This is what happens when you give a director $100,000 or so and tell him you want a movie in ten days...Some folks just don't appreciate bad films. I do. I've been an extra in a couple of them myself and, believe me, the people who makes these Grade Z pictures (the cast and the crew) aren't fooling around. They work hard at their craft, as hard as the people who make "real" movies, and with the added burden that they know the result is going to be pretty awful. They are basically professionals who have fallen on hard times or semi-professionals hoping to make it to Hollywood proper. When you watch ALIEN OUTLAW pay attention to the scene where the heroine is discussing her new contract with the head of the management agency. It's an interminable scene, with some of the worst dialogue ever written, but the two actresses give it everything they've got. You really have to give them credit for professionalism and effort. That being said, if you think you're going to be treated to something like the Sigourney Weaver ALIEN pictures you're going to be sadly disappointed. ALIEN OUTLAW is a mindless story about marauding extraterrestrials whose idea of attacking the Earth is, essentially, to sneak around the middle of nowhere bush-whacking Appalachian stereotypes and vandalizing parked cars. They make the aliens from PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE look like evil masterminds. They don't even have ray guns or blasters, but try instead to use Western six-shooters they clearly have no idea how to handle, as every second or third shot results in a jam. At which point they toss the weapon down in disgust and run slowly away from danger, no doubt squealing the alien equivalent of "Boy, we're in trouble now!" Earth should be so lucky as to be attacked by these guys. The film has a few good points. The heroine is quite sexy and not a bad actress. Most of the other actors (including several legendary B-Western stars at the end of their careers) at least give it a good effort. And for those viewers who might someday want to make their own picture, it carries a very clear lesson: no matter how small the budget, hire a decent screenwriter before you do anything else.

I have happy memories of a teenage summer staying near Sparta, NC, on one of the locations that this film uses. Specifically, in the film it was the farm house of the character played by Lash La Rue. I was staying with the family that owns that farm. The "barn" you see in some scenes there was actually the family's garage.The film crew were there for several days and I joined in the shoot as a sort of unpaid runner, carrying things around. It was quite odd, not to say surreal, at times: a fifteen year old kid from the UK sitting on the porch chatting alternately with a grumpy B-western star, then the long legged heroine (they were FANTASTIC legs), then the "aliens", without their helmets. At lunchtimes we had fried chicken, mashed potato , biscuits and gravy I seem to remember. Tasted very good! At one point I overheard the director say something particularly uncomplimentary about his own film. He struck me as someone who could have made much better films if he had had the resources.I just got the DVD, having never watched the film and it really is difficult to say anything positive about it as a piece of cinema. As a memento of the best summer of my life though it is priceless.

Alien Outlaw, described as sci-fi/western, and unlike a regular B-movies, which usually get ratings below 4,5 this one has 6 something... Worth watching I thought. I was wrong. For 20 minutes I tried really hard to like this film. But I just couldn't force myself to see the rest of this uber boring crap without skipping and fast forward. I love B-movies but this is just boring 90 minutes. Dull uninteresting dialogs linking scene after scene after scene where just NOTHING happens, cause they are NOT showing the Alien Outlaw, which is just a guy with black gloves, some jacket with stuff attached to it to make it look "alien" and a bad mask on his head. OK, since you have already made this suit and it won't cost you more if you show it more, right?! So why do I have to wait for half an hour to get a peak on this so called Alien Outlaw?! No distant planets, no outer space, no laser blasters, no nothing. Just a very very bad UFO shot at the beginning of the movie, and then another shot where the UFO just GOES DOWN behind some trees and you hear a crash... Just like that. Why the hell the stupid flying saucer broke down and crashed you will never know. That's about the sci-fi, now about the western part. By western they mean that they have some horse scenes and some 6-guns. Some bullets shot but there is nothing that is even remotely close to a decent gunfight let alone a classic wild west showdown. NO WILD WEST here guys! They have some old cowboy stars, so I guess the movie is interesting for their fans, but I've never even heard their names since the credits of "Alien Outlaw". I guess they were popular in USA during the 40s and I'm sure they still have fans, so maybe for them this movie will be a curious one, but I'm quite sure they will be disappointed too, if not ashamed to see their childhood heroes in such a bad excuse for a movie.

Where else would you get a mix of aliens wielding .44 Magnums and old cowboy stars coming to the rescue? You owe it to yourself to see what kind of fun can be produced on a shoestring. Phil Smoot rocks! Check out "The Dark Power" for more proof... He really knows how to dish up camp with his over-the-top directorial style. This was Sunset Carson's, Wild Bill Cody's and Lash LaRue's last film before their deaths. They may or may not have been proud of that fact, but at least it gave another generation a bit of insight into the black-and-white "B" Western genre. A bit of trivia, this movie was filmed in and around the Glade Valley School in Sparta, NC. Sparta is the county seat of Alleghany County, the home of more Christmas tree farms than any other county in the country.