Alien Vows

Alien Vows
1996
Michael Ricks

Alien Vows is basically I Married a Monster from Outer Space (1958) albeit with a layer of sleaze and gore that to make it more palatable for the direct to video market of the 1990s. It is also far more uncharitable to its women characters than its 1950s counterpart. Sadly, that cruelty ramps up to the point where Alien Vows burns through its cheap charm and becomes something unpleasant, which is too bad, since it could have been a (very) minor cult gem.

 
The completely unoriginal plot follows a group of turtleneck wearing aliens as they land on Earth and prepare to find a suitable woman to impregnate with their DNA. What seems like a simple plan becomes over complicated as they a) have one of their own disguise themselves as a human and b) kill all women who can’t have children. The b part of the plan is mysterious because I don’t how this this helps them in any way and only serves to draw attention to their whole operation. An alien hunter (William Cook) gets involved in the whole and mess eventually.

"No, this is really my hair. What are you talking about?"

 

This movie primarily exists to serve up tits and blood, in this respect it is successful as there plenty of both on display. The gore effects are simple, relegated to copious amounts of the blood splashed on actors. The aliens use a simple and cost effective telekinesis to kill their targets. The alien costumes themselves look surprisingly good when lit correctly but fail to impress when shot in bright light. The less said about the miniature work and the Super Soakers disguised as ray guns the better.

Alien Vows attempts to bring some romantic tension between the alien hunter and Cindy (Charleen McCrory) the woman being chased down by the aliens for her fertility. There is no chemistry and it’s just a lot of watching two people sitting on a blanket in the desert while trying not to laugh at the alien hunter’s unfortunate extensions.

The perfect pick-up line.

 

The movie falls into a rhythm of the aliens killing random people with telekinesis, some sex scenes and flat dialog. Nothing particularly great going on here other than taking joy in some low rent exploitation. Near the end of the film, things take an ugly twist when a character is raped and pointlessly murdered for no other reason than to give the male character some righteous anger when going into the final showdown. This whole sequence drains the film of any fun it might have been having prior. Sure, they walk back a lot of it by the end the movie but the damage is done.

Alien Vows is a disaster that could have at least been a fun disaster but make some very unfortunate story choices late in the third act in an attempt to up the tension. I can’t recommend sitting through this entire film. Find some clips, check out the aliens murdering people in the streets and then go watch I Married a Monster from Outer Space. It’s a much better film.