Not of This Earth

'Not of This Earth' is a quickly made, low budget, R rated, sci-fi movie. It's made very much in the style of the B movies of the 50s and 60s except for the R rating. The R rating comes from several scenes of topless women and some sexual activity. The star of the film is Traci Lords in her first role in a non-porno film. It is also supposedly the last time she appears topless in any film. I'm sure this is one of the big attractions of the movie to a lot of viewers. She did surprise me though by her acting. It really wasn't bad. There are several scenes that were put in the film of other topless, big breasted actresses. These scenes weren't really necessary to the plot but I doubt that many of the male viewers will voice an objection to them. At the beginning of the film while showing the opening credits, there are a lot of exciting scenes shown quickly. These are not in the movie. Don't expect to see them again. Although this is not made clear or pointed out, they are from other films. It still is an interesting and fun movie and has some pretty good scenes of it's own. The film has plenty of mistakes and bloopers to look for that were left in due to the low budget. I saw this on a DVD that also had a version with commentary going through the film with you. I found it very interesting and recommend that you watch this commentary version after watching the movie. 'Not of This Earth' is a fun movie that combines some light comedy, horror and sci-fi. The movie is not meant to be taken too seriously. It's best viewed by a non critical eye with the intent of just having a good time. This can be a really enjoyable and fun modern B movie if watched in the right frame of mind.

Truly stunning how such a cheap & rubbish plot can provide such a good & entertaining movie! The answer to this lies in the great performances of all main actors involved: Arthur Roberts, Traci Lords and Lenny Juliano. Each of them adapting very well to the sinister touch of this movie, each of them contributing to it. Their performances get extra depth by the down-to-earth play by Ace Mask (doctor) and Roger Lodge (policeman). Also added are a touch of sex and humor (birthday girl). As I said, the overall result is downright good. More so, 'Not from this earth' is a great B-movie.

I rented this out of curiosity to see how they remade the 1957 version which I saw several times as a youngster. The remake was fun to watch even though there is quite a bit of T & A which has very little to do with the plot. They retained much of what I remember from the original including a lot of the dialog, Johnson driving a 50's boat-tail Cadillac, his 5-phase mission, the metal case where Johnson first put the blood of his victims, Nadine's boyfriend being a policeman, and, of course, the ending. One notable omission was that the doctor wasn't killed.

It would be great if the original could be successfully transferred to DVD.

Never trust movies that show clips and fragments of exciting gory killings and slimy monster action during the opening credits. It certainly won't mean that you're about to witness this, or any other exhilarating gore, footage in the main feature. This is just another shameless gimmicky trick of the legendary B-movie producer Roger Corman to promote his other work. The credits contain footage of classic Corman produced trash, like "Humanoids from the Deep" and "Forbidden World", but furthermore there's no added value to it. "Not of this Earth", the first of two remakes of Roger Corman's own late 50's quickie with the same title, is a fairly charming Sci-Fi flick that completely exploits (and I'm very grateful for it) the ravishing body curves of former adult film star Traci Lords. Sleazy perverts as they are; producers Roger Corman and director Jim Wynorski grab every possible opportunity to slide the camera down Mrs. Lords' tantalizing body and obviously there are numerous completely gratuitous nudity sequences of herself as well as of others voluptuous soft-core starlets like Rebecca LeBeau, Roxanne Kernohan and Ava Cadell. Traci stars as a lurid private nurse giving blood transfusions to the mysteriously behaving Mr. Johnson. He turns out to be an alien scout on a mission to collect earthly beings – preferably prostitutes and stripper girls with massive racks – and send their blood through to another dimension in five different phases, or something like that. Admittedly I wasn't continuously paying full attention to the plot, but I blame Traci Lords' revealing outfits for that. "Not of this Earth" is an insignificant 80's Sci-Fi film, but nonetheless charming and cheesy enough to entertain fans of the genre.

This was a cheesy remake of the cheesy original "Not Of This Earth". They seem to have kept the plot and most of the dialogue intact while throwing in a lot of large-busted topless nudity. All that made it memorable for me was Traci Lords starting a "legitimate" film career after fooling a lot of people for a long time. While she's no Meryl Streep, she has talent and an undeniable screen presence. I think her previous career has limited her opportunities....but without it, how many opportunities would she have had? Back to the movie...I think they had fun making it, and left in some bloopers for viewers to find. Look for the scene where a car door is shut and you can see one of the crew, holding a boom mike, reflected in the shiny metal.