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Species – The Awakening

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Species - The Awakening
File:Species IV.jpg
DVD cover for the film
Directed byNick Lyon
Written byBen Ripley
Produced byFrank Mancuso Jr.
StarringHelena Mattsson
Adam Wylie
Ben Cross
Dominic Keating
Marco Bacuzzi
Distributed byMGM
Release date
October 2, 2007
Country United States
LanguageEnglish

Species – The Awakening is a 2007 Sci-Fi channel film that is the latest in the series of films that began with Species in 1995. It was directed by Nick Lyon and stars Helena Mattsson, Adam Wylie, Ben Cross, Marco Bacuzzi, and Dominic Keating as "Forbes". It is the first film of the Species franchise that does not feature Natasha Henstridge. It is also the first film in the series in which the female lead does not know that she is half alien.

Plot

Miranda Hollander (Helena Mattsson) is a beautiful and smart woman. She is a college professor and lives with her "uncle", Tom Hollander (Ben Cross) who works in a museum. Miranda believes that she has lived with her "uncle" ever since her parents were killed in an accident while she was a baby. After her birthday, Miranda becomes unconscious and is sent to a local hospital. Tom is notified by the police. When Miranda arrives at the hospital, she silently transforms into alien form and kills a few people. When Tom finally arrives at the hospital the following morning, he finds bodies everywhere. Tom locates Miranda, injects her with human hormone and begins to drive her to Mexico.

On the way to Mexico, Miranda wakes up, asking for the cause of her 'illness'. Tom tells Miranda that she is the result of an experiment that combined human and alien DNA, an experiment conducted with his friend Forbes McGuire (Dominic Keating) while they were both still in college. Miranda can read books just by touching them, without even needing to open them. Tom has been injecting her with human hormones since her childhood to suppress her alien DNA. Her parents never existed; they were just a fiction created by Tom to help build up Miranda's "normal life." Tom explains he and Forbes parted ways because of differences of opinion over the vision of their creation.

When they arrive in Mexico, Miranda rests in a motel room while Tom spends the day searching for Forbes. After a few incidents, Tom and Miranda locate Forbes' current home. Forbes now lives with his recent experiment named Azura (Marlene Favela), another human and alien DNA hybrid. Forbes supports his experiment by creating half-alien facsimiles of dead pets and relatives. Forbes checks Miranda's condition and finds that Miranda has reached the end of her lifespan and will die in days. The only way to deny death is injecting fresh human DNA into Miranda. Miranda won't allow that to happen when she realizes it will result in the sacrifice of another human being.

Then Miranda goes unconscious again. Tom goes searching for a "donor" and is mugged by a woman in the process. Azura then incapacitates the mugger and the two bring her back to Forbes' lab, where they succeed in extending Miranda's life. Unfortunately, Miranda goes unstable and the alien side dominates; now she seduces men, killing them swiftly after. Tom chases and beats Azura in a church, when Azura transforms into an alien. Forbes chases Miranda, but is seduced and killed by her before he can give her another injection.

The climax is in Forbes' house, when Miranda is tired and beaten by Tom, afraid she's pregnant. Tom is attacked again by Azura, but Miranda, in alien form, redeems herself for Tom's good work, and helps attack Azura; they succeed in killing her. However, Miranda is wounded, and after she goes back to human form, she dies. In the final scene Tom turns on all the gas burners and tanks in the house and leaves. The house explodes.

Cast

Production

It was announced on 6 September 2006 by MGM that another sequel to Species was in production. An MGM/360 Production, filming commenced in October 2006 with Frank Mancuso Jr. returning as executive producer. The movie premiered on the SciFi Channel on September 29.

The producers wanted to go back to Giger's designs of the alien creature due to popularity with fans and the absence of this decision in the last installment. The original look is apparent but with different color variations and new spikes on the aliens' wrists of the nemesis. It is also a first in the series that a half-human, half-alien character does not change fully into the alien creature but has prosthetic eyebrows, veins and contacts for a long period of time in more than one scene.

Title

The title went through many changes in publicity from "Species IV" to "Species - Quattro" and finally settling on "Species - The Awakening" from the producers. The working title "Species IV" appeared on movie sites when the film was in pre-production. "Species - Quattro" appeared on an online trailer for the film and now Nick Lyon, the director of the picture, named the film as "Species: The Awakening" on his official site and then appeared on sites thereafter. Even though the online trailer can be viewed on his site, it is called "Species - Quattro" at the end of the presentation. Like the third film, the original movie logo is used for the main title.

Symbolism

The film references the popular scene in the 1995 original species film where the protagonist kills somebody with her tongue. Miranda kills a hotel receptionist in the same way, but it is seen in the victim's point of view instead of the protagonists, with Miranda's alien form reflected in the victims eyes.

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