Arrow Video: My Stepmother is an Alien (1988) - Reviewed

Images Courtesy of Arrow Video
Years before playing the alien in Steve Barron’s Saturday Night Live movie Coneheads in 1993 (also opposite Jon Lovitz onscreen), comedian Dan Aykroyd played the opposing side in Milk Money director Richard Benjamin’s science fiction infused romantic comedy My Stepmother is an Alien.  An underrated comic gem that was all but overlooked completely when it first came out but has since amassed a minor cult following, this sexy risqué comedy is a quasi-riff on such fare as Attack of the 50 Foot Woman with just a hint of Marilyn Monroe bombshell comic romps.  Originally pitched as a dark allegory for child abuse before it was reworked into a family comedy of sorts, the film came and went before languishing on home video until recently the good folks at Arrow Video oversaw a 2K restoration from the original camera negative.  While far from a hidden masterpiece waiting to be rediscovered, it’s a fun 80s romp in league with Weird Science for its mixture of sex comedy and sci-fi.

 
Widowed astronomer Steve Mills (Dan Aykroyd) one night screwing around at work inadvertently sends a signal into deep space that causes a gravitational disruption, forcing a race of an advanced extraterrestrial race of beings to send over one of their own to investigate.  Donning the enticing human form of Celeste (Kim Basinger), the alien proceeds to seduce and swindle the astronomer who is immediately smitten by her beauty.  Over time spent with him and his young daughter Jessie (Alyson Hannigan from American Pie), she comes to care for the family she was sent out to bamboozle.  Soon Jessie begins noticing strange behaviors like Celeste talking to her purse which actually contains a deadly alien supercomputer inside it, drinking car battery acid and making a breakfast bigger than the decadent feast thrown in La Grande Bouffe.  All the while, unbeknownst to Celeste, her race of super beings intends to destroy the Earth in retaliation for the gravitational disruption, if only she and her clueless new beau Steve can intercept them in time.

 
An effects-laden screwball comedy co-starring John Lovitz, Harry Shearer and then-unknown introductions from young actors Seth Green and Juliette Lewis, My Stepmother is an Alien is crass and dumb but ultimately cute and charming with inspired comic performances from Lovitz and Basinger.  Dan Aykroyd does his usual technobabble comic schtick though the setup between him and Basinger over her otherworldliness will remind some viewers of the more artistically successful John Carpenter film Starman.  The real child wonder of the film is Alyson Hannigan who is tasked with portraying a young girl who is the only one first aware of her new stepmother’s real identity.  In between scenes of tears, fear, joy and excitement, Hannigan makes this little girl believable and the only one in the film really aware of the whole big picture.
 
Visually speaking the film is taut and handsomely rendered by recurring Robert Wise cinematographer Richard H. Kline who himself is no stranger to science fiction fantasy having lensed both The Andromeda Strain and Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  Furthering the science fiction lore is Star Wars and Lifeforce visual effects artist John Dykstra who is still active on producing effects for major Hollywood films to this day.  Last but not least to the concoction is composer Alan Silvestri of the Back to the Future films, Predator, The Abyss and Ready Player One, a man who lives and breathes all things science fiction and his serviceable score here adds an additional layer of comic excitement that gives the film a Ghostbusters patina of fantasy horror comedy.

 
Despite tanking with audiences and particularly with critics who took umbrage with Aykroyd as a romantic lead, the film found fans of Basinger and Lovitz’s performances who both understand the nuances of physical comedy and comic timing.  Basinger makes this advanced superhuman being into a giggly, awkward beauty who seems to wow everyone in her path while also possessing unforeseen metaphysical abilities.  A surprisingly touching venture that feels somewhere between Coneheads and Weird Science, My Stepmother is an Alien is a feel-good dose of fantastical escapism laden with snarky pop cultural references, countless needle drops and just enough bawdiness on display to make the whole endeavor positively rib tickling.  If nothing else it remains for most Aykroyd fans a largely unchecked chapter of the comedian’s prolific and checkered career.

--Andrew Kotwicki