The Aliens Are Coming is not only Steven Spielberg’s latest spiel. It’s an NBC made-for-TV movie from the dim dead days of 1980.
How does The Aliens Are Coming compare to other made-for-TV flicks like The Intruder Within, Midnight Offerings, Curse of the Black Widow, Satan’s Triangle, Killdozer, Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell , Invitation to Hell, Summer of Fear, Savages, Moon of the Wolf, The Initiation of Sarah, Crowhaven Farm, A Cold Night’s Death, Snowbeast, The Possessed, Chiller, Dark Night of the Scarecrow, Full Eclipse, The Victim, When Michael Calls and Fear Itself?
We’re going to find out, and we’ll probably be dumber for it…
The Aliens Are Coming
The movie starts with a taupe-colored spaceship floating through space. A line of heavy narration hits the viewer like a pre-Ozempic body positivity influencer dropped on them from a helicopter.
“The time is now. A nightmare is about to begin…”
Cut to an observatory. Oh wow, it’s Ed Harris…with hair! Somehow Ed Harris with hair looks less virile than Ed Harris without hair. You can tell he is in the process of coming to terms with the realization that he will not date 1980s sirens like Olivia Newton John. He’s mentally preparing to settle into the Amy Madigan Bracket.
Ed’s partner is Tom Mason. Mason played the supply depot dude in Apocalypse Now. To go from a Coppola classic to headlining a made-for-TV alien invasion movie — Mason must have thought the world was his oyster. It did not work out that way. Mason disappeared into a career of random TV episode appearances.
Mason and Harris are all abuzz about a major meteor shower. They could go outside to watch it. Instead, they are content to witness it displayed on a CRT monitor with all the graphic power an Atari 2600 could muster.
A slightly larger pixel appears on the CRT screen. Mason and Harris celebrate, for that pixel can be nothing else but proof of the existence of flying saucers.
Melinda O. Fee enters (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2). Mason and her hug with jubilant glee that likely breaks numerous HR boundaries. The aliens aren’t just coming. They’re here!
The Aliens vs. Predator Are Coming
The movie cuts to the interior of the spaceship. It is full of brightly colored doodads that the set director probably robbed from his wife’s Christmas tree. We get a brief glimpse of one of the aliens. It’s a cross between a Dalek and a vacuum cleaner.
On second thought…Daleks are vacuum cleaners, right?
Back to the observatory. Eric Braeden arrives. Who doesn’t love Eric Braeden? He is the continental version of Robert Stack. Braeden, Mason, Melinda and Harris discuss the arrival of the aliens with utmost seriousness. Happiness has morphed into concern that the aliens may view human beings as mice and lab rats.
To punctuate the dread, Harris exclaims, “Holy Toledo!”
Braeden looks grave. I’m not sure what he is worried about. He could easily escape any situation by flying away. His bowtie is roughly the size of an airplane propeller.
The Aliens Are Coming To America
Mason takes a helicopter to investigate the flying saucer’s landing zone, which is somewhere near Las Vegas. Mason doesn’t like flying. The pilot attempts to allay his discomfort by bragging: “I could eat chocolate cake with pork gravy and fly right through a hurricane without getting sick!”
Somewhere, a YouTube mukbanger says, “Note to self…”
Mason transitions from the helicopter to a hospital. He heard from a little bird that a camper witnessed the flying saucer. Mason questions the man, who reports the UFO was the size of a racetrack.
So not as big as a YouTube mukbanger then…
Cut to Max Gail from Barney Miller. Max is an employee at The Hoover Dam. His son is played by Matthew Labyorteau, who I just watched in Deadly Friend. What are the odds a person would randomly watch two Labyorteau films in quick succession?
They must be greater than those of the Drake Equation.
Anyway, Max is body-snatched by a glowing green alien that looks like an anthropomorphic grasshopper. It makes his eyes glow green like The Incredible Hulk when he uses his alien powers. What are his alien powers? Max can influence people against their will, like the kids in Village of the Damned, but without the dignity.
Back to Mason ordering a hamburger. He draws a picture of the hamburger so the waitress can figure out what he wants. One of his character quirks is that he developed the perfect hamburger, which he describes as “nutritious and extremely erotic” to a blond reporter who asks him questions about the flying saucer rumors.
The Aliens Are Coming To Get You, Barbara
Max has a small alien device about the size of a Kleenex box that he hides on a bookshelf. What could it be? We will have to wait to find out. He goes to have an awkward breakfast with his family. Alas, he does not chug a mug of steaming hot coffee like Timothy Bottoms in Invaders from Mars (1986).
Max’s wife cooked the breakfast. She also packed Max a lunch. And she wants to buy a new zipper for his boat jacket.
Ah, domesticated women. We have lost so much. I’m sure they’re happy knowing they traded those two hours of light housework for spending eight hours in front of PC screens under fluorescent lights while trying not to take their PMS out on each other.
Great trade, ladies…
Mason traipses to Nellis Air Force Base to get the Air Force to tell him where the flying saucer landed. He must figure they know…but apparently don’t care enough to check themselves. Oh wow, the base has A-10s! I’ve never seen an A-10 pop up randomly in a movie before. Neat!
Max’s plan is revealed. The aliens took him over because they want to learn how The Hoover Dam works. Max does a Jedi mind trick on his boss to get him to explain the entire facility, but it is cut short when they are interrupted. Nevertheless, this odd behavior makes the boss take note of his weird underling with glowing, green eyes.
I’m jealous. My bosses would never take notice of weird behavior on my part. All they care about is their TPS reports…
The Aliens In The Attic Are Coming
Now Mason visits the highway department. A policeman thought he saw the flying saucer land. The policeman is played by Gerald McRaney. That reminds me of one of my favorite jokes, which no one who didn’t watch the 2006-2010 Vikings would get…
“Minnesota Vikings Coach Brad Childress won first place in a Gerald McRaney lookalike contest. Second place went to Gerald McRaney…”
Back to Max at the dam. He can no longer abide the suspicions of his boss, so he uses his glowing green eyes to make the man electrocute himself. This seems a bit excessive. They didn’t even try the first step of workplace conflict resolution: go into the bathroom stall and cry while muttering to yourself, “Only twenty-five more years of this crap…”
Out in the desert, Mason discovers a large, burned circle on the ground. For whatever reason, he places rocks around its edge to mark a boundary that is already clearly defined by the fact that everything within its perimeter is burned…
Meanwhile, we learn the purpose of the alien device Max hid. He takes it into the bathroom where it glows green and gives him the energy he needs to continue existing.
I do the same thing with chocolate.
Mason goes on a date with the reporter. He tells her all about his hamburger. She is powerless against this type of quirky behavior. You can tell the reporter for sure considers Mason a worthy mate for an unhealthy relationship that wastes her fertile years so that she eventually becomes a slave to her ticking biological clock and finds a nice guy to be her “retirement plan.”
What Aliens May Come
Max crashes the date and uses his green, glowing eyes to make Mason leave, get into his car and almost crash headlong into a semi-truck. Mason wakes up in the hospital. Melinda arrives to help him. He fills her in on everything he knows.
Melinda seems disappointed the aliens aren’t friendly. Maybe they just need more tax benefits?
Matthew Labyorteau discovers Max’s green light lunch box. He and his mom take a trip to Vegas, so he takes it with him. Max arrives in need of energy and finds the box gone. He has no choice but to follow his wife and son.
Mason and Melinda pursue.
Meanwhile, the aliens launch their shuttle craft to rescue Max. They take him back to the mothership to download all the lessons he has learned about humanity and The Hoover Dam. Max also tells them that women are emotional.
Who wrote this story? Their toxic masculinity bothers me. Robert W. Lenski is the screenwriter. He also wrote Mannix. Okay, that explains a lot. It’s in the name.
Anyway, I am losing track of The Aliens Are Coming. It has a Hydra plot — cut off one storyline and three more take its place. It is challenging my brain. Case in point: the reporter shows up again and starts kissing Mason. Then she tells him to leave.
Seeing Mason as a worthy threat, the aliens try to take him over. Mason resists the glowing green anthropomorphic grasshopper by sticking his finger in a lamp’s bulb socket.
I also want to stick my finger in a lamp’s bulb socket. Not because I’m threatened by a glowing green anthropomorphic grasshopper. I simply want this experience to be over.
The Aliens That Ate My Homework Are Coming
A climax of sorts happens. Mason goes to The Hoover Dam to spy on Max. He gets chased by Max and the dam manager, who is also body-snatched. Mason throws the manager off a catwalk in a shot that looks like it was edited by Alexander faced with the Gordian Knot.
Eventually, Max is captured and taken to a medical facility. He writhes in bed while Braeden, Melinda and Mason watch. Eventually, he returns to normal. His wife and Labyorteau are happy campers and explain it all as a “bump on the head.”
Back on the flying saucer, the aliens consider abandoning their mission. Alas, their colony ships will arrive in seven years. They must stay and prepare. With renewed determination, they focus on their next objective, a high school.
I’m starting to think the Iraqi army could defeat these aliens.
Braeden, Mason and Melinda plot their next steps for battling the alien threat, as well. They walk into the night as a narrator threateningly intones:
The nightmare is just beginning…
Cut to the high school: a teacher berates a female student for slacking. The student’s eyes glow green and she says the teacher “will stay after school and teach her all that she needs to know…”
The Aliens Have Left…
The Aliens Are Coming is not good. Plot holes are as abundant as burrows in a prairie dog hill. Some of this is mitigated by realizing that The Aliens Are Coming was intended to be the pilot of a TV series. That makes sense. It almost plays like an extended episode of The Night Stalker.
One can easily see Mason swapped out for McGavin. On the other hand, Mason is the only bright spot of the show. He clearly has a blast being a leading man and genuinely possesses a degree of charisma to carry a TV show.
I remember seeing a TV spot for The Aliens Are Coming back in the day. It filled me with a great amount of dread as a wee lad. I had forgotten all about it until I came across a mention of The Aliens Are Coming in some dank corner of the Internet.
Then it all came flooding back. As it turns out, there was nothing to fear other than bad plotting, bad effects and bad production. I overcame my fear of those things long ago via confrontation therapy courtesy of Tyler Perry.
