I was disappointed with this film mainly because I was expecting a different movie. To credit the film, this was an "X-File"' like plot before there was an "X-Files" show. However, the movie was as cheesy as it could be without taking place in Wisconsin.
This movie just took itself way too seriously. There was a lot of violence and action but little nudity and no sex, despite the theme of impregnation. The nudity is brief, only in the few strip club scenes, which implies more nudity and sex to follow when the scene first pops up, no pun intended, but alas, it's a tease. This is where Lisa Jordan, played by Heidi Paine, works. She's not a stripper, so we never see her naked. Instead, she is a waitress who needs a paying job while she's working on her thesis. That's right, writing a thesis for graduate work in academia is what she's doing; it makes perfect sense, right? Heidi is hot though. After all, strip clubs don't hire ugly women as waitresses . . . or so I'm told. She spends the whole movie answering the question, "Who really needs a bra anyway?" I know I don't!
There was another character that "aroused" interest. She was this assistant to a New Age reverend who happened to be wearing a leather mini-skirt, but the writers drop the character! Where did she go? You don't drop hot characters when your movie sucks, at least not before they get naked.
The director went with a surreal vision that doesn't work; the beginning is all over the map, making little sense. The story also has many parallels with the original "Terminator," like our heroes hiding out, how the movie ends, etc. Apologies for the "spoiler" there, but believe me, you can't spoil this crappy movie. Perhaps this direction would have worked if the production values weren't so low, but I doubt it.
The special effects looked like animation from a personal computer, a 1989 personal computer. The background 1980s synthesizer music was overdone, and the dialog was horrible. There is a part where some guy named "Officer Davis" comes forward with testimony that is way too specific. It makes little sense because everyone else who has come forward has been killed, so why did he testify? The answer is "exposition" of course. With that said, maybe some mystical force was at work, and the character became self-aware that he was in this flop, so he suicide-by-cops himself into a dirt nap to escape the script? Now that would be an interesting story, relative to this film's story anyway.
The editing was also atrocious. There is a particular car chase that goes from an exterior shot of the cars in a field, to an interior shot of one of the drivers. When you look over her shoulder, you can see that she's in the city. The shot goes back to the exterior view, and they're back in the field! There was also a scene where a writer was typing on a typewriter. Would you like to guess whether or not the typing sounds matched his keystrokes? If you said that they didn't match, you win a gold star.
Of course the actors were overly melodramatic, but I must give Erik Estrada some credit. He gave it his all. Ponch pulls no punches, earning his paycheck.
The stunts were also laughable. For example, there was a hit-and-run involving a pedestrian: the car stops, the pedestrian hops on the hood, and the car speeds away. Also, empty cardboard boxes stop a moving car involved in a chase, spinning the car out. I laughed my ass off again when they showed a motorcycle wreck in slow motion. In my view, that motorcycle could not have been going faster than 5 mph. They must have skipped insuring this film or something.
However, I will give the filmmakers credit for their use of squibs in the gun shot scenes. There were two really cool gunshot wounds, one in some lady's forehead and one in some guy's back that blasted through his stomach. The forehead shot elicited a genuine Keanu "Whoa!" from me.
In summary, this film is cheesy. I like cheesy films, but this one went the wrong way. It went the serious, violent way. The film should have gone the comedic, sexy, or even pervy way. The film is supposed to be about alien impregnation, so have fun with that! Instead, the aliens are barely in the picture, and they impregnate the ladies by zapping something through their bellybutton. I don't know about you, but if I'm traveling thousands of light-years to impregnate hot Earth women, I'm going to do it the fun way.
This film wasn't going to win Academy Awards; the only genre that would have worked for this film was the B-rated soft-core erotica genre. I could only imagine what the genius Alain Siritzky could have done with this project.
This movie just took itself way too seriously. There was a lot of violence and action but little nudity and no sex, despite the theme of impregnation. The nudity is brief, only in the few strip club scenes, which implies more nudity and sex to follow when the scene first pops up, no pun intended, but alas, it's a tease. This is where Lisa Jordan, played by Heidi Paine, works. She's not a stripper, so we never see her naked. Instead, she is a waitress who needs a paying job while she's working on her thesis. That's right, writing a thesis for graduate work in academia is what she's doing; it makes perfect sense, right? Heidi is hot though. After all, strip clubs don't hire ugly women as waitresses . . . or so I'm told. She spends the whole movie answering the question, "Who really needs a bra anyway?" I know I don't!
There was another character that "aroused" interest. She was this assistant to a New Age reverend who happened to be wearing a leather mini-skirt, but the writers drop the character! Where did she go? You don't drop hot characters when your movie sucks, at least not before they get naked.
The director went with a surreal vision that doesn't work; the beginning is all over the map, making little sense. The story also has many parallels with the original "Terminator," like our heroes hiding out, how the movie ends, etc. Apologies for the "spoiler" there, but believe me, you can't spoil this crappy movie. Perhaps this direction would have worked if the production values weren't so low, but I doubt it.
The special effects looked like animation from a personal computer, a 1989 personal computer. The background 1980s synthesizer music was overdone, and the dialog was horrible. There is a part where some guy named "Officer Davis" comes forward with testimony that is way too specific. It makes little sense because everyone else who has come forward has been killed, so why did he testify? The answer is "exposition" of course. With that said, maybe some mystical force was at work, and the character became self-aware that he was in this flop, so he suicide-by-cops himself into a dirt nap to escape the script? Now that would be an interesting story, relative to this film's story anyway.
The editing was also atrocious. There is a particular car chase that goes from an exterior shot of the cars in a field, to an interior shot of one of the drivers. When you look over her shoulder, you can see that she's in the city. The shot goes back to the exterior view, and they're back in the field! There was also a scene where a writer was typing on a typewriter. Would you like to guess whether or not the typing sounds matched his keystrokes? If you said that they didn't match, you win a gold star.
Of course the actors were overly melodramatic, but I must give Erik Estrada some credit. He gave it his all. Ponch pulls no punches, earning his paycheck.
The stunts were also laughable. For example, there was a hit-and-run involving a pedestrian: the car stops, the pedestrian hops on the hood, and the car speeds away. Also, empty cardboard boxes stop a moving car involved in a chase, spinning the car out. I laughed my ass off again when they showed a motorcycle wreck in slow motion. In my view, that motorcycle could not have been going faster than 5 mph. They must have skipped insuring this film or something.
However, I will give the filmmakers credit for their use of squibs in the gun shot scenes. There were two really cool gunshot wounds, one in some lady's forehead and one in some guy's back that blasted through his stomach. The forehead shot elicited a genuine Keanu "Whoa!" from me.
In summary, this film is cheesy. I like cheesy films, but this one went the wrong way. It went the serious, violent way. The film should have gone the comedic, sexy, or even pervy way. The film is supposed to be about alien impregnation, so have fun with that! Instead, the aliens are barely in the picture, and they impregnate the ladies by zapping something through their bellybutton. I don't know about you, but if I'm traveling thousands of light-years to impregnate hot Earth women, I'm going to do it the fun way.
This film wasn't going to win Academy Awards; the only genre that would have worked for this film was the B-rated soft-core erotica genre. I could only imagine what the genius Alain Siritzky could have done with this project.