10 Films That Wanted To Be Alien
"They fell from space and they were hungry!"
It’s difficult to say which 70s blockbuster inspired the worst imitations, but Alien must be right up there. The Exorcist gave us House Of Exorcism, Jaws begat Tentacles and Star Wars spawned Starcrash, but Ridley Scott’s film was responsible for some of the trashiest movies that ever met a projector bulb.
The trouble with sci-fi is that in order for a movie to succeed it requires good actors and decent special effects, something that never troubled the hucksters who rushed to cash in on the movie’s success. Just cast a screaming starlet who looks good in or out of her space suit, add a rubber monster whose zipper is hidden by shadows and –presto! – you’ve got a releasable movie.
Even when budgetary constraints mean that the action has to be relocated to Earth, there’s still fun to be had from watching inept filmmakers cater to the lowest common denominator. You know a movie has achieved legendary status when it inspires thousands of films whose sole element of interest is watching the monster tear apart the supporting cast. Eat your heart out, William Friedkin.
What follows are ten of the most enjoyably absurd Alien rip-offs, each of which is guaranteed to whet your appetite for Alien: Covenant.
10. Creature
Here we go again: another group of space explorers land on a distant planet and encounter an alien creature that according to the poster has been “sleeping peacefully for 2000 years….until now!”
What separates Creature from your average Alien wannabe is Klaus Kinski as a flaky German scientist who’s given to bug-eyed ranting or muttering gibberish while devouring a sandwich. According to director William Malone, Kinski introduced himself to the filmmaker with a “joke” about how he once raped his daughter and he certainly brings a level of unpredictability to his role. Like him or loathe him, Kinski is really something to see.
He’s the sole saving grace in an otherwise uninteresting film that unfolds as you’d expect, though fans of American Dad might get a kick out of watching Wendy Schaal facing off against Kinski.