Directed by Jim Wynorski | Starring Traci Lords, Arthur Roberts, Ace Mask
Every few decades, someone decides to remake a 1950s sci-fi film, strip it down to its bare essentials, and then somehow remove even those. In walks Not of This Earth (1988), a Roger Corman-produced “remake” of his own 1957 cheapie, now repackaged with more skin, less story, and the acting depth of a melted action figure.
This version is mostly remembered for one thing: Traci Lords, fresh off her, uh, legally complicated adult film career, starring in her first legit mainstream role. And yes, she’s stunning—undeniably beautiful, luminous even—but her presence can’t save a movie that feels like it was shot during lunch breaks at a failing optometry clinic.
Plot: Dracula in Sunglasses Needs Blood—And Not in a Cool Way
So, there’s this alien named Mr. Johnson (Arthur Roberts), who looks like a Republican fundraiser attendee and wears wraparound shades like he’s auditioning for the Blue Man Group’s accountant. He’s on Earth to collect human blood to save his dying planet. Not with stealth, not with science—but with the panache of a tax auditor with a fetish for nurse outfits.
He hires Nadine (Traci Lords) as his nurse, because obviously, if you’re a blood-draining alien trying to keep a low profile, you hire someone who looks like they walked out of a shampoo commercial and into a strip club.
What follows is a parade of incoherent scenes involving lasers, half-hearted car chases, mismatched tone, and so many fog machines you’d think someone was trying to summon Dio.
Traci Lords: The Venus Flytrap in a Nurse Outfit
Let’s be honest here: Traci Lords is the only reason most people even remember this film. She was the forbidden fruit of 1980s scandal, now scrubbed clean and trying her hand at respectable trash. And to her credit, she’s trying. She doesn’t phone it in. She flirts. She smolders. She delivers her lines with more conviction than the script deserves.
She’s not just window dressing—though the movie certainly tries to make her that. You can sense she’s pushing for something more, but the camera keeps leering, and the script keeps forcing her to stand next to a guy whose idea of menace is blinking slowly.
Still, she’s got presence. It’s not her fault the movie around her was written on a cocktail napkin at the Playboy Mansion.
Arthur Roberts: Alien in Name Only
The alien villain, Mr. Johnson, is what you get when you cast your dentist to play a supervillain. Roberts’ performance is as wooden as the end table he’s usually standing next to. He sucks blood through a tube like a man trying to siphon gas from a Winnebago. He speaks in monotone like he’s been tranquilized. And he gives off the aura of someone deeply uncomfortable in his own costume, which, for the record, includes ill-fitting suits and those sunglasses he clearly bought at a Texaco.
You never feel threatened. You never feel intrigued. Mostly, you just feel like you’re watching a confused substitute teacher trying to remember what planet he’s from.
The Supporting Cast: Forgettable Fodder
There’s a police officer who’s supposed to be comic relief but ends up feeling like an open mic comedian doing community service. There are random victims who exist only to flash some skin and die like idiots. And there’s a stripper scene, because of course there is—it’s a Wynorski film and a Corman production, so that’s basically in the union contract.
The dialogue is stiff, the interactions are robotic, and even the deaths feel bored with themselves.
The Effects: Cardboard, Rubber, and Shame
The effects are about what you’d expect from a Corman-Wynorski late ’80s team-up: fake blood, glowing plastic props, a few firecrackers taped to a flashlight, and one special effect that might have just been an intern shaking a lightbulb.
The alien planet? Blue filter. The disintegration ray? A flashlight and a sound effect lifted from Space Invaders. This isn’t low-budget charm—it’s cinematic duct tape and desperation.
Tone: Sci-Fi Sexploitation with a Migraine
The movie tries to be both sexy and scary, and fails at both. It has the energy of a softcore skin flick that forgot to be horny, and a horror movie that’s never actually interested in horror. You’ll get long scenes of meaningless dialogue, a few flashes of nudity, a chase or two, and then a climax that feels like it wandered in from another movie entirely.
There’s no sense of pacing, no real stakes, and definitely no tension. It’s the cinematic equivalent of an extended yawn.
The Direction: Wynorski in Auto-Pilot
Jim Wynorski is a legend in B-movie circles, mostly for his speed, sleaze, and willingness to shoot anything with a pulse and a plunging neckline. But here, he seems checked out. Everything feels stitched together like a Frankenstein monster of clichés, boobs, and bad ADR. The whole film could have been a Cinemax filler, and maybe it was.
There’s no style, no rhythm, no memorable scenes—unless you count the alien shooting someone with what looks like a hairdryer glued to a Super Soaker.
Final Thoughts: Not of This Earth, and Hopefully Not in Your Streaming Queue
Not of This Earth is a limp attempt at sci-fi sleaze that wastes its central premise, its cult-friendly lead, and your time. It’s not smart enough to be satire, not trashy enough to be guilty fun, and not strange enough to be memorable. It’s just there, like a water stain on your VHS shelf.
Traci Lords does her best—and let’s be fair, she’s the most watchable thing in the movie. But she’s acting in a vacuum, surrounded by flat dialogue, bad direction, and a plot that could have been summarized in a single page with room left over for a coupon.
Final Score: 3/10
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+1 for Traci Lords’ screen presence
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+1 for the sheer audacity of the remake
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+1 for the brief, weird charm of Corman sleaze
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-7 for everything else, especially Mr. Johnson, who is not of this Earth but definitely of the community theater variety
This one belongs in a thrift store bin labeled “Just Boobs and Fog Machines.”
