Alien Seed (1989)
Article 6003 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-29-2021
Directed by Robert Hyatt
Featuring Erik Estrada, Heide Paine, Steven Blade
Country: USA
What it is: For conspiracy addicts

A writer befriends a woman who had been abducted and impregnated by aliens. They run afoul of secret government agencies and their sadistic employees.

Here’s one of the ways to identify an exploitation film. If two of the characters just happen to work at a topless dancing bar so that the movie can show some nudity by setting some scenes there, the movie is probably at heart an exploitation film. And if you want to make a movie about space aliens so you can tap into the whole government conspiracy themes surrounding the subject, you’re also probably an exploitation film at heart. You get a mish-mash of science fiction and mysticism, but most of the movie seems to be about people involved in government conspiracies killing and/or torturing everybody who knows anything on sight. And once the central female character figures out she knows how to use guns as well, you won’t be surprised how this movie ends up. Erik Estrada is the name star here, and his evil Dr. Stone character is so broadly played that he finds himself in competition with several others for giving the worst performance in the film. This one is a forgotten obscurity, and I see no reason to change that status.

At the Hypnotist’s (1897)
aka Chez le magnetiseur
Article 6002 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-28-2021
Directed by Alice Guy
Cast unknown
Country: France
What it is: Early special effects short

A hypnotist magically adds and removes clothing from people.

Alice Guy didn’t direct many movies that had fantastic content, but this is one exception. It basically borrows some of Melies’ special effects to show the title character plying his trade, though it’s another case in which what we’re seeing has little to do with real hypnotism. It’s passable, but it’s mostly a curiosity of its time anymore.

Alien Nation (1988)
Article 6001 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-24-2021
Directed by Graham Baker
Featuring James Caan, Mandy Pantinkin, Terence Stamp
Country: USA
What it is: Alternate Universe buddy cop story

In an alternate universe where mankind has welcomed a large group of travelling aliens to live on the planet with them, a cop teams up with an alien despite his prejudices. His goal is to use the new cop’s expertise on his race to track down the alien who killed his former partner.

Easily the most interesting thing here is the basic premise that mankind is sharing earth with another sentient non-human race. I consider this a very promising set-up; you could do a lot of cultural exploration if you used the premise creatively and thoughtfully. That’s why it disappoints me a little that the movie chooses to use the buddy cop approach; it’s such a familiar plot set-up that when it does deal with the cultural differences between the two races, it feels more gimmicky than substantive. Not that it’s a bad movie, mind you; it’s entertaining enough in its own way. But if feels like a missed opportunity in that it could have been something a whole lot more. Still, I’m glad to see a TV-series was based on this; the premise would work better in a TV series than as a movie. Unfortunately, it appears that the series wasn’t all that much better.

Alien from L.A. (1988)
Article 5999 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-21-2021
Directed by Albert Pyun
Featuring Kathy Ireland, William R. Moses, Richard Haines
Country: USA / South Africa
What it is: Lost civilization on Helium

A troubled young woman goes abroad to the reported deathplace of her father, only to fall into a hole that leads to Atlantis. She discovers her father is alive and wants to rescue him, but her presence is noticed…

I don’t know if that’s Kathy Ireland’s real voice or whether it was just adopted for this movie, but it really doesn’t matter; the primary effect of using this squeaky high-pitched voice is to strip every emotional resonance from her dialogue and makes her sound like a perpetual whiner, and since she was primarily a supermodel, she doesn’t have the acting smarts to overcome that. Furthermore, the vision of Atlantis here is woefully undeveloped; it seems to consist mostly of strange costumes, weird makeup and the everpresent smoke/fog that was probably there to obscure the cheapness of the sets. Combined with the fact that all of the scenes have the same messy, busy feel and there’s not an interesting story to be found, you end up with one of those movies you will never revisit because it wasn’t worth visiting in the first place. Dismal.

After Midnight (1989)
Article 5997 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-14-2021
Directed by Jim Wheat and Ken Wheat
Featuring Jillian McWhirter, Pamela Adlon, Ramy Zada
Country: USA
What it is: Horror anthology with a message

An unorthodox professor teaching a course on the “Psychology of Fear” intends to make his points by actually scaring his students.  When he is forced to use more conventional methods in his class, he holds informal sessions in his home, where he has the students tell terrifying stories.  One involves an old dark house, another involves a psycho and his killer dogs, and the third is about a terrorized telephone operator.

I’ve seen enough shoddy horror anthologies in my life that I’ve come to expect the worst from ones I’ve not heard about, but this one was much better than I expected.  One of the things that makes it interesting is that it sets forth a theory that what can really happen is much scarier than what seems far-fetched and impossible, and the scary stories here are particularly lacking in supernatural touches; instead, we get a backfired practical joke and two psychos.  The first story is the weakest, largely because it takes way too much time setting up an overly familiar situation in the first place; the other two are fairly suspenseful.  However, I notice that the framing story isn’t above resorting to the supernatural when it feels like it; in fact, anyone who has seen the 1945 classic DEAD OF NIGHT will recognize what’s happening in the final moments of the movie. Personally, I do take some issue with reality vs. supernatural slant of the movie; for me, the horror movies with the supernatural are more fun than the ones without it. 

The Abyss (1989)
Article 5996 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-11-2021
Directed by James Cameron
Featuring Ed Harris, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Michael Biehn
Country: USA
What it is: Underwater thriller

Military forces take over an underwater oil rig to find out the cause of a submarine accident in the vicinity. However, when an intelligent non-terrestrial alien species shows up, it’s up the workers in the oil rig to keep the military from destroying the aliens.

I’m not a big fan of the big budget popcorn movie, but if I had to pick some of my favorites, a few James Cameron movies would make the cut. He knew how to develop his characters to the point where you liked and cared about them, and he was extremely good at creating coherent action sequences. This was one of his more ambitious efforts; it feels something like an underwater cross between CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND and ALIEN, and E.T. – it borrows a bit from each of those movies, and even has a sequence that recalls 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY. I don’t quite like it as much as a couple of his earlier films, but it is a worthy effort. It’s a little bit slow out of the gate (the plot doesn’t really get cracking until the aliens show up), and it occasionally falls into a few cliches of the era, but I find these flaws forgiveable.

Abby (1974)
Article 5995 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-7-2021
Directed by William Girdler
Featuring Carol Speed, William Marshall, Terry Carter
Country: USA
What it is: Blaxploitation EXORCIST rip-off

A demon accidentally released by a Bishop takes possession of his son’s wife, a woman named Abby.

Apparently, this movie was pulled from circulation shortly after release as a result of Warner Brother’s suit against AIP for ripping off THE EXORCIST. That should give you an idea of how close the plot of this one is in comparison with the original. Still, there are differences. The cast is almost entirely black, for one thing. Second is that, like almost every other rip-off I’ve seen of the movie, the possession is of a fully grown woman rather than a child, no doubt giving the film-makers a better chance of dealing with the fact that the possessor is supposedly a “demon of sexuality”. The third is that, unlike THE EXORCIST, this one is simply not scary; in fact, I find if you consider it a comedy, it works better, especially as the demon’s lines are pretty silly stuff. At any rate, this one is abysmal enough that no one is likely to confuse the two movies. My biggest question has to do with the title of the movie; after all, the seventies was the decade of BLACULA, BLACKENSTEIN, and DR. BLACK, MR. HYDE, so why didn’t they call it THE BLAXORCIST?