Bullet Points: Alien Intruder

PM Entertainment loved a lot of things during the run. Chaotic car chases and sultry saxophone music are probably at the top of the list, but you can’t overlook their devotion to the sci-fi/action genre or their willingness to inject some sexual content into the mix. The sex served two purposes, it distracted viewers from the fact that PM was doing sci-fi on a budget and it opened up the audience who’d be willing to rent a movie like 1993’s Alien Intruder…

• Mutiny on the Holly: The cold open begins in the cold confines of outer space, more specifically the salvage vessel, the U.S.S. Holly. The crew find themselves at odds with one another. What is the crew fighting about!?!? A beautiful and mysterious woman known as Ariel (Tracy Scoggins, Toy Soldiers). One crew member in particular is especially infatuated with Ariel, Lt. Borman (Jeff Conaway, A Time to Die) and he is willing to take out whoever stands in the way of making Ariel his wife, that includes Captain Loring (Michael DeLano, Deadly Bet). Borman kills Loring and then can’t believe what he has done. Who is Ariel!?!?! How did she get on board?!? Is she some sort of alien intruder!?!?! Cue the opening credits…

• A Few Good Men: Back on Earth in the year 2022, Commander Skyler (Billy Dee Williams, Shooting Stars) is at New Alcatraz Maximum Security Prison looking for a few good men to go on the potential suicide mission that is recovering the U.S.S. Holly and towing it back to Earth. Skyler with the help of Warden O’Neil has selected men who have been sentenced to life in prison, correctly figuring that these men would be willing to risk their lives if it meant freedom if they accomplish their mission… First up, Skyler gets himself a navigator in the form or Nick (Maxwell Caulfield, Prey of the Jaguar)… Then there’s DJ the computer expert… Demolition man Lloyd… And last but not least, Peter the engineer, played by Stephen Davies of Rage and Honor and Bloodfist VII: Manhunt fame. If their freedom wasn’t enough of an incentive, Commander Skyler sweetens the deal with the “Aphrodite Program”… basically once Friday hits, they go into VR chambers and get to have VR sex all weekend long… PM Entertainment, you magnificent bastards.
• Gotta Get Down on Friday: We now join Skyler and the crew as the months long mission is already in progress and can you guess what day it is?!?! It’s Friday, Friday! Lloyd and DJ are talking about their Aphrodite plans for the weekend and it isn’t long before we get the opportunity to become voyeurs… Lloyd is having a wild, wild, west sexcapade… Peter has selected a sultry black and white Casablanca style fantasy… DJ is part of a biker gang, wreaking havoc back in the 1950s… And then there’s Nick, who is having himself a day at a beach with a very willing buxom bikini model. But there’s one thing all of the individual fantasies have in common… Ariel shows up in all of them… and suddenly the opening of the movie begins to make a little more sense.

• Back to Work: Once the weekend is over, the crew is back to work… Nick gets concerned that while he was in VR land, Commander Skyler changed the ship’s course to the uncharted dead space that is G sector… Meanwhile, Peter is concerned that the song Skyler was singing in his fantasy, is now playing over the ship’s speakers… If that wasn’t enough, a pipe bursts on the ship everyone is scrambling to correct that issue and trying to figure out how it even happened… It is also becoming obvious that something isn’t quite right with Commander Skyler, who spends most of his day drinking and searching for Ariel on the ship’s computer. At least the weekend has arrived…
• How About Fantasy Land?: The guys hop back into their VR worlds and the action picks up as Ariel’s interference gets more extreme… Lloyd has a shootout with some outlaws in his wild west scenario… DJ is getting into a biker brawl outside of a gas station that ends with Ariel blowing up the gas station! If only one of them would have had a fantasy that involved a car chase to remind us that this was in fact a PM Entertainment movie. Everyone is snapped out of their VR fantasies when it feels like the ship is falling apart… the ship has entered the G sector and its becoming the U.S.S. Holly’s distress signal! This is also about the same time the guys realize they have all seen the same woman in their fantasies… are they about to suffer the same fate as the crew of the ship they are attempting to recover!?!?!

Alien Intruder never fully explains who or what Ariel is or maybe more importantly why she wants to screw with the crews of space vessels, despite her being really good at it. Scoggins was perfectly cast as the VR temptress… it was no stretch that all these dudes were head over heels in love with her and willing to kill for her. I will never tire of seeing Billy Dee Williams movies that I missed out on and this ended up being a much different role for Billy Dee than the norm.

It’s the norm for me to end a review with some Bonus Bullet Points…

• Favorite Quote: “Why don’t you go stick plastic down your pants and blow yourself?” – DJ to Lloyd
• One Thing I Didn’t Know: The western town that Lloyd visits in his VR fantasy, is the same Paramount Ranch town that was used on the Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman series.
• Reunited: Tracy Scoggins and Maxwell Caulfield previously worked together on the Dynasty spinoff, The Colbys.