Tag Archives: Alien visitors

Last week I pointed out that reviewers who describe Brother John as an angel may not have seen the film. But I made the same mistake writing about THE GIFTED ONE (1989) in my first film book — though to be fair, it wasn’t as easy to find a movie back then as in the age of streaming.

I’d described the leading character as half-ET but when I finally watched the film for Alien Visitors it turns out I was wrong: we don’t learn anything definite about lead character Michael’s (Peter Kowanko) origins. What we know is that after one woman’s baby was born dead, a single mother gave Michael up so the doctor (G.W. Bailey) swapped the two infants out. Michael grew up tormented by the incredible burden of being different — superhumanly smart, also possessing healing psi-powers. In the film, scientist John Rhys-Davies discovers Michael is millions of years evolved beyond modern man but by TV science standards that doesn’t rule out mom being an ET. This is an amazingly bland pilot, both in the script and in its leading man; Khyrstine Haje plays Michael’s childhood sweetheart. “I bet you can’t even play baseball.”

Stories of Earth under alien occupation are a small subset of alien invasion films; V (1982) which I’ll get to reviewing soon, is probably the best-known (and best) example. CAPTIVE STATE (2019) has aliens shutting down all of Earth’s electricity until we surrender, then setting up an authoritarian regime with implants for monitoring and tracking and drone strikes for dissenters. The plot concerns two black men, siblings who saw their parents butchered years earlier by the aliens; has the time come for the resistance to counter-attack? John Goodman plays a cop struggling to convince his superiors the threat is real, but does he have his own agenda in play? Interesting ideas but so murky and vague about everyone’s motivation, including the aliens, that it becomes Talking Lamp material fast. “What if the plan was to fail?”

MONSTERS (2010) is set in a world where a crashed probe has once again brought doom down upon us, in this case eggs that have grown into giant tentacled monsters whose territory spreads across the Southwest US and into Mexico. A photographer down south of the border for some monster shots gets ordered to escort his employer’s vacationing daughter safely back to the US, which of course proves harder than expected. Part of the filmmaker’s inspiration was to create a world where, like the zombie movie Fido things have been normalized: nobody’s rushing to nuke the monsters, they’re simply a dangerous invasive species we have to control. The drawback is, this could be a road movie in 1990s Bosnia and have much the same plot; overall I liked it though. “What do you mean —all the trees are infected?”

MONARCH OF THE MOON (2004) is a movie serial pastiche in which the parodic superhero Yellowjacket discover the Axis’ access to superweapons is due to their alliance with the eponymous tyrant, who plans to invade the United States and use our women for breeding stock. This falls kind of between the stools — not an outright parody, but too tongue in cheek to work as a tribute either. And having the female lead completely ineffective is annoying because several serials, such as Manhunt on Mystery Island, had perfectly competent women in them (as I complained over at Atomic Junkshop recently). “Let’s hope we can stop those Nazis before they destroy our entire navy!”

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ETERNALS (2021) is indy director Chloe Zhao’s dive into the MCU, as a handful of  ancient astronauts, including Salma Hayek, Angelina Jolie and Gemma Chan spend centuries battling the monstrous Deviants before learning the terrifying truth about why the Celestials sent them to Earth.

I enjoyed the movie. It’s good-looking, has some great twists, and a solid cast. I particularly liked the running element that the secret of the Eternals’ existence is known to all kinds of people. The cast is solid.

I did not, however, massively enjoy the movie. The Deviants are bland foes and the concept doesn’t make as much sense here as it did in Jack Kirby’s comic book. There we can reasonably assume that even though we only meet a few Olympians (Zuras, Makkari, Thena) the rest of the pantheon exists. Here it’s quite specific that these are all the Eternals that exist which undercuts the Gods From Outer Space thing. And as someone pointed out online, Gilgamesh (Don Lee) arrives on Earth in Babylonian times, too late to be the hero of  Sumerian epic. Not dealbreakers for me, but definitely weaknesses. “Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you … the plow.”

If not for rereading Keep Watching the Skies I’d have forgotten NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST (1958) exists. That would be a shame as it fits into my book’s discussion of alien rape and impregnation well. An astronaut returns to Earth, apparently dead, revives and discovers he’s been implanted with alien embryos by ETs who can’t penetrate the Van Allen belt otherwise. But are they here to save us from ourselves, or is this the fist step in colonizing the world? Like It Conquered the World, the ideas are more interesting than the presentation. “There’s a man in there alive who should be dead — something that’s never happened before.”

I only watched enough of STARGATE (1994) to refresh my memory for the Ancient Astronauts chapter. Engaging in spots but the scenes on Ra’s world now strike me as generic Lost Race stuff with heavy White Savior episodes. Still fun, but it’s odd seeing Kurt Russell when I expect to see the TV show’s Richard Dean Anderson. “This should read ‘A million years into the sky lies Ra the Sun God, dead and buried.”

According to Pictures at a Revolution, Sidney Poitier was slammed by critics for much of his career for playing non-threatening black guys who wouldn’t alienate a white audience. BROTHER JOHN (1971) is very different, and almost nobody watched it. John (Poitier) mysteriously shows up in his Southern hometown when his sister’s on the brink of death, then sticks around, reconnecting with old friends and unsettling the local white power structure who know he’s up to something — but only the town doctor (Will Geer) gets to learn what it is.

A number of online reviews describe Poitier as an angel, which makes me think the reviewers haven’t seen it. He’s actually acting as an agent for aliens who want to see if we’re anyone they can tolerate when we get beyond our own little solar system. John’s report is … not favorable. It’s a striking, unsettling film which writerScott Woods describes as Poitier playing “black machismo you don’t have to apologize for.” It definitely deserves to be seen more than it is. “I would like to leave my name somewhere beside the toilet at the Stuart Street School.”

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It will be a while before I clear out all my viewing from working on Alien Visitors, but here’s the first catch-up post.

ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING (2017) has an intergalactic council (voiced by the Monty Python team) decides humanity’s survival hinges on whether Simon Pegg can use reality-warping powers for good or become corrupted. This is a good example of alien advanced science being indistinguishable from magic, as the council might as well have been God in Bruce Almighty or the bored deities gifting Roland Young with similar power in The Man Who Could Work Miracles.The results, unfortunately, are the predictable monkey’s paw effects of everything Pegg does turning out wrong though the alien’s standards turned out to be a nice twist (“It was good when he started all those wars, but now he’s stopped them — nothing is more evil than weakness!”). With Kate Beckinsale as Pegg’s dream girl. “The London Underground is worse than anything we did at Guantanamo.”

WORLD’S END (2013) has Pegg playing a self-destructive hot mess who reunites with his old school chums (including Martin Freeman of Sherlock) to re-enact the post-graduation pub crawl they never quite finished (making Robin Williams’ The Best of Times a logical double-bill). Unfortunately this plonks Pegg’s crew and Lost Love Rosamund Pike right in the middle of an alien takoever helmed by former teacher Pierce Brosnan. This has some clever writing in spots but Pegg’s the kind of overbearing jerk I just cannot stand. The alien stuff is simply too stock for me — like some of the shticks in Mars Attacks!, the pod people claiming We Make People Better could have been dropped in a serious movie without changing anything. “Does anyone know what ‘robot’ means?”

MIDNIGHT SPECIAL (2016) is an interesting, if slightly too murky film wherein a father with a strange mutant child scurries to help him meet his Moment Of Destiny despite the efforts of the authorities to stop him and Mom Kirsten Dunst (yet another actor whose gone from kid star to Mom roles within my lifetime. Not that I’m old or anything). This is an effective SF thriller but would benefit from a little more explanation about why the kid is like this — I’d assumed an alien hybrid, but they don’t confirm or deny that. “What do you believe will happen Friday March 6?”

As CHARIOTS OF THE GODS (1970) was one of the films inspiring Tribulation 99, I gave it a look and had the pleasure of seeing TYG boggle at the bullshit (“That carving looks nothing like an astronaut!”). This pseudoscience documentary attempts to sell Erich Von Daniken’s theories about alien ancestors but even as a teen I was more intrigued than convinced by his ideas. Now I find his theories just ridiculous, nowhere near as interesting as Charles Fort (probably because Von Daniken has less solid material to work with). This makes me appreciate why some critics find Von Daniken racist, with the emphasis that the aliens did their work in Egypt and preColumbian America rather than, say, ancient Rome (the film mentions some Roman temples but only to claim their foundations were former rocket sites). Jack Kirby’s Eternals (source of the images here) is vastly more interesting.“Would Ezekiel have described visitors from space in any different terms?”

The animated CHICKEN LITTLE (2005) is unusual in that the protagonist’s Zero to Hero moment occurs well before the alien invasion, as his long-odds win in the Big Baseball Game redeems him from his previous panic over the sky falling. But then, when he starts squawking Aliens Are Coming…This makes the structure feel a little off, but the film ends up being a good example of an invasion that’s actually a misunderstanding (“You know how it is — when you’re a parent you do anything for your kids.”). Minor but watchable. “Prepare to be hurt — and not emotionally like me!”

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