Alien Outlaw

You can say a lot about this zero-budgeted amateur trash movie, but certainly not that it suffers from false modesty... The DVD-cover proudly cries out: "The movie that formed the inspiration for Predator!" Right, okay, I can maybe see some vague similarities, but to even try and compare this lame Z-grade nonsense with the sublime Schwarzenegger Sci-Fi/action classic is beyond preposterous. Another thing the DVD proclaims is: "From the creator of The Dark Power". That, on the other hand, should have triggered my brain to put the film safely back where it was. "The Dark Power" is one of the dullest and most imbecilic horror movies of the 80s, and "Alien Outlaw" isn't any better, in fact. The particular creator - Phil Smoot - must have had an epiphany in 1985, because wrote & directed his only two cheesy full-feature movies, and then vanished back into anonymity. In both movies, Smoot foresees crucial roles for his (I assume) personal childhood hero Lash LaRue; - a long retired actor who made a handful of western movies in the 1940s that nobody ever watched. The lead heroine is a travelling gunslinger expert named Jesse Jamison (get it?). She has such beautiful and sexy legs that she refuses to wear pants throughout the entire movie. Her two male employees are too busy sleeping around with local floozies, so Jesse is entirely alone to battle a couple of ugly aliens that land on earth and randomly start killing people. The aliens look like smaller versions of Chewbacca with bad hangovers and sunglasses. You'd also expect that the aliens bring along their hi-tech and far advanced space-armory, like laser guns or something, but nah. They just steal old-fashioned earthly pistols and twirl them around like Sunset Carson and Lash LaRue did in their stupid 40s westerns. This all may sound cheesy and fun enough, but you know very well that, in reality, this is the type of dreadfully tedious amateur flick with overlong and meaningless dialogues, atrocious acting, infantile humor and inept action footage. If you are really, really bored you can perhaps watch "Alien Outlaw" simply to gaze at Kari Anderson's beautiful legs, because it's the only movie she ever appeared in (and, judging by her acting skills, righteously so)

This sci-fi/comedy/western could've been a lot more entertaining with some expert editing, the performances by a cast of unknowns leave a lot to be desired also. Plot lines that lead no where, and a plodding story line make the 90 minutes seem like 3 hours. But if you like cheesy grade z action, with a tiny bit of gratuitous T&A thrown in you might want to lose 90 minutes you'll never get back. The entertainment I got from this shoe string budgeted flick was in watching the beautiful, almost scantily clad Kari Anderson (this was her only movie appearance??), and the chance to see two old (fairly well preserved) cowboy stars from the 40's Sunset Carson and Lash LaRue. An extra bonus for cowboy fans is the interview (more of a informal reminiscence for the old days of the B western) between Sunset and Lash.

I call this a perfect case movie because that's how much you'd have to drink to make it bearable. That being said, if you're drunk enough this might be watchable, it really is that bad. Plan 9 From Outer Space is a masterpiece compared to this disaster. Hey, toss me another beer.

I do not know what happened with this film as the premise sounds like it should of made a fun film; however, that is not the case as instead we get a film where scenes about virtually nothing go on and on and on! This film even features Lash La Rue and he does not even whip anything or have a whip in this film. Didn't the filmmakers know that was his trademark? Instead we get this supposed super shooter girl who can handle guns, but does not seem to keep track of when to reload. We get three aliens who go on the rampage with absolutely no reasoning behind their killing spree and their use of our weapons instead of something of their own.

The story, a ship crashes and after a long scene of a guy convincing a girl he has to go he becomes the first victim, allowing himself to have a gun taken from him and then being shot. A woman who is a supposed big deal is irked at her agent and goes to this place that keeps stressing how they are a great company to promote stuff to get new management. What does this have to do with the aliens? Soon the aliens ram into a girl and then we watch two guys at a river where one of them thinks vacationing means stripping down to your boxers and shooting things and the other one has the handy skill of being deadly accurate with a fishing pole. We find out that the dude who was killed at the beginning was related to Lash's character, but little tears are shed when they find out he has been killed. There is also a scene where a couple argues about a map at a gas station with almost the same ferocity as the characters in Blair Witch and then they speed off without their dog and did I mention there are aliens in this, because you can almost forget about them at times!

This film fails on so many levels to the point it is boring rather than so bad it's good. Too many scenes keep going without any payoff as they feel the need to show us the shooter interviewing for crying out loud. As I said, Lash gets top billing, but does not get to use a whip when there are three aliens because we have to show what an awesome shooter the girl is and they have to have her shoot with no pants on, which I understand as her ass is more attractive than her face.

So, not a good movie and not as fun as the premise should of made this movie be. The aliens are a bore and there is way too many scenes that add little to the film other than extending its run time. I think the same people that did this one also did a film called the Dark Power which also featured Lash, but he got to whip stuff in it and it was a bit more fun than this film which at times is very tedious to watch.

I have happy memories of a teenage summer staying near Sparta, NC, on one of the locations that this film uses. Specifically, in the film it was the farm house of the character played by Lash La Rue. I was staying with the family that owns that farm. The "barn" you see in some scenes there was actually the family's garage.

The film crew were there for several days and I joined in the shoot as a sort of unpaid runner, carrying things around. It was quite odd, not to say surreal, at times: a fifteen year old kid from the UK sitting on the porch chatting alternately with a grumpy B-western star, then the long legged heroine (they were FANTASTIC legs), then the "aliens", without their helmets. At lunchtimes we had fried chicken, mashed potato , biscuits and gravy I seem to remember. Tasted very good! At one point I overheard the director say something particularly uncomplimentary about his own film. He struck me as someone who could have made much better films if he had had the resources.

I just got the DVD, having never watched the film and it really is difficult to say anything positive about it as a piece of cinema. As a memento of the best summer of my life though it is priceless.