Alien from L.A.
Alien from L.A.
PG | 26 February 1988 (USA)
Alien from L.A. Trailers

When her archaeologist father disappears on an expedition, Wanda sets out to look for him. What she finds is a secret underground world, where no one believes in life on the surface and where she and her father are taken for spies.

Reviews
BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment
SpunkySelfTwitter It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.
Taha Avalos The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.
Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.
Eric Stevenson This movie has one of the most misleading titles I've ever heard. We don't get to see a single alien in this entire movie! What the title means is that it features these people who live underground. They believe that the people on the surface are aliens. I mean, I guess you could argue they mean an alien in the sense that it's someone from another country. Come on, this is a sci-fi film! Nobody ever uses the term "alien" like that here! Anyway, the main character's voice in this movie is very annoying. They do point it out, but the rest of the film is so bad it doesn't matter.This also featured very little of LA at all. What's amazing is how boring this film was. There were some fight scenes, but they were all done horribly. The makeup in this film was just laughable. I don't know why these characters look so ridiculous. It just ends with one of the villains becoming good for absolutely no reason. I have never heard of Kathy Ireland before, but I didn't get a good first impression of her here. *
MisterWhiplash Sometimes you watch a movie and just know a few minutes in that in a week's time you won't remember a thing about what you just watched. Alien from LA is that kind of bad movie, where it's just a bland level of schlock - well, except for one thing, which is the voice that Kathy Ireland decided on (or probably with Albert Pyun's expert auteurist direction). This is also a misleading title from the start: while there is an alien in this movie, it's not some other person from another planet or dimension, it's Ireland's character herself, going into some subterranean piece of crap place where everyone considers her the alien presence. Those going on thinking at, from the look of the poster, Kathy Ireland may be playing an alien as some like possessed being (ala Species) think again.In what I imagine must have been the production design inspiration for the look of the Super Mario Brothers movie, this place that Ireland goes to is dreary looking and the designs for the characters are either really ugly and not in any kind of interesting or charming way (the short guy with the LONG eyelashes) or just off or odd (the woman who looks like discount Helena Bonham Carter). All that happens here is that Ireland, who is a bubble-headed nerd (if that makes sense) gets dumped by her boyfriend at the very start of the movie (because she doesn't, you know, GO places and stuff, sheesh what a lame-o), finds out her father may have died and goes to Africa where he was excavating, and falls down the same "bottomless pit" that he did.It would be nice if there was anything like, say, engaging characters or good humor, but in absence of that there isn't anything lively enough to mock. I have to wonder how the MST3K episode of this went, and it must have been a slog to come up with enough good jokes in the writer's room (how much can you say about Ireland's squeaky voice that makes Betty Boop sound like Mariah Carey?) It's a dreadful experience not because of its low production value (albeit I will say some of the sets look like they got some work and a few shots are clever with the lighting, but just a few), but because it's just boring. You know where this is going to go, the characters are undeveloped, and the music sounds like it was created in an hour and in all the wrong places for MAXIMUM emotional stuff. Pass.
Space_Mafune A California valley girl named Wanda Saknussemm (Kathy Ireland), desperately searching for a means to make a new start and escape her nerdish tendencies, goes to Africa in search of her absentee archaeologist father following reports he may have fallen into a bottomless pit only for her to stumble and fall down the same hole. She winds up in a bizarre and strange underground city named Atlantis which just might be at the center of the Earth. There she befriends a miner she calls "Gus" and continues searching for her long lost Papa. However those dwelling in the underground city have heard rumors of there being aliens from the surface world hidden amongst them and despite the government's constant denial that aliens exist on television, they still offer rewards for the capture of anyone who might be thought an "alien" making Wanda a target for many unscrupulous types.This is a relatively harmless fantasy time-waster. In fact, the non-discriminating fantasy viewer may actually enjoy this one. This is kind of like a California Valley Girl version of ALICE IN WONDERLAND with a bit of THE WIZARD OF OZ thrown in filtered through a BLADE RUNNER-esquire setting with the train of events playing out rather like SPACEHUNTER but this movie isn't anywhere near as good as any of those. I have to admit I actually had fun watching this though it's just so outrageous and outlandish in its approach. The sets too prove surprisingly effective for a low budget movie. Plus I always get a kick out of the state controlled television announcements which prove incredibly transparent in their intent. While this is definitely not for everyone (it stars Kathy Ireland who's really no actress, borrows most of its plot from other movies and things always feel a little too safe and sure for our leads), there are those who might find enjoyment here although it's a little tough to explain why exactly. Just the harmless fun of it all I guess.
Diana Boy, this movie is bad. And not in a good, cheesy, fun way, either. Even MST3K couldn't stop it from being boring, and it's also confusing as all get out. But the most annoying part of this dull mess is Ireland's hideous high pitched voice, which I was tired of listening to in the first five minutes. Not to mention how really unappealing her character is. Even her Dad ran away and abandoned her! I can see why, frankly. If he'd had to listen to her whine in her little mouse voice for more than a few minutes, he'd have been tempted to do her a great harm. As I was, by the end of the movie. Plus, she's useless and annoying. When she falls down the long hole in the earth a la Alice in Wonderland, she'd have been done for in the first ten minutes if that inexplicably Australian accented miner hadn't kept saving her from all of the various plights she kept falling into. He should have just tied her to the Atlantean version of train tracks and been done with it. And this Atlantis underground with the weird, confusing obsession with bone density,I have to ask-where was the light coming from down there? Did they have generators that imitate the sun? No matter. There's no real plot anyway, just a bunch of oddly costumed Goth wannabees running around trying to catch Kathy(probably so that they can stick a gag in her mouth). Stupid, pointless film. Thank you Golan Globus, for this cinematic abomination. May you burn in the seventh ring of Hell for all eternity.