stockholm syndrome with aliens and Flea does product placement with a pack of Oreos

Everyone is talking about Snakes on A Plane so New Line Cinema is at the top of the world (see Entertainment Weekly), but every studio has had it's moments that they wish would be forgotten. I have not been reviewing to much old stuff lately, but remember I have a massive tape library and I did have time to grab a tape last night. From the executive producers of Critters and A Nightmare on Elm Street, or so the back of the box informed me - I sat through the terrible 1987 horror/sci-fi disaster, Stranded.

What's up? Teenage girl and Grandma live in the woods. A family of aliens, looking like Star Trek TNG cast members, beam down into their living room. Bad time for the local hicks to drop by and deliver a bag of unnamed something -I don't know what, was it supposed to be weed? The younger hick shoots one of the aliens on site, cause it looks different from him, you know. The hick is laser blasted. By the time the cops show up Grandma has already made friends with one of the aliens, played by Flea, though I did not recognize him in the make-up. After a review pointed this out it clicked - of course - and the review also pointed out that this was the most annoying alien of the bunch. A kind of monkey-like creature nicknamed Jester, he says "Grandma" in the movie's last scene - barf! By the, what is up with this version of the video art - Ione Skye is not that famous!

Of course there is a teenage boy alien who comes pretty close to making it with the human teenage girl, or maybe they would just cuddle. Cops are surrounding the place, led by nice guy black sheriff Joe Morton, star of Brother from Another Planet. The hicks show up for a lynchin', of the alien I mean, but maybe the sheriff too, this is a real redneck rampage and you can't stop em' from saying the 'n' word.

Inside the aliens, and the humans, and the sheriff - he comes in to negotiate - are trying to prevent a massacre on the part of the hicks or the feds, who will be there by dawn. Here come all the touchy feely scenes including a shameless one where Grandma teaches Jester how to eat Oreos. The Oreo package gets some serious screentime. The mushiness goes on for a bit, but, and thank God, this ain't Harry and the Hendersons - it's rated PG-13 for fuck's sake! A bunch of humans and aliens die.

Now I hated just about every minute of this movie while watching it and I could not get my roommate to stay in the room with me as she thought it sucked, but in retrospect, this is a must see movie that I will treasure forever as of course it is out of print. The alien make-up is pretty decent and the laser and light effects are good. The story is beyond abysmal. It's wicked lame as you have probably figured out, but this is a perfect representation of the time period and you collectors better get yourselves a copy of Stranded just so you can predict every move and feel you have figured out perfectly, the formula for 80's sci-fi.

Later that night the redneck rampage would continue as I put on a tape of Brotherhood of Death. It's the KKK versus the Brothers, just back from a tour of duty as Special Forces in Vietnam. From Gorgon Video, the tape opened with previews for House of Exorcism and Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things. I won't review this as their is tons of stuff on the web about it already.