DECOYS

The arrival of Lily and Constance, along with other blonde and attractive girls, at a Canadian college coincides with the beginning of a chain of mysterious deaths among the male students of the college, who are found dead from the freezing of internal organs. In reality, the new girls are alien creatures who have come to Earth in the hope of being able to continue their species, which is now on the verge of extinction, and the only way to do this is to lay eggs in the bodies of humans adequately cooled. It will be Luke's task to discover the aliens' plan and eliminate the threat. Already from the plot, it is clear that "Decoys" is a film that could hardly be taken seriously, so, to fully enjoy this honest Canadian horror, it is enough not to look for the hair in the egg at every single shot, because there are many naivety, but the product as a whole is quite pleasant. The "Essex" of the title are none other than the same alien dolls, or rather their appetizing human appearances; these very available aliens seem in their intentions very close to the now legendary alien played by Natascha Henstridge in the "Species" saga, but here the aliens appear much more "human" in their feelings and in the just cause for which they fight, compared to the much more famous aunt Henstridge: the beautiful aliens who are the protagonists of the film want to help their own species not to become extinct, trying to complete the pregnancy in the bodies carefully below zero of their partners; death is only a detail, collateral damage to the birth of a new life. Naturally, it has been opted to press quite hard on the "racy" situations, staging all the erotic potential of the sexy aliens; but "Decoys" does not skimp on repulsive scenes, thanks to the massive amount of frozen corpses and the revelation of the real appearances of the alien girls, sufficiently disgusting as well as optimally realized. Surely, from the image that appears in the film, the human male does not come across very well, since we are shown rather stupid young men who, instead of reasoning with their heads, let themselves be carried away by their lower parts; but it does not matter, because the show still entertains and the culprits of libidinous acts are all drastically punished, as per the manual. Perhaps we even go beyond the rules of the good horror "punish-boy-in-heat" manual, so much so that "Decoys" can surely win the award as the most sexophobic horror in cinema history; little matter the boys occasionally caught kissing by Jason Voorhees in any "Friday the 13th", it is in "Decoys" that the rule "who has sex dies" finds its most precise and diligent application, without any exception. Matthew Hastings' direction has no particular features, but simply carries out the work without any merit that can be remembered; the performers are average for this type of productions, although the two main aliens, played by Stefanie von Pfetten ("C.S.I. Miami") and Kim Poirier ("Dawn of the Dead"), will surely leave their mark, not only in the hearts of male viewers, but also for their particular stage presence. "Decoys" is therefore a no-frills horror that turns out to be what it wanted to appear in the premises: a fun movie that manages to entertain the viewer for an hour and a half without making them regret the cost of the rental. Pure B-movie, but aware and proud of it. The rating has been rounded up.