Alien Private Eye

Alien Private Eye

1987
Vik Rubenfeld

In my head I somehow conflated this movie with, ‘Revenge of the Radioactive Reporter ‘ (1990). Don’t ask me how; it probably has something to do with the fact that both lead characters wear fedoras. It has a lot in common with ‘Alien Warrior’ (1986), in that both are about aliens who come to Earth to do good by kicking people and driving nice cars. Both films were also created by insane people or perhaps actual aliens.  ‘Alien Private Eye’ is a movie that constantly manages to throw a moment or some piece of dialog out there that makes you reach for the remote to make sure you weren’t just imagining things. It is a cult phenomenon waiting to happen.

Our hero, Lemro (Nikki Fastinetti), is a too cool for the room dancing machine/private eye/alien/stud muffin who likes to be decked out in all white leather and fingerless gloves.  He saves a girl, Suzy (Judith Burke) from being roughed up by thugs and then takes her dancing. Seems her brother is hooked on a new drug that has something to do with half of a space Frisbee. Everyone in town is looking for the Frisbee, including some other aliens from Lemro’s home planet, “Styx” and a guy named, Kilgore (Cliff Aduddell) who is making super space heroin that he likes to dole out to underlings and enemies alike. He also has a nice framed picture of Hitler that he offers a prayer to in his time of need. There’s a gang shoot out, some lasers, some more dancing, an alien doing a Peter Lorre/Ren Hoek impersonation, the list goes on…

You know when the director is only billed as ‘VIKK’ in the opening credits you’re probably in for something special.  ‘Alien Private Eye’ floats on a sea of absurdity, from Lemro’s bizarre clothing and predilection for leaving his hat on during sex to Kilgore shouting, “Eat lead and die!” just before hauling off and shooting an opposing gangster for no reason. It never stops being fun and silly but at the same time never plays out as anything less than totally serious. Even during a sequence with some characters going through withdraw from the super drug, its light, kind of macho and unintentionally hilarious.

Nikki Fanstinetti‘s character comes across as a bit of a lunkhead but with certain charm that makes him a joy to watch every time he talks. Kilgore is a great villain, pointlessly violent, certainly out of his mind and chewing up every scene he is in. It’s too bad he and Lemro don’t have more dialogue together but we are given the gift of some spectacularly bad kung-fu to make up for it. 

‘Alien Private Eye’ was a direct to VHS film (the cover alone is magical) and has never received a better format release, which is too bad, but seeing a washed out old video tape version might just be the perfect way to present this movie. Scour ebay and your local thrift stores for a copy of ‘Alien Private Eye’, its pure entertainment and a fine addition to any trash cinema collection.