Alien Intruder (1993)

This is one of those ones I thought I'd done earlier on on the site, but didn't, and then for some reason it ended up getting pushed down the list, for almost 18 years it seems. Strange, considering this is the first PM flick I remember watching, so it has some significance. In addition to us, our friend Chris the Brain at Bulletproof Action has covered this as well.

Alien Intruder takes place two years ago in 2022, where a Commander Striker (William December Williams) gathers a Dirty-Dozen-style team of four convicts (Dirty Quartet?) to investigate a space freighter that went incommunicado. We know what happened, because in the opening scene, a crazed Jeff Conaway killed everyone at the behest of Tracy Scoggins, before turning the gun on himself (it was like the Rolling Stones song, "it's just a Conaway, it's just a Conaway"). After the guys do some virtual R&R, they start to notice Scoggins appearing in their fantasies, and then eventually appearing in their realities! Does Mr. December Williams hold the key to what's going on? And will our rag-tag group of heroes figure it out in time to stop Scoggins?

This one starts a little slowly, but it's the kind of slowly that in the mid-90s when I first saw this would be boring, but in 2025 is a fun nostalgia trip--even if it was only three years ago! In one scene, Maxwell Caulfield and the other guys are playing cards and busting each other's chops, and in that spirit Caulfield calls one of them a "brick shithouse," which is Generation Jones speak for "ya big lug." You can just imagine on college campuses in the early 80s people calling each other "brick shithouse," and even if they didn't, it's fun to imagine, right? Scoggins is great too as the alien temptress. The VR fantasies are like music videos with their themes and settings, and she's pretending to be the "video girl," only with a diabolical twist. And then they have a PM twist too, because PM uses the VR fantasies to inject action into the film, including a massive explosion at a gas station that sends a stunt guy flying off in the background--if only they did that in Michael Bolton's "Missing You Now" video! Top it off with the great Billy Dee Williams, and you have yourself a fun PM sci-fi actioner.

Speaking of Michael Bolton, the last time we saw Billy Dee Williams on here was in February of 2012, with Gary Busey in the submarine flick Steel Sharks--do you remember that Michael Bolton song, "Steel sharks, wrapped all around me..."? Maybe not. Anyway, the only reason my friends and I rented this back in the mid-90s was because it had Billy Dee. I didn't know anything about PM Entertainment, but in that period between Return of the Jedi and Phantom Menace, Star Wars fans needed anything they could get, and Billy Dee Williams in a low-budget DTV sci-fi flick seemed like a good bet--not to mention as high schoolers we were also Colt .45 fans, if you knew someone who was over 21, you could give them $5 and they could get you a 40 and keep the change to buy themselves some cigarettes. What a simpler time. You don't get a lot of Williams in this, but PM does a good job of sprinkling him throughout so you never go too long without him, which is a nice thing. Here's to you Mr. Williams, you're truly one of the best.

This is now 46 PM flicks on the site, but as I mentioned above, this is the earliest one I remember watching. Also as I mentioned above, I didn't know it as a PM flick--we didn't know what that really was back then, it was just another logo we saw a lot--we only rented it for Billy Dee Williams. If you look at the release date, 1993, we would've rented this around the time it came out, but back then the mom and pop we rented from, People's Video, didn't gouge on new releases like Blockbuster and the other big chains did, so it was the same $2 as the older movies. When Alex, the guy who owned the video store, was picking it out of the catalog, he was probably thinking Star Wars fans like us would grab it because it had Billy Dee Williams on the cover, and at least for us he was right. I couldn't have imagined 30 years later there'd be this thing called blogging, and that I'd be almost 18 years in on a site of my own reviewing it, let alone watching it again on a "streaming" site called Amazon Prime--forget the fact that Donald Trump is not only our president, but he's on his second term. PM had a better vision of what the 2020s would be in 1993, we just weren't worthy of it.

Speaking of the future, we usually talk about flying cars as the thing that didn't end up happening, but the one we usually miss is laser guns, which were prevalent in this film. How did no one pick that up? Especially here in the States, we love shooting people, a laser gun seems like a natural invention. I guess because guns are so easy to get and shoot up schools with, people were probably like "why would you want a laser when you can mow down tons of people, especially kids, with an automatic gun firing bullets?" It makes sense, there's no way a battery could hold enough charge for the laser shots required to equal a high-capacity magazine. And if there's one thing the United States does better than the rest of the world, it's mass shootings. We also like our deaths due to car violence too, which is probably why we never went too far into flying cars either. "If cars are in the sky, what reason would we have to displace people and wildlife to expand freeways in order to save drivers 30 seconds on their commute? And then who would be hit by cars at dangerous intersections if all the cars were in the air? Nope, better to keep the cars on the ground where they can hit more people and we can scar the landscape with more highways and parking." And that's why no laser guns and no flying cars.

Finally, Maxwell Caulfield's outfit here was too good not to comment on. Fluorescent yellow and blue Lycra spandex shorts with a black codpiece (??), and finger-less gloves. And look at the Wes Anderson-style shot composition with him leaning against the door frame, the woman fresh from the Hot Tropic pageant on the other side, and the living room and the windows with the view of the beach to the right. Just an absolute thing of beauty. Now I do need to confess, when I lived in Maine ten years ago, I biked a lot, and as such I needed the finger-less gloves and the spandex shorts. They served a purpose though: the gloves and shorts had gel padding in them, which mitigated the impact of my aluminum bike bouncing on the road. Also, if it helps, the shorts were all black and didn't have a codpiece, and I always wore a shirt too. Maybe it doesn't, and I understand. I realize too that in the interests of being forthright with my audience, I've just made this paragraph in celebration of that fantastic shot above all about me, so I apologize.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Currently you can stream this on Prime. I think there's also a decent YouTube version. As far as PM goes, this isn't a top 10 or even a top 20, but their deeper catalog is a lot of fun too, and this film is a great example of that. Plus you can't go wrong with Billy Dee Williams!

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0106244

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Animal Instincts (1992)

Back in October we had Mitch from the Video Vacuum on the pod to discuss this Erotic Thriller classic, episode 179 in the archives. It's part of an overall effort to try and get more Erotic Thrillers on the site--which I probably won't stick to, but hopefully I will.

Animal Instincts has the great Shannon Whirry as a housewife who's married to police officer divorce' Maxwell Caufield. Money's tight, and he's always stressed out about it, so he's not as keen on having sex with Whirry. When she cheats with the cable guy (Bobby Johnston--"Cain" from T-Force) and Caufield catches her, they discover his love for watching her sleep with other guys. So they put an ad in the classifieds, and the candidates are lined up out the door for a chance to hook up with her, while Caufield watches on a TV in the other room. At the same time, there are some nefarious characters, like David Carradine and Jan-Michael Vincent. As the money comes in from their sexual arrangement, Caufield wants more, and sees a way to get it through Carradine and Vincent. But is it too dangerous?

This is a classic for a reason. Whirry's great, the supporting cast is a lot of fun, and the story idea is perfect for an Erotic Thriller--though this is more a soft core porn film, so the story is even better for that. One thing that was interesting was how Whirry wasn't the femme fatale trope, she was more a woman who wished her husband had sex with her more, and they figured out an arrangement that allowed her to do that. But then we have Carradine as a strip club owner, who's really creepy; Jan-Michael Vincent as a local politician or something who wants to shut down the strip clubs, but who's also really creepy; and then Caufield as the jerky husband who gets turned on by seeing her hook up with other men--and women--who's also kind of creepy too--I mean, how do you do "watching someone else have sex and getting turned on by it" without looking creepy? We also had a few smaller fun roles, like John Saxon as the DA at the end, Mitch Gaylord as Caufield's cop partner, and Delia Shepherd as a rich lesbian lover who wants Whirry to run away with her. If you're new to the Erotic Thriller genre, this is a perfect place to start.

For this review we're giving Whirry her tag, and after updating the previous reviews, this starts her off at three with this one, the two previous films being Omega Doom and Mach 2. What makes her so great is, from an acting standpoint, she solid, which probably gets you to a certain level of roles, like supporting cast member in a Lifetime film; but because she's willing to do these soft core porn Erotic Thriller films, the acting skills make her standout, and I think is a big reason why she was so successful--beyond the obvious, of course. This film, for example, she really plays up the wanting to please her husband aspect, like when she first goes into their bedroom after Caufield sets up the camera, the way she's kind of uncomfortable about it, but still trying to look flirty and seductive, that's not something you'd get from any actor doing a film like this; but when she needs to do the love scenes, she's giving more than the average solid actor of her pedigree would. She's one of the best to do it, and I can't wait to get more of her films on the site.

We do have a Hall of Famer in this, David Carradine! This is now 19 films for him on the site, the last one being Project Eliminator in June of 2023. The interesting thing is, this film came out a year after that one, but he looks a lot younger here. With 19 films, the 30 Club is far in the future, and he may be one of those Hall of Famers who never gets there, which kind of doesn't make sense, considering how many films he's done that would fit on our site, but I think the issue is something like this, where he's not in it much, so I'm probably not reviewing it unless it has another reason, like covering it on a previous podcast episode. Just the same, he's a Hall of Famer for a reason, because he appears in so many films like this. Who knows, maybe if we stick with this long enough, he'll make the 30 Club, 40 Club, and beyond.

I thought this was our first time seeing Mitch Gaylord on the site, and it is as far as him as an actor, but he also did stunt work on Savate, so he's technically been here one other time. Looking at his IMDb bio, he has an amazing four-film run between 1986 and 1994, with American Anthem, American Rickshaw, this, and Sexual Outlaws. The guys at Comeuppance have covered American Rickshaw and gave it a good review, but despite not knowing anything about the other two, I have no idea how they can't be anything other than fantastic. I'll try to track the other three down so at some point we can complete the Gaylord Foursome. I know, you can't wait.

Finally, anyone with Boomer parents who was young, at home, and out of work like I was, had a newspaper thrust in front of them and was instructed to look through the classifieds for a new job. From there it was also getting a pile of resumes and "hitting the pavement," which, living in a rural area with nothing within walking distance, I was spared that "hitting the pavement" indignity. I was also spared the indignity of the classifieds soon after, when Craigslist became a thing. It was beautiful, no pavement hitting, no sifting through classified ads in the newspaper, I could scroll, find something good, then call them--or if I were feeling ambitious, make a trip over to where they were located and apply in person. The thing was, though, how to explain Craigslist to Boomer parents who only understood classified ads and "hitting the pavement"? And what's crazy, there's now a younger generation raised on Indeed and LinkedIn, who can't believe there was ever such a thing as classified ads in a newspaper, and the idea of "hitting the pavement" gives them crippling anxiety. What an age to have grown up in, a bridge between the old and new, while Shannon Whirry has a love scene with Mitch Gaylord, and Maxwell Caufield watches from another room.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Mitch found this on the Internet Archive, which is a great place to find some of these, as they're often too graphic for YouTube, and Tubi is only catching up on them now. If you haven't seen it in a while, or looking to get into Erotic Thrillers, this is a great one to watch. And if you haven't yet, check out the podcast episode Mitch and I did on this film, number 179 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0103696

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!