July 10, 1995 -- "Species" is a dark, creepy film about an alien predator species trying to wipe out humans on earth. It stars Ben Kingsley as Xavier Fitch, Michael Madsen as Preston Lennox, Forest Whitaker as Dan Smithson and the attractive Natasha Henstridge as the creature.

Henstridge spends much of her on-screen time half-naked trying to mate with men in order to make little monsters. Except for the nudity, the sex and the high-tech special effects, this is your classic drive-in movie creature feature. It has that same kind of dumb fun charm to it, that one associates with classic drive-in grade horror movies. There's enough acting talent to give the story some stability. Madsen ("Reservoir Dogs") has a nice tongue-in-cheek approach to this film that's right on the mark. The Oscar-winner, Kingsley ("Gandhi," "Schindler's List" and "Bugsy") is a superior actor. Whitaker ("Smoke" and "The Crying Game") is a pretty good actor, too.

The creature is born after Radio telescopes pick up signals from space that, include a formula for a DNA string that can be combined with human DNA. Scientists decide to try it. Bad idea. When the creature escapes and starts killing people in its attempt to breed, hired guns (including Madsen) are brought in to hunt the creature down.

There's plenty of chills, slime and blood and some above-average special effects. It isn't as good as "The Puppet Masters," or "Tales from the Crypt," but it's a fairly chilling creature feature. It rates a B-.

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