Thursday Movie Picks: Aliens

From time to time in my life, I've been asked whether or not I believe there are other life forms on some other planet. I've always said yes. My logic is really simple. Look up at the sky at all the stars. Between them, lord knows how many planets are between them. Our sky extends into space which goes on farther than any of us can imagine. There has to be someone out there.

What would happen if that someone found a way to make it here? That's essentially the topic for this week's Thursday Movie Picks. Aliens. Given how I started this post, it would be easy to suggest three deep, philosophical movies on the subject. At the very least, I should suggest something good, right? Where's the fun in that? You want the "good" stuff, you better check out our host Wanderer's site, Wandering Through the Shelves and see what she and everyone else picked because that's generally not how we roll around here. 'Round these parts, when possible, we take all those movies you know and love and toss those to the side. We just keep on tossing until we get to the bottom of the barrel. When we get there we scrape that gummy substance from the barrel floor and present it to you. This, ladies and gentlemen, is where I found my aliens.

Plan 9 From Outer Space

(1959)

Starting here is actually not quite bottom of the barrel because it's gotten quite popular. I've even picked for a prior installment of TMP. Still, I couldn't resist taking. Some alien race from somewhere has come to Earth and wants to take it over. Their plan starts with reanimating human corpses to do their bidding. That's actually not a terrible plan if you can pull it off. It's also not the first plan the aliens had. Read the title, it's the ninth plan. No clue what the first eight entailed. In case you didn't know the making of this film makes up a huge chunk of the Tim Burton film about the director of Plan 9, the incomparable Ed Wood. Yes, you really can see the strings attached to the flying saucers. Look at that gif again. Yes, people wave guns around with the same careless abandon they would an ink pen. Yes, there really is stock footage of Bela Lugosi haphazardly shoehorned into the film even though the man had been dead for over two years. Yes, the guy that doubled for Lugosi in other shots was the real life chiropractor of Wood's wife. He was also much taller than the screen legend and looked nothing like him. Yes, this is the movie often hailed as the worst film ever made. Needless to say, it's so bad it's awesome!

 Howard the Duck

(1986)

Somewhere out there is a planet very similar to Earth, called Duckworld, but with one glaring difference. The dominant species are, um, ducks. I don't mean regular ducks. I mean three foot tall, fully anthropomorphic ducks. In other words, they're just like human beings, except they're not. Hell, when we first meet Howard, he's looking at the centerfold in Playduck magazine. I wish I was making this up. Through some contrived something or other one of them, named Howard, finds himself on our planet, in Cleveland, Ohio. All types of bizarre shenanigans ensue, including Howard attempting to bury his face in an elderly woman's ass, the police strip-searching him, and Jeffrey Jones taking his act from Ferris Beuller's Day Off up about a thousand notches because his character gets possessed by an alien. Strangest of all, we see Howard and Lea Thompson getting jiggy with it. Makes you wonder about Ms. Thompson. In Back to the Future she desperately wants to get it on with her own son and here she fucks a duck. Sigh. For all of you that claim to be sick of comic book movies, be damn glad these aren't the types of comic book movies they're making these days. I'm a little saddened by this fact because this is so bad it's awesome!

Femalien

(1996)

So there's this alien race that has evolved beyond the point of existing as physical beings. They are merely beams of light. No, seriously. For some reason that only makes sense in the land of Skinemax movies, they get a longing to experience pleasures of the flesh. Since they share a collective memory, or some mumbo jumbo like that, there's no need for all of them to try it. They give just one, Kara, human form and send her to Earth to experience as much pleasure as possible so they call all know what it feels like. Lots of soft-core humping ensues. It's clear that during my lifetime I've spent way too much time in front of a television set after midnight. Oh, and lest you think this cinematic marvel was a fluke, there is also a Femalien II. Wonders never cease. And both movies are so bad they're titillating. At least they were before internet porn took over the world.

Click Below For More Thursday Movie Picks

Astronauts

Alien Invasions of Earth

Science Fiction Movies (No Space/Aliens)

Movies About Time Travel