| The SF, Horror and Fantasy Film Review |
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| Science-Fiction |
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| Horror |
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| Fantasy |
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ALIEN ARSENAL
Rating: 
USA. 1999.
Director – Julian Breen, Screenplay – Matthew Jason Walsh, Story – Robert Talbot, Producer – Kirk Edward Hansen, Photography – Howard Wexler, Music – David Arkensteone, Visual Effects – John R. Ellis & David Lange, Special Effects Supervisor – Lou Carlucci, Aliens – David Barton’s Modus EFX, Production Design – Hunter Cressall. Production Company – The Kushner-Locke Co.
Cast:
Jack Hammond (Ralph), Danielle Hoover (Baxter), Krisztian Kovacs (Flash Gunderson), Jerrod Cornish (Monty), Michele Nordin (Felicia St Clair), Dominic Catrambone (Phil), Stephanie Mennella (Jill), Chris Olivero (Bill), Riley Smith (Chad), William Vogt (Lance), Robert Donavan (Mr Lipkis), Brenda Blondell (Mrs O’Houlihan)
Plot: Two high school teenagers, the nerdish Ralph and his friend the tomboyish Baxter, are given detention and made to clean a brick wall in the basement with toothbrushes. But behind the brick wall they find an arsenal that contains weapons and devices of alien origin. They place on suits that grant superpowers and are able to use these to banish tormenting bullies to an alternate dimension and force another to become a nerd. With this Ralph’s esteem grows and he is able to win the girl of his dreams. But their opening the arsenal has also alerted its alien owners who come to the school disguised as pupils, determined to get their weapons back so they can conquer the Earth.
Alien Arsenal is a teen superhero film. While some capsule synopses suggest it as being a remake of Charles Band’s Laserblast (1977), it really falls in more with the teen power suit superhero fantasies of tv’s Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1993-6). Its plot follows a fairly simple arc that covers most of the themes of the teen superhero empowerment fantasy – teen(s) find superheroic powers/artifacts, guy saves the girl of his dreams, zaps the bullies into oblivion and, in the film’s most amusing moment, forces one of the bullies to become a nerd, gains his cool and the respect of his peers before realizing that self-esteem comes from himself not his powers. The superheroics are fairly banal, being let down by poor opticals used to represent the various beams, vortices and x-ray vision skeletons. Occasionally the film has a tongue-in-cheek sense of humour – “Those who don’t remember history are doomed to repeat it – next year,” the history teacher admonishes her class. And a teen taunts his bullies: “Why don’t you pick on someone in your own income bracket?”
The film appears to be made as one of Charles Band’s Moonbeam Productions children’s films. Band isn’t credited but there is a credit for “Assistant to Charles Band” on the end credits which tends to suggest that Band is present but lurking behind a pseudonym. The film is also released by Band’s regular releasing company Kusner-Locke. It is also directed by Julian Breen, who made Moonbeam’s Prehysteria! 3 (1995), and appears to be a pseudonym of Band regular David DeCoteau, who made such no-budget films for the Bands’ as Creepozoids (1987) and Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-o-Rama (1987). If that doesn’t clinch that it is a Band film in all but name then posters for various Band and Full Moon productions such as Robot Jox (1990), Dr Mordrid (1992), Invisible: The Chronicles of Benjamin Knight (1994) and Lurking Fear (1994) littered in the background surely would.
Copyright Richard Scheib 2001
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