Welcome to Planet Earth

For a movie with a close-to-nothing budget, this is surprisingly good. Special effects are somewhere between cheap and nonexistent, the whole movie is carried by the actors and the script.

But both the actors and the script are good. George Wendt (as Charlie) is a John Goodman-lookalike and uses that very well. Shanna Reed (Rhonda) is his happy tourist wife, if possible more gleeful about their backstreet adventures. Anastasia Sakelaris plays their beautiful daughter Daphne, also really well, and Christopher M. Brown is the "straight man" Joseph, the nice black guy who tries to understand what is happening around him. Joseph is a particularly vital part, the straight man who gives us a normal person point of view to the events, and also the character who benefits from the aliens. These four actors are the backbone that carries the film.

The obvious B-movie status and low budget limits the possibilities, and sometimes the lack of effects is disturbing. But most of the time it doesn't matter too much (as long as you are prepared for it). We see some blood, and hear some profane language plus see some semi-nudity, but I was happy to see that neither were over-used but used for a reason. And this is one sign of the good script. It doesn't need to use cheap unmotivated sex and under-the-belt-jokes, it uses these themes sparingly in logical and therefore funny ways.

I find it amusing to compare the movie to Predator 2. The basic plots is the same, aliens come to the slum to hunt some wildlife. But from that point, they are totally different. Imagine a Predator posing by the victim, smiling, being photographed with a cheap tourist camera. And imagine it walking around in the open, looking like an average tourist. Hard to imagine? But there you have the basic premise. Same... but totally different.

Ok,

This movie is WEIRD. It tells the story of a family of aliens that come to earth on vacation. There they meet a guy who has just inherited his grandmother's hotel (which is in the middle of a "you don't want to live here" suburb riddled with crime).

They seem quite nice and fix up the old hotel in one night(!), but then we discover the darker side of these people. They LOVE violence (it's not done where they come from).

So they go out regularly to find trouble and have some nice violence, you could say.

It's not a good movie, but very original. Funny to see norm doing something else than cheers for a change. 7.

This little goofball won me over somehow. Watching Shanna Reed kill that guy with her excellent thighs was worth my time on it's own :-) Anyway, amazingly this was an entertaining movie. It appears everybody had a good time so I think that probably helped tremendously.

And of course.

The thighs scene man!! I can't remember the last time I watched a Roger Corman flick, and didn't feel I killed any brain cells. It was nice to see Norm (Norrrm!!!) get to ham it up in what ended up being a fairly well put together script.

This is on Showtime throughout April, and worth some giggles.

We had a blast with the creation of Alien Avenger as the movie was a unique experience to film daily. I was fortunate enough to play Officer Park, who was mostly seen in the station making copies and showing facial expression and slimed to death on the floor as Daphne jumped over me many times as I lay still, that was fun to make and I am hopeful everyone enjoys this classic. Roger Korman added his movie mystique to the filming and we filmed this mostly in the suburb of Los Angeles called Cypress Park at on old building that was and has since been rehabilitated on Ave 26 at I-5. Since moving to Las Vegas making the movie was a unique experience for me as this was an area in which I grew up in as well so it made the making of the movie that much more enjoyable. This was a great break for me from the daily sports world that I live and work in...I can only hope I can do some more movies such as this in the future.-Rich Perez

Wow...what a great movie! The first 15 minutes are a little heavy handed, with the whole "struggling young black man" thing. Trying to stay true to himself without becoming a crack dealer and then, his momma dies. Bummer. But once George Wendt and family show up it gets friggin' righteous! They really look like they had a good time making this movie. When George rips off a skinheads leg and beats him over the head with it, well, that's just golden...Roger Corman is hit or miss (but he does pump out, like, 17 movies a year) but he's pretty much on the nose with this flick. I've not seen the sequel, but I'll be seeking it out. The dialogue is pretty great and the bloodshed is AOK. The wife is by far the best, with her smokes, cat eye sunglasses and camera. If you like the idea of the mean streets of South LA being cleaned up by a pack of retro aliens this is a dream come true. Also worth it is the wife's dressing down of the druggies in the crack house, and the explanation given to an inmate as to why they get visitation rights with each other. "Cause we're special...and you're just a piece of sh*t child molester that should have been castrated with a dull knife before being executed", the line is delivered with the gleeful anticipation of a 9 year old on Christmas morning...truly, da bomb.