There isn’t a successful Italian film director from the 20th century that doesn’t have at least one Hollywood ripoff in their filmography. It was practically de rigueur over there. But, no filmmaker did it with quite the shamelessness of Bruno Mattei, and none of his movies approached the level of outright thievery seen in Terminator II.
Trademark law is obviously looser in Italy. Over there, production companies can market and release a movie as a sequel to an unrelated production. This movie is not a sequel to The Terminator, James Cameron’s blockbuster from 1984. But it was marketed as such, down to a poster that evokes Arnold Scwarzenegger’s menacing, uncanny cyborg face. Everyone involved, including producer Franco Gaudenzi, knew how disingenuous it all was, because this flick wasn’t released in the United States until 2018, and then under the title Shocking Dark.
Mattei and company’s sins weren’t just in marketing, though. The real risk of litigious action comes in the story, which doesn’t resemble The Terminator at all. Rather, this is a ripoff of another James Cameron film, Aliens, from 1986. And I do mean ripoff, in the purest sense. Entire acts, scenes, and lines of dialogue are lifted directly from Aliens, only they are done cheaply. For a viewer familiar with Aliens, Terminator II has all the look and feel of a high school theater production of Aliens. It tracks that closely. Only the overarching plot is different.
It’s the near future. A toxic cloud has descended on Venice, Italy. The Tubular Corporation has been contracted to clean things up, and part of their efforts are a series of tunnels that run from the mainland, under the lagoon, and into Venice. But, Tubular is an evil corporation, and they’ve been using the tunnels to conduct unethical bioweapons research. This research has resulted in the scientists down below mutating into slimy, 
bloodthirsty monsters. Mega Force, a future military (one can tell by their uniform’s flying shoulder pads that it’s the future), sends in a squad of Marines to take control of the situation. That’s as close to originality as this flick sees, and even that is just a tweak on Aliens.
What follows is scene after scene taken straight from Aliens. I cannot emphasize this enough. It’s unlikely that a viewer will ever see a movie that lifts so much from another movie without it being a remake. It’s so blatant that James Cameron should have a screenwriting credit alongside Rosella Drudi and Claudio Fragasso.
I’d list examples, but then this article would run into thousands of words, and I don’t want to chase potential viewers away. That’s because Terminator II is a wonderful shitty movie watch. The cheapness and ineptness is an appeal. Sometimes it’s fun to speculate how a successful movie would look if a different filmmaker handled it. Like, what if Brian De Palma had directed Taxi Driver, or George Lucas had helmed Apocalypse Now (both real scenarios that almost happened)? Well, with this flick, we don’t have to wonder what Aliens would look like if Bruno Mattei had made it. We know! It’s shit, but it’s also fun to watch.
The conceit of the film taking place under Venice is irrelevant. The city is only seen in establishing shots and in a confusing ending. All the action takes place in the tunnels, which look as if the production filmed at a power plant or large factory. The usual gang of hardened military types is present, mostly in direct analogue to the characters in Aliens. Principal performers include Mark Steinborn as Captain Bond, Haven Tyler as civilian Sara (the film’s Ripley analogue), Christopher Ahrens as Fuller (an amalgamation of Aliens’ Bishop and Burke), and Dominica Coulson as Samantha, whose introduction to the film is identical to Newt’s, right down to her taking a bite out of a Marine’s hand.
I can’t imagine what a head spinner this movie was if a viewer saw it first before Aliens, which could well have been the case when it was first released all over Western and Eastern Europe. What I do know is my perspective. Aliens has been one of my favorite films for close to forty years, ever since my old man made the questionable decision to take a 9-year old kid to see it in the theater. It is an absolute delight seeing Mattei’s mangled take on the material. Somehow, Mattei managed to take everything that made Aliens great, mangle it, then insert his own bumbling charm. Believe it or not, we shitty movie fans do have discriminating taste, and while this flick was made for people who have none, it should find a spot in the hearts of we sick mutants. Just Mattei’s audacity alone raises this flick’s watchability, pushing it into the top half of the Index, displacing The Alligator People at #191. It also has great value as a curiosity piece for fans of Aliens. Check it out.