he likens to Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver). However, he also regards Contamination (1980) and Scared to Death (1981) as less effective imitations of Scott.[3] Edward Jones suggests that the plot of Inseminoid also borrows from the novel Dracula (1897), the TV series The Bionic Woman (1976–78) and the films The Thing from Another World (1951) and Night of the Living Dead (1968).[15]

Though he acknowledges similarities to Alien, Warren has denied claims that Inseminoid was made as an imitation, pointing out that the script for his film was completed months before Alien was released in the UK. He has also said that Alien distributors 20th Century Fox were shown the final cut of Inseminoid and that even they discounted the possibility: "... in fact, the head of Fox sent us a very nice letter saying how much he enjoyed the film and wished us luck with the release ... I find it flattering that anyone can compare Alien, which cost in the region of $30 million, with Inseminoid which cost less than £1 million. We must have done something right."[2]

Various commentators have discussed Inseminoid's depiction of sexual reproduction, female sexuality, conflict between male and female gender roles, pregnancy, new motherhood and Otherness. Wright interprets Sandy's transformation as a "direct manifestation of masculine anxiety regarding female reproductive capacity". He argues that the film's horror is internalised within the seed of the alien being, which renders Sandy "woman-as-other" or "abject "Other". This is in contrast with Alien, which concerns transfer of "fear of woman onto the alien other". Wright suggests that Inseminoid contains echoes of the film Demon Seed (1977), in which a woman is raped and impregnated by an artificially-intelligent computer: "in both films, women are framed as 'Other' by their sexual congress with more conventional iconic others: the machine and the alien." In all these films, pregnancy is depicted as a source of horror; in Inseminoid, this is conveyed by the "uterine and cervical" title sequence, suggestive of "entering the realm of the monstrous womb ... the titling reveals a microscopic insect resident in the body of a larger organism."[9]

Sandy (Judy Geeson) is impregnated. Peter Wright believes that this scene displays conflicting attitudes to reproduction: while the alien phallus (bottom image) promotes fertilisation, Karl injecting Sandy's arm with a phallic hypodermic needle (top image, bottom-left corner) suppresses it.[9]

Wright argues that the distorted representation of the womb reveals similarities to the 1979 film The Brood, in which a woman parthenogenetically gives birth to deformed offspring. Analysing the rape sequence itself, in which Karl injects Sandy with an unknown substance, Wright makes a connection to dialogue in other scenes implying that the women on the archaeological team are given regular contraceptive injections. Sandy's impregnation, conflicting with the suppression of fertilisation manifested in Karl's use of a hypodermic (and phallic) needle, reveals "coherent sexism": it "attacks the very notion of female sexual freedom, while suggesting, paradoxically, that contraception is the responsibility of women." Sandy's accelerated pregnancy and regression to the level of a savage add to her depiction as an abject Other or object of "male paranoia".[9]

During the struggle between Sandy and Gary, it is not until Gary has half-suffocated that Sandy kills him. Wright suggests that this sequence is reassuring from a male point of view as it implies that no woman – not even one with unnatural strength – is strong enough to kill a man in cold blood. That Sandy is ultimately killed by a man (Mark) makes her an aid in the re-empowerment of the male sex, although her offspring are quick to avenge their mother.[9] Comparing the plot of Inseminoid to Christian scripture, Christopher Partridge of Lancaster University refers to the twins as "essentially space Nephilim, technological demons with appetites and habits reminiscent of the mythic forebears."[22]

The film's sexual references continue into the epilogue, which shows the arrival of rescuers Jeff, Corin and Roy. In an allusion to the menstrual cycle, it is stated in dialogue that 28 days have passed since Xeno lost contact with the team. The deaths of the archaeologists are attributed to an "internal disturbance of some kind"; Wright calls this "an ironic phrase which encapsulates the film's vision of pregnancy as an irruption of Otherness from within."[9]

Discussing Larry Miller's novelisation, which he describes as "imaginative and misogynistic", Wright notes a number of scenes that are absent from the film and portray a distorted image of the female form, causing revulsion in the reader. Miller has Sandy grow sores and her nipples ooze pus, which Wright likens to colostrum. Sandy accepts these unnatural changes with fascination.[9]