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The Aliens are Coming
USA 1980
produced by Philip Saltzman, Quinn Martin (executive) for Quinn Martin Productions/NBC
directed by Harvey Hart
starring Tom Mason, Eric Braeden, Max Gail, Melinda O.Fee, Fawne Harriman, Caroline McWilliams, Matthew Laborteaux, John Milford, Hank Brandt, Curtis Credel, John Gilgreen, Laurence Haddon, Ed Harris, William Kerwin, Richard Lockmiller, Ron Masak, Gerald McRaney, Laurie Beach, Sean G.Griffn, Tom Lowell, Chris O'Brien, Dirk Olthof, Tom Pittman, Nancy Priddy, Peter Schuck, Lorna Thayer
written by Robert W. Lenski, music by William Goldstein
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Some secret (gouvernment?) organisation has witnessed the landing of an
UFO, so they send one of their men, Scott (Tom Mason), out to investigate.
With his eccentric and unorthodox methods coupled with an ingenious mind,
Scott soon figures the aliens are apparently hell-bent to take over the
Hoover Dam near Las Vegas and are beings of almost pure energy who can
take over humans at will, humans like Russ (Max Gail), one of the dam's
engineers who has been acting weird lately. But while Scott tries to track
down Russ, the aliens are also starting to track down him, and make a
couple attempts on his life and try to take him over just like Russ - all
of which fails of course. It all culminates in an extended chase through
the interiors of the Hoover Dam during which Scott destroys the machine
that feeds Russ's alien parasite while inside the human body, but he saves
Russ's life when he's about to fall down some scaffolding. Later, Russ
wakes up in hospital with no memory of what has happened to him, while
Scott, his superior (Eric Braeden) and his colleague (Melinda O.Fee) know
they'll never be able to tell their story to anybody and have to take care
of the aliens that might still be around ... A pilot for a proposed television
series that was fortunately never made - fortunately because the basic
formula of the pilot allows to few variations to make this into something
interesting. Taken as a film by itself though, The Aliens are Coming
is not too bad, just an enjoyably silly piece of trashy, low budget
science fiction with some of the most ridiculous plastic aliens around
(though their scenes are all too few and far between), and a plot that
takes itself too seriously for its own good but to hilarious results. That
said, it might not be a laugh-a-ton like some other trashfilms around, but
it's still worth a few chuckles and is probably best watched with a couple
of beers.
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