Species III

Infobox Film
name = Species III


caption = "Species III" Unrated Edition DVD Cover
director = Brad Turner
producer = David Dwiggins
writer = Ben Ripley
starring = Sunny Mabrey,
Robin Dunne,
Amelia Cooke
music =
cinematography =
editing =
distributor = MGM
released = November 27, 2004
runtime = 111 min,
112 min ("Unrated" version)
country = USA
awards =
language = English
budget =
preceded_by = "Species II"
followed_by = ""
amg_id =
imdb_id = 0410650

"Species III" is a 2004 direct to video follow-up to the 1995 science fiction movie "Species", and its 1998 sequel "Species II". It was directed by Brad Turner and stars Sunny Mabrey, Robin Dunne, and Amelia Cooke. Natasha Henstridge reprises the role of Eve in a brief cameo. Its US broadcast premiere was on the SCI FI. It was then released as a standard and unrated edition on DVD.

Plot summary

Immediately following "Species II", Eve is seen in the back of the medical vehicle, presumed dead. The drivers of the medical vehicle accidentally crash the vehicle after blood erupts from the back of the vehicle. One of the drivers, Dr. Abbott, opens the doors and finds the same half breed seen at the end of "Species II". Eve then comes back to life, as she was unconscious, she lifts up the sheet covering her and begins to give birth. Upon seeing this, the half breed wraps his tongue around Eve's neck and begins to strangle her, hoping to kill the newborn in the process, however, Eve manages to survive his embrace long enough for her offspring to be born before she is finally killed. Dr. Abbott is then seen running through the forest with the newborn half breed wrapped in his jacket.

Several months pass and the offspring has grown into a young girl, which he names Sara (Sunny Mabrey), after looking at a food package made by Sara Lee. At this time, the halfbreed that killed Eve comes to Dr. Abbott for help and dies in his office, much of his flesh decaying in a manner similar to his father's. A few days later, Sara pupates and re-emerges from her cocoon as a strikingly beautiful blond woman. Abbott hopes to create perfect DNA using Sara's eggs, in order to win the Nobel Prize, and invites a student, Dean (Robin Dunne), to be his assistant and share his research and future awards.

In the meantime, Sara almost breeds with another half-breed that has found her, but she rejects him when she discovers that he, like all the other half-breeds, are dying off from natural diseases due to weak immunities. Later, while Dean and Abbott are trying to take blood from Sara, this half-breed desperately attacks and attempts to impregnate Sara. The two have a brief fight in the lab before Abbott activates a gas sprayer which showers both Sara and the half-breed with a toxic gas. Abbott manages to rescue Sara in time to save her but in the process, the half-breed impales him before dying. Dean is then faced with the dilemma of whether or not to create the perfect species, which Sara is urging him to do.

As Dean contemplates this decision, his roommate accidentally makes contact with Amelia, the female leader of the half-breeds, and divulges information (from Dean's notes) to her that gives away Sarah's location. She shows up and kidnaps the roommate. She and Sara demand that he make the perfect species so they both can have mates. He almost does so, but is saved by Dean and a government agent that tracked Sara down after Eve's corpse was found to have been pregnant. They take Sara's eggs and run to a nearby experimental power plant that Dean had worked at. Dean attempts to kill Sara and Amelia by trapping them, along with Sara's harvested eggs, in the power plant's core. Amelia attempts to kill him in revenge for destroying the eggs, but in a surprising twist, Sara saves him and throws Amelia into the core, although she sacrifices herself in the process.

Later it is revealed that she survived and Dean pulled her to safety. He makes the perfect mate for her using some of the half-breed DNA (after he had removed the damaged DNA strands) so that Sara wouldn't be alone. Unbeknownst to Sara and the male, however, the mate is completely sterile. As Sarah and her mate begin to head into the deep forest, Dean asks Sara why she saved him as she no longer had a reason to (her eggs had been destroyed by him) and she told him that one day maybe he'd know. She then leaves with her mate as Dean and his roommate look on.

Trivia

* Executive Producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. wanted this sequel to be aimed more at young adults so the characters were written to be younger than what was originally planned.

* This film was Sunny Mabrey's first film with full exposure, frontal and rear.

* Sunny Mabrey, who played Sara, was the first person cast in the film and was the first choice by director Brad Turner.

* The budget was not as high as the previous installments, so the make-up supervisor, Rob Hinderstien played the security guard who gets sliced in half in the film as a cameo role. He revealed on the DVD that the company did not have enough money to cast and make a realistic dummy of the actor for this scene. Rob then offered the producers his contribution of a self-portrait dummy he made whilst he was in college. This was slightly modified and was used in the film. This is all revealed in an Easter Egg special on the DVD.

* There are small references to the past two films. One is where Sara regenerates her arm after it is crushed by the train, a nod to the regeneration of Sil's thumb in the first film and the regeneration of Patrick's head in the second film. There is also a humorous reference when a campus student tries to kiss Sara and she says to him, "You don't want the tongue..." which is a reference to the first film where Sil penetrates her victim's neck with the use of her tongue while kissing him.

* A scene which was changed due to budgetary reasons had Sara scratch a campus student's cheek with her alien finger, which looked like a spike. Instead, this was changed to Sara throwing the man over her into a hedge in the final film.

* The film was shot in high-definition video.

* Producer Frank Mancuso, Jr. wanted the creatures to look slightly different from H R Giger's original concept. He did not contribute to the designs in this film and the creatures were redesigned by Rob Hinderstien.

* This is the first Species film where the main female alien character is not killed. It is also the only film of the four in which the main alien is never pregnant nor has sex.

equel

A third sequel was in talks with Nick Lyon who is directing the new installment, due out in 2007. Ben Ripley is returning again to write the script. The fourth installment of the Species franchise continues in Mexico, where new experiments with DNA bring horrific results. An MGM/360 Production, Frank Mancuso, Jr. oversaw the production that began in October 2006 on "Species IV", it's working title. Mancuso has served as Producer on the previous "Species" movies, and as Executive Producer on this direct-to-DVD sequel. The sequel was announced as "Species: Quattro", but it is now known as "Species - The Awakening".

External links

*imdb title|0410650