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Not of This Earth

Plot

A stranger in town has some big plans that could mean the end of humanity as we know it in this blend of comedy and sci-fi thrills. Nadine Story (Traci Lords) is a nurse working in the office of Dr. Rochelle (Ace Mask) when she encounters a very unusual patient -- the mysterious Mr. Johnson (Arthur Roberts), who is always dressed in black, wears dark sunglasses indoors and demands a blood transfusion. After Dr. Rochelle tests Johnson's blood, he's surprised to discover the man's body isn't producing blood in the usual manner, and Johnson hires Nadine to work in his home and give him regular transfusions. As Nadine fends off the advances of Johnson's ex-con chauffeur and go-fer Jeremy (Lenny Juliano), he discovers that people have a habit of showing up at Johnson's door but not going home again. With her help of her boyfriend, a motorcycle cop named Harry (Roger Lodge), Nadine discovers Johnson has a shocking secret -- he's an emissary from the planet Davanna, who is looking for a ready supply of human blood his people need to survive. Not Of This Earth was a remake of the 1957 film of the same name directed by Roger Corman, who served as executive producer for this version as well as distributing the picture. It was the first mainstream feature for former adult film actress Traci Lords, and features her last nude scene to date. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Review

Roger Corman has always been a filmmaker eager to find new ways to stretch a dollar, and in the 1980s he began to realize he didn't always have to come up with a fresh idea when he had a big stack of old properties that could easily be remade. One of Corman's earlier efforts in retreading his old pictures was 1988's Not Of This Earth, which follows the same story as one of his double-bill quickies from the 1950s but puts a very different spin on the material. Corman's original 1957 Not Of This Earth was one of the best of his low-budget sci-fi projects, but Jim Wynorski's 1988 remake opts to play the story for laughs, and lays the camp and wink-and-nudge humor on a bit too thick for its own comfort. Wynorski's Not Of This Earth doesn't seem to know if it's set in the 1950s or the '80s, with many of the characters driving vintage cars and wearing retro outfits while the city surrounding them exists in another era, and most of the abundant undraped women in the movie are at least briefly draped in the finest of mid-80s sleaze wear. The jokes in the screenplay by Wynorski and R.J. Robertson are thuddingly obvious and generate as many groans as laughs, while the narrative seems less the point than the occasional bursts of low-budget special effects (sometimes rescued from other films from Corman's library) and the presence of various bimbos displaying their surgically enhanced talents. Most of the cast overplays, particularly Lenny Juliano's Jeremy, who seemingly begs for a punch in the mouth. The movie's most positive attribute turns out to be -- who knew? -- Traci Lords, who made her mainstream debut with this picture after ending her career in hardcore porn in a hail of scandal. If Lords isn't a great actress in this picture, she's at least charismatic, has significantly better comic timing than most of the cast, and has the looks and charm of a movie star (a cut-rate movie star, but a star nonetheless) in a movie full of folks struggling to made the D List. At a time when it seemed questionable if Traci Lords had any future after her days as the tabloid media's shock story of the month faded away, Not Of This Earth showed she had the pluck and the skills to carry a picture, and if this particular vehicle isn't much of a burden, in this company she looks like a winner. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

Cast

Ava Cadell - Second Hooker; Michael de Lano - Vacuum Cleaner Salesman; John Dresden - Simmons; Monique Gabrielle - Agnes; Lenny Juliano - Jeremy; Becky Le Beau - Happy Birthday Girl; Traci Lords - Nadine Story; Kelli Maroney - Nurse Oxford; Ace Mask - Dr. Rochelle; Rebecca Perle - Davanna Girl; Cynthia Ann Thompson; Kim Dawson - Girl in House; Zoran Hochstätter - Beam Man; Murray Miller - Davanna Man at Grave; R.J. Robertson - Punker #4; Paul Shaver - Punker #3; Arthur Roberts - Mr. Johnson; Roger Lodge - Harry; Roxanne Kernohan - Lead Hooker

Credit

Al Guarino - Casting, Murray Miller - Co-producer, Jim Wynorski - Co-producer, Libby Jacobs - Costume Designer, Jim Wynorski - Director, Kevin Tent - Editor, Chuck Cirino - Composer (Music Score), Hayden Yates - Production Designer, Zoran Hochstätter - Cinematographer, Charles B. Griffith - Screen Story, Mark Hanna - Screen Story, R.J. Robertson - Screenwriter, Jim Wynorski - Screenwriter

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