Le vampire de l'espace

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.

Not of this Earth (1988, Dir. Jim Wynorski)

A mysterious stranger known only as Mr. Johnson turns up and demands a blood transfusion. Dr. Rochelle grants him the blood, and sends his nurse Nadine Story to stay with him, in order for him to get his daily transfusion. Dr. Rochelle becomes interested in Mr. Johnson's blood, especially when it turns out to be nothing like normal human blood. It gets even weirder, when Mr. Johnsons servant, Jeremy notices people entering the house and not leaving. Nadine decides that she must search the house in order to find out the truth about Mr. Johnson.

I wan't expecting a classic when i put 'Not of this Earth' into my DVD player, and although i was right about it not being a classic, i did surprisingly enjoy it. There are a lot of cheap movies, which are just painful to sit through and look so unprofessional, but this was not one of them. The acting was actually very good. Traci Lords was good, especially since she was a porn star before this. Arthur Roberts was good at playing a sinister villain. You really do feel there was something hiding with him. The film was advertised as rated 18 for sex scenes and nudity, but i didn't feel as if they was any more than you would find in a 15 certificate film. The nudity was very brief and only happened in small scenes. A scene where three hookers were topless turned me off more than on. The violence was very little and the special effects were pretty much cartoon. Still, it was fun to watch on a Saturday night.

"That's a nice little mole you have on your left cheek." - Jeremy (Lenny Juliano)

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.

Before you decide whether or not you want to watch this movie, consider the following questions: Do I want to see lots of freaky aliens and spectacular special effects? Do I want to see lots of half-naked women? If your answer to either of these questions is, yes, then you may be disappointed. The weird aliens and gory scenes we see during the opening credits aren't included in the story and, overall, the special effects are mediocre compared to what you would see in a good sci-fi blockbuster. The story's main appeal is suspense and intrigue. For a bonus, we get a generous look at voluptuous Traci Lords in a swimsuit.

The movie begins when an alien arrives on Earth and kills two young lovers in a secluded place. After this brief introduction to the story, we then see the credits. Set to eerie music, we get glimpses of horrible looking aliens and young terrorized women running, being raped, and giving unnatural birth to hideous creatures. Exactly the kind of thing I DID NOT WANT TO SEE! Perhaps Roger Corman found this montage to be artistic, but all he did was tell me that I was watching another low-budget science fiction-horror flick with a thoughtless plot, bad acting, bogus special effects, and disgusting gore. Fortunately, these scenes seem to have been lifted from earlier works and have no connection whatsoever with the actual story.

The more credible story that Corman tells is one of a very human looking alien with a strange disease, who relies on blood transfusions to remain alive. His intriguing problem is the main reason why I watched the film to the end. Unfortunately, Corman tried too hard to provide us with gratuitous glimpses of young women in various states of undress.

It works well when the model is Traci Lords, who plays the role of a young nurse, Nadine Story, and is quite stunning in a swimsuit. Her natural looking breasts were a welcome contrast to the "plastic" enhancements that have become a staple of modern B-movies. I'm relieved that the movie was made 20 years ago, a time before breast jobs had become "over inflated".

Even though sexy women are an important attraction, I still don't want them presented in a clumsy fashion. Corman's "excuse" for revealing Traci's curvaceous body is the simple fact that in the context of the story they are in the middle of a heat wave, and Nadine had a swimming pool in the house that she was staying in. Fair enough, given that Traci acts well enough to play a leading role in a B movie, but Corman doesn't stop there. He shows us more and more half-dressed women, often for entirely pointless reasons, who aren't nearly as good looking as Traci.

If you like Traci, and I expect you will, you have plenty of her earlier porn movies to choose from, which are doubtless more revealing. If, on the other hand, you want to see some skin, but you find endless scenes of orgies to be boring at best and at worst disgusting, like myself you're stuck trying to find a B-movie with good looking young models who act reasonably well and are cast in story that is at the very least plausible. In which case this movie is OK, but could have been better.