Endangered Species (1982)

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If you told me there was a movie about a single father (Robert Urich) and a female sheriff (Poltergeist‘s JoBeth Williams) who team up to solve a mystery involving a series of cattle mutilations, I’d be interested. If you indicated the perpetrators might be aliens — as this film does in many ways — I’d be even more interested. So imagine my disappointment when Endangered Species turns out to be the most boring cattle mutilation mystery ever made.

First off, if you bring up aliens as a possibility, you better follow through with that notion. Anything else can only be a let-down to genre audiences. The mystery is eventually revealed to be a government conspiracy involving testing for germ and chemical warfare. With its often dark photography and minimalist, synth scoring, it feels a lot like an alien-free version of The X-Files — but far less interesting. Director Alan Rudolph fails to generate any suspense, empathy, or excitement.

Making matters worse is that Urich and Williams’ roles are very poorly written. These are solid actors, but they can’t do anything to save these dull-as-dishwater, sometimes annoying characters. The supporting cast is full of notables who make the most of very little, including Hoyt Axton (Gremlins), Paul Dooley (Breaking Away), Peter Coyote (E.T.), Dan Hedaya (Clueless), Gailard Sartain (TV’s Hee-Haw), Harry Carey Jr., (The Searchers), and Patrick Houser (Hot Dog… The Movie).