Dave quizzes scripter Alex Simon about his nifty first movie for Roger Corman.

Yes, there’s a shapeshifting alien that assumes the appearance of its victims a la The Thing (1982).

Yes, the self-destruct password is ‘Nostromo’, named after the interstellar mining ship in Alien (1979).

And yes, there’s a lot of recycled underwater footage from Lords of the Deep (1989), itself a not-so-subtle cash-in on The Abyss (1989) and Leviathan (1989).

Originality might not be the most notable attribute of UNKNOWN ORIGIN (1995), but don’t let that tempt you into shrug it off. What this sci-fi horror romp lacks in conceptual creativity, it makes up for in characterisation, structure (it really, really does move), and unbridled enjoyment. It’s a list of positive qualities that dovetails well with scripter Alex Simon’s recollection of how it all went down.

Simon caught the writing bug young, and his parents signed him up for an adult-level screenwriting course at the age of eleven. By twenty-three he’d penned Hit the Dutchman (1992) for Menahem Golan’s 21^st Century Film Corporation (“A bit of a shitshow”). Two years later Simon found himself at Roger Corman’s Concorde-New Horizons.

“I got my first assignment from Rob Kerchner,” says Simon. “He was head of development there and he took me down to Roger’s studio in Venice, CA. It was a ramshackle structure, with flimsy sets constructed next door to each other, and they were usually shooting four or five things simultaneously. It was much like I pictured the old Mack Sennett operations: constant creation in a factory-like setting. Concorde’s big movie that year was Carnosaur 2 (1995), and they spent decent money building a sci-fi/spaceship type set that they wanted to reuse.”

“My instructions were thus: look around the set, come up with a story, then get them a three act treatment by the end of the day. I got home around noon and plunged into my cinematic database, coming up with three sci-fi movies I could ‘pay homage to’: The Thing, The Hidden (1987), and Leviathan. That was the other hook: it had to take place underwater, as Roger had some stock footage of an underwater base he wanted to reuse. This was pre-internet, so I faxed the pages to Rob at about 5:30PM. Ten minutes later I got a call from him.”

“‘Roger loves it’, boomed Rob. ‘Your first draft is due Monday.’”

“It was Friday.”

Simon’s plot takes us deep into a future now passed – 2020, where, rather than COVID, man has used up and destroyed most of earth’s resources which has led to mega-corporations developing experimental undersea habitation in the hope of conquering a new frontier. Trapped beneath ten-thousand feet of crushing pressure, a research team are assaulted by a mysterious mind-controlling alien. Terror soon turns to paranoia as crew members turn on each other, all while knowing that they must stop the alien’s rampage before it reaches the surface.

Sometimes a film’s value can be determined from the simple joy you receive from hearing Roddy McDowall shriek lines like: “It’s the most extraordinary example of asexual procreation that I’ve ever seen!”. The beloved English actor is a delight in Unknown Origin, expressing an authoritative level of camp like only he can. He’s ably joined by Alex Hyde-White – for whom amiability is always a challenge – as well as Melanie Shatner and Don Stroud.

One of Simon’s strengths as a writer is his knack for pace, and Unknown Origin is a prime example. It takes eight minutes for the first action set piece, and the film doesn’t let up from there on in. Helmer Scott Levy – whom Simon would reteam with for Corman’s 1995 remake of Piranha (1978) – also threads a palpable sense of menace throughout, peaking during an oxygen deprivation sequence that’s genuinely nerve shredding.

“I did three drafts of the script over ten days,” remembers Simon. “We were shooting two weeks after I’d first visited the set. It was a great introduction for a neophyte screenwriter as to how a set is run and how to treat the people you’re working with. Scott Levy and Bill Bromiley, the producer, were wonderful to me. I also got to spend time with the great Roddy McDowall – to date, the best raconteur I’ve ever met – and legendary character actor Don Stroud. Melanie Shatner, who played the female lead, was a real sweetheart too.”

The second feature to air as part of Showtime’s Roger Corman Presents series, Unknown Origin hit the small screen as ‘Alien Within’ on 18^th July 1995, and graced U.S. video in April ’96 under its original title. The film reverted back to its ‘Alien Within’ moniker for its U.K. release, arriving on tape via CIC/Universal just before Christmas ’96.