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» » TeenAlien (1978)

Short summary

Local teenagers are holding a Halloween party at a supposedly "haunted" old mill, but find out that one of the partygoers who is dressed as an alien is actually a real alien.

User reviews


  • comment
    • Author: Jozrone
    You have no idea how much work went into this thing to make it as good as you saw. Or should I say not as bad as it could have been. The producer even had a scene written specially for his little darlings to star in. The pumpkin carving scene. The producer did everything as cheaply as possible. That included not paying for anything he could get for free. The make up was done by a teenage cast member, me. The sets were also done by the cast. My mother supplied all of the costumes but the rubber monster suit. But you finally figure out what's wrong with this show when you understand that it was cast for free, as a radio station contest. All the kids in the show but me won a contest to "star in a movie." I was acting a commercial when the camera man told me to show up to "be in his movie." World's worst movie, darn right. But it WAS made by teenagers.
  • comment
    • Author: Saintrius
    One night, my friend Tom Ruff, invited me up to 'The Old Mill' because he was doing sound on a local movie. I showed up just as they were ready to shoot. The guy they lined up to be the 'creature' in this baby showed up bombed. The director exploded on him and told him to take a hike. He then was in a panic because he had the whole crew there and no monster. After glancing around to see who was available and not already on the job, he brought that great latex suit over to me and said "Looks like it will fit!" I spent the next 7 hours in a rubber suit jumping off railings, chasing brats, and getting spray paint in my big red eyes! The premise of the plot was there but after you hear the 500th "CHAD, Where are you" its time to see what is on HGTV. All those cops were real cops and Tiny was really that big! The best effect in the film is the flashing thing that is rotating in the monster's changing chamber is a record player turned upside down with some plastic tubes glued onto it! For many years my daughter was scared of the part when my head explodes!!! Fun times.......signed,The Creature from Varrow!
  • comment
    • Author: elegant stranger
    Wow, I can't believe the fiercely negative reviews this marvelously messed-up two-cent amateur oddity has elicited. You see, I honestly really dig this flick. I personally think this gloriously godawful regional Utah "Invasion of the Body Snatchers"-stealing drive-in sci-fi doozy deserves a place on your home video library shelf alongside the seminal "all it takes is ambition and enthusiasm to crank out a feature"-type backyard works of Bill Rebane and Don Dohler. Any hardcore cinematic schlockoholic's prayers are immediately answered and appeased in the enticingly crummy pre-credits prologue, which shows an annoying comic relief hillbilly hooch-hound who bears an uncanny resemblance to a taller, skinnier George "Buck" Flower having his remote woodland shack buzzed by a hilariously hokey-looking spaceship. The flimsy plot, as far as it goes, depicts a tiny hick hamlet being terrorized by evil extraterrestrial beings on Halloween night (boy, that's a novel premise ... NOT!), with the chief focus put on a goofy gaggle of funky "Phantasm"ish teenagers who discover the aliens' secret base in the bowels of your proverbial creepy old rundown abandoned house located in the middle of nowhere.

    Peter Semelka's beautifully clueless direction dexterously covers all the so-hideously-wrong-it's-paradoxically-right bad film bases: an on-and-off meandering tempo, game, yet pathetic thesping from a conspicuously pumped community theater-style cast (in fact, several of the atrocious adolescent actors won roles in this picture after participating in a local radio contest!), dippy dialog ("This ain't no airport -- god danged airplanes!"), absolutely no intuitive grasp of style, pacing and carefully wrought narrative construction to speak of, terrifically primitive cinematography which makes exquisitely ugly use of scratched-all-to-unsightly-hell ratty 16mm film stock, incredibly vapid kid main characters (one's a fat dolt in a gorilla suit), astonishingly stupid would-be surprising plot twists, a sweetly monotonous hum'n'shiver synthesizer score, hissy sound quality, lame attempts at dopey humor, slipshod editing, fabulously phony alien creatures (complete with glowing red bug eyes, no less!), similarly rinky-dink Tonka toy miniatures, an unbelievably putrid disco ending credits theme song, one of those irritatingly irresolute "they're still out there" ominous non-endings, and a story that's so basic, elementary and connect-the-dots predictable that its very obviousness acquires an inexplicably alluring, albeit askew numb-skull appeal. A wondrously wretched example of "let's amass a thousand bucks, gather up a bunch of friends who'll work for peanuts, and make ourselves a bona-fide motion picture in a couple of weeks" dime-store dreck that's eminently worth of both rediscovery and possible cult status. I myself think it's without a doubt the shamefully unsung and ignored "Plan 9 of Outer Space" of the 70's.
  • comment
    • Author: Forey
    A classic if you have absolutely NOTHING better to do.This includes watching paint dry and grass grow. Having said that I have s soft spot for this. I saw it when I was 7 or 8 in a theater for a birthday party. One of the cast members was even sitting in front of us. The old mill in the movie is used at Halloween as a spook alley so I have been through it once. This is the worst movie I have seen and probably ever will but a few years ago I got thinking about it and manages to get myself a copy of it so I am the proud owner of the worst movie ever made. If you can find it watch it once. Then any movie you see after that won't be too bad.
  • comment
    • Author: Cerana
    If you are the concerned parent of a preteen who wants to see a "scary movie", I wholeheartedly recommend TEENALIEN(aka THE VARROW MISSION)as a perfect choice. This film is devoid of gore, contains no nudity, vulgarity, or profanity, and features nothing at-all objectionable.

    In any other case, I'd wholeheartedly dissuade you from seeing TEENALIEN(aka THE VARROW MISSION), as it is devoid of gore, contains no nudity, vulgarity, or profanity, and features nothing at-all objectionable.

    An old mill-house being used by a group of high-schoolers for a Halloween "spook show" is actually the headquarters of an in-progress alien invasion. The transpiring events are strictly formula, presented with very little creativity and obvious disinterest. To put it mildly, this picture so valueless that the very film it's printed on is struggling to wipe itself clean. The next time you see it in the "horror" section of a video shop, please drop it into the "family" section where it belongs. Better yet...drop it into a waste basket where it *really* belongs.

    2.5/10. Peeuw.
  • comment
    • Author: Milleynti
    While "Old Man Dobbs" concocts some awful mixed drink ("smooth!") some red-eyed alien briefly appears outside, and then an alien spacecraft flies overhead and causes his drink to bubble away to nothing. "Consarned aeroplanes!" Those Dobbses, always encountering UFOs. Why, I could tell you a thing or two about J.R. "Bob" Dobbs...

    But anyway, twenty years later, "Old Man Cranston," a well-dressed Santa Claus-looking fellow with a yellow British Rolls Royce lets teenager Carl have the key to his old haunted mill. Carl and his friends will use it for a Halloween "Spook Alley." Meanwhile, a rival group wants to win the Spook Alley contest, so they decide to scare Carl and his friends out of using the mill, since everyone finds it scary in and of itself.

    Unfortunately, there's an alien called a Varrow living there who would like to kill off every human on Earth one at a time. It can disguise itself as human beings.

    As SCTV's Count Floyd would say, "Ooh, scary, kids!" This is a pretty lame movie (albeit with a neat location), and another user comment indicating it had to do with a radio contest at least makes a little sense of it all. I wonder what sort of distribution it got prior to making it to video. I saw this on videotape as The Varrow Mission, in an old clamshell case box. No photos on the box at all, usually a good indicator of bad quality (see badmovies.org's "How to Find a Bad Movie" - this one might rate 16 points). The box made this sound more of a horror/sci-fi movie than whatever this is.
  • comment
    • Author: Kazigrel
    In the late 1950s, the residents of a small Utah township report strange happenings in the vicinity of their town -- some even report seeing alien spaceships, but one is ever able to confirm this -- at least no one living! Now after more than 25 years, the waiting is over. And a new generation is about to experience the horror of -- THE VARROW MISSION.

    In all of my years watching movies -- and I've seen thousands -- this is the worst, most terrible, sad, pathetic, pitiable, confusing and generally so-screwed-up-it-must-be-a-joke-movie I have ever seen. For context, here are some other bad movies: The Meat Eater, Space Mutiny, and Platoon. (Yes, THAT Platoon.) But this is the worst. I came across this film in the bargain bin at a Blockbuster video store in Toronto --it came free with two rentals. The other bargain box films I got included a seasonal highlight video for the 1990 Houston Rockets and the best of Victor Borge (which was awesome.) But this movie was a terrible mistake. It haunts me to this day -- it is the worst movie ever made, and always will be, with no hyperbole or post-modernist sarcasm. It's not even a movie, as far as I can tell.
  • comment
    • Author: Arcanefire
    I LOVE this movie! Sure it's hokey, but watch almost any "B" Sci-Fi from the 60's and 70's!

    I own both versions, "Teen Alien" and "Varrow Mission".

    It took me years to track down both version. Ebay is your best bet for trying to find any out of print videos. I'm not a "Fanatic" of this movie, I'm just married to the Varrow Male.

    My hubby was one of the few guys in the Jordan High School Drama club that was chosen to act in this movie, they weren't even going to pay these kids until one of them found out and left after the filming had already started and they had to refilm all the stuff he had been in.

    I bought them to show our family, friends and to show our daughter that it's okay to make act weird sometimes!
  • comment
    • Author: Mr_TrOlOlO
    Yes, this movie is lame. There were only a few members of the cast with any real acting experience. The rest were extras with lines, which were mostly forgettable.

    However, I have family members who were involved in filming it and I would like to be able to torture them with it...

    So where can I get my hands on a copy???
  • comment
    • Author: Rarranere
    I am Roger Thompson aka Roger Hamblin. I played "Ray" in this ultra low budget filmed on the weekend movie. At the time of filming I was a Freshman in High School. I was also a charismatic but troubled foster child, thus my last name in the credits of Hamblin. Originally I was supposed to be the co-star of the movie, but part way through the filming of the movie I was remanded to Moweda Youth Correctional Facility for possession of Marijuana. So I guess they had to kill me off. Believe it or not I have never seen the film! After this I moved to Southern California and became a professional skateboarder. This was a fun time in my life, I got away to the "big city" for the weekends and stayed stoned and bombed on the cameraman's Jim Beam most of the time...

    Roger "Doc" Thompson.
  • comment
    • Author: Perius
    Teen Alien is one of the best I've seen. It's camp, fun and it has a cult following! Why, it's right up there with "Plan 9" Now, I'm not saying this because I had a big part in this wonderful movie, (I really had a major part) no, I'm telling everyone this because it's so bad that It's the best of the worst movies!

    This movie started me acting and has kept me acting! Just the other day Pitt and Clooney stopped by to ask for a lesson.... sadly, I was busy and told them to take off.

    To the nay sayers of this work of art...... Spicoalie would say " a bud, some tasty waves and the Varrow Mission, what better way to waste time" Watch it, you'll want to poke out your eyes after seeing it, but, you won't forget it!
  • comment
    • Author: Kirimath
    Local teenagers are holding a Halloween party at a supposedly "haunted" old mill, but find out that one of the party-goers who is dressed as an alien is actually a real alien.

    I don't think one person affiliated with this movie ever did anything else. There is a reason for that. It really really sucks.

    The version i saw was called The Yarrow Mission. Doesn't change the fact that this movie is a stinker.

    Starts with a drunk making hooch and the reels were wound too tightly so the sprockets are all messed up and the picture is jumpy.

    There like an earthquake and show figures. This opening goes on and on with no payoff for what seems like half the movie. Finally the radio explodes and there is a space ship. By now -- and this is the beginning of the movie -- you will be tuning out. Scenes go on for ever and ever.

    How'd they get the money for this to be made?
  • comment
    • Author: Yndanol
    Come on, this movie was made by a group of teens in Utah. Yes it is bad, of course it would be the movie was poorly made, had to be re-shot due to malfunctions. The movie was bad for two reasons: 1. It is a Sci-fi movie with a bad plot. 2. It was casted with a high school drama club. I'm warning you, it is badly made. Even the person who played the teen alien still says it was a bad movie. This movie is poorly made, has bad effects, but if you are into that, go right ahead and see this movie. The actors did not get paid, the voice of the alien was dubbed over by another person, the lines are simple, and it was shot about thirty years ago. You want to go see it, if not don't bother.
  • comment
    • Author: Fordg
    What a waste of time! The acting was so bad, I thought that I was watching my old high school's bad attempts at serious drama. The story seemed to take itself WAAAY too seriously. It had no humor, bad makeup and I thought I was watching a forest because of all the wooden objects that were trying to act! Avoid this if you can (and many of you will!)!
  • Cast overview, first billed only:
    Vern Adix Vern Adix - Mr. Cranston
    Michael Dunn Michael Dunn - Carl
    Keith Nelson Keith Nelson - Old Man Dobbs
    Dan Harville Dan Harville - Tony
    Mike McClure Mike McClure - Varrow Male
    Judy Richards Judy Richards - Varrow Female
    Dale Angell Dale Angell - Tiny
    Dick Robinson Dick Robinson - Old Miner
    Richard Guinn Richard Guinn - Young Miner
    Alex Churchich Alex Churchich - Alex
    Steve Bartlett Steve Bartlett - Steve
    Chad Bennion Chad Bennion - Mike
    Ken Johnson Ken Johnson - Buzz
    Roger Hamblin Roger Hamblin - Ray
    Holly Harkness Holly Harkness - Jean
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