Dr. Alien

A witless teen sex comedy that typifies everything that went wrong with genre films in the late 1980s. Troy Donahue grabs a quick paycheck for his cameo as a college professor who gets injured in a car crash caused by a UFO. His replacement is statuesque blonde Judy Landers, who's really an alien doing fertility experiments on Earth to help cure the sterile population of her home planet. She injects some green stuff into a straight-laced, unpopular, necktie-wearing nerd, causing him to grow a tentacle/antenna thing that occasionally pops up from the top of his head and instantly hypnotizes women into wanting to have sex with him. Supposed hilarity ensues. You can tell it's supposed to be funny but there isn't anything clever about it. The nerd learns to loosen up and be himself, leading to a muddled moral message for teens, which naturally is the old "believe in yourself and you can do anything" bromide. Since the kid only became popular after developing an impossible new body part that automatically hypnotizes people, the message feels as ill-fitting as it is trite. The pleasant surprise is the makeup. When Landers pulls off her human face to reveal the bulbous-headed, pointy-eared, bug-eyed alien form underneath, the special effects are so good that it's amazing to see them in a movie this cheap and lowbrow. Greg Cannom provided the alien effects, and his makeup work is really terrific. It's a great looking alien that deserved to be in a better film. The same director made (among tons of other undistinguished junk) CREEPAZOIDS, referenced several times here, once as the name on a prop breakfast cereal box and again when one character is shown watching it on TV. Linnea Quigley and Michelle Bauer appear briefly as tramps. For some reason, promotional art for DR. ALIEN used an altered photo that crudely replaced Landers' hypo with an awkwardly positioned test tube. Somebody must have worried that a photo of a woman holding a syringe full of bright green fluid would be interpreted as an endorsement of heroin use. Only in America. This was announced as I WAS A TEENAGE SEX MUTANT, and a very 80's-sounding song by that title is heard on the soundtrack.

"Dr. Alien" is an enjoyably goofy production from Full Moon, a pleasingly sleazy schlock comedy with lively performances and an overall harmless appeal to it. It may be silly, but the truth is it's just about impossible to resist.

A number of familiar faces fill out major and supporting parts, so B movie lovers will be happy to see them all here. Billy Jayne, whom you may have seen in "Bloody Birthday", "Cujo", "Just One of the Guys", and 'Parker Lewis Can't Lose', stars as Wesley, a straight arrow, wimpy college student who agrees to help out with a scientific project for extra credit in his biology class. Trouble is, his new teacher, Ms. Xenobia (veteran TV bimbo Judy Landers) isn't playing it totally straight with him, and the "vitamin" that she tests on him transforms him into an irresistible stud, complete with a chittering worm that pops out of his head.

Very amiable from beginning to end, "Dr. Alien" may not have its viewers necessarily laughing out loud but it may have them smiling, at the least. It's got amusing makeup effects by Greg Cannom and his team and a non-stop, upbeat pop & rock soundtrack. It's also quite sexy, and voyeurs will love the generous servings of breast shots that director Dave DeCoteau provides. In addition to the perky Ms. Landers, the lovely ladies of the movie include Olivia Barash ("Repo Man"), Ginger Lynn, Linnea Quigley, and Laura Albert as the rocker chicks, Michelle Bauer and Karen Russell as co-eds, and Elizabeth Kaitan as a waitress. The solid schlock movie supporting cast features such people as Stuart Fratkin ("Teen Wolf Too") as the obligatory obnoxious best friend, Raymond O'Connor ("Halloween 4: The Return of Michael Myers") as Xenobias' nerdy associate, Arlene Golonka ("The In-Laws") as Wesley's mom, Jaynes' real-life brother Bobby ("Tremors") as his sibling, and Edy Williams ("Chained Heat") as a gym teacher. Troy Donahue gets prominent billing, but actually isn't in the movie for very long.

If you're looking for some dumb trashy fun, "Dr. Alien" is recommended. Hell, one can't knock any lowbrow comedy that actually works a message about self-esteem into its mix. It's fairly fast paced stuff with a reasonably short running time and enough gags to make it palatable.

Six out of 10.

Judy Landers plays a doctor from space who selects a teenager as a guinea pig for her sexual experiments (just don't expect to see her bare anything in any version: her typecast wholesome and innocent nature remains mostly intact for this film, keeping her at least a step above Farrah Fawcett in talent). This leaves the teen with a phallic antenna on top of his head that drives women crazy, leading to many odd and often uninvited sexual encounters with everyone from the cheerleader squad to the school faculty.

In this millennium, we have films like Not Another Teen movie and the direct-to-video American Pie: Band Camp. In the 80s and 90s, teenagers in the throes of puberty had movies like this, which aired on USA's Up All Night several times during the late 80s/early 90s under the title "I Was a Teenage Sex Project." I gave this movie a 4 out of 10 for its place in filmdom, but for movies of its genre it deserves a 7 at the very least. I'd say it was one of the last great T&A movies to make it to the masses, more for Judy Landers than anything, and I put it right up there with Zapped, Once Bitten and a few others. After "Up All Night" went off the air and Ronda Shear and Gilbert Gottfried had to get real jobs, the line between simple eye candy and soft-core porn became so blurred that movies like this are only seen on premium cable after midnight, and T&A movies these days no longer try to be subtle with their humor. This film was produced just as the quality of this genre began to die of asphyxia, and very few made after it are worth seeing (and those of us who remember seeing Dr. Alien when it first came out are just a bit old to be watching 19-year-olds bounce around in the nude). Simply put, this was one of those movies that didn't need too much editing to be enjoyed for a good tease on basic cable, but of course you'd have to hit a local video store to see all the bare skin (That's why these movies were made, folks, so don't shoot the messenger). If you were a teenage boy in late 80s or even a bit younger, you might find this good for a nostalgic cheesy laugh coupled with an anatomy lesson, but if you're a teenage boy now with the same afflictions, then something more recent is probably what you're after (by this time most of the girls are old enough to be your mother anyway).

This was pretty close to being tolerable.

"Dr. Alien" (or whatever title it may happen to be under when you see it next) is basically a story about an alien (Landers) who tests a high school nerd Jacoby (Jayne) with a serum that makes him the object of desire of nearly every nubile girl in immediate range.

The fact that I remembered the plot is in itself amazing; everything here is just a setup for whatever lame-brained sight gag the film makers can come up with.

But some of them work. The flustered parent bit is tried and true, Jayne is willing to do what it takes for the laughs, he fronts a rock band in what must have been an afterthought, Landers actually turns into an alien at one point, Troy Donahue gets blown up before the beginning credits roll and then there's the women, God bless them.

If the movie starts getting boring, just pop in a half-dressed or undressed girl and then who cares about the plot? Not me. Two and a half stars. You want a good brain-dead night of laughs and T & A (heavy on the T), call this "Dr.".

My review was written in February 1989 after watching the movie on Paramount/Phantom video cassette.

Sci-fi meets teen sex comedy in "Dr. Alien", a campy direct-to-video film. It was more colorfully (and accurately) titled "I Was a Teenage Sex Mutant" when pre-sold by Charles Band's organization years ago.

Tone recalls the Scott Baio-starrer "Zapped", and the new pic is likely to establish its own healthy following in ancillary media. Billy Jacoby is a nerdish college freshman selected by new biology teacher Judy Landers for an experiment. She's an alien from planet Altaria, who's killed biology prof Troy Donahue and is testing a formula on Jacoby in support of repopulating her world, whose males are dying out.

Filmmaker David DeCoteau juggles numerous staples of the various teen genres:Jacoby is converted into a hip dude after the first injection (and sexual initiation) by Landers; he joins rock band The Sex Mutants, and his best pal Stuart Fratkin ogles the girls' gym class for voyeur action. Girls can't resist Jacoby, including zoftig Julie Gray, girlfriend of school bully Scott Morris.

Harmless fun is easy to take, the excellent makeup effects by John Vulich include a tentacle growing out of the top of Jacoby's head and a huge blue head for Landers' real self that allows the comedienne to inject her own personality into her monster-masked scenes. Landers is quite funny, ably matched by Jacoby.