Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

So I’m minding my own business looking at stupid two minute clips to watch on You Tube to completely etch away at what little grey matter I might have left and I run across an incredibly funny clip of an alleged movie featuring a couple of shapely women in bikini’s on a beach fleeing in terror from a hideous creature. What makes this clip so funny is that we first see ladies fear from the monsters POV in ‘Alien Vision’ which, at best, looks homemade followed up by an actual view of the monster chasing these hotties which looked so awful that I figured this was something some enterprising young person did with an old copy of Poser and a few cute girls he happened know. Imagine my surprise and subsequent joy to see that this was not some fan made nonsense but a real live actual movie starring some real live semi big stars in D.B. Sweeney and Danica McKellar all wrapped around the dull gloss of the Sci-Fi Channel Original. I start kicking myself wondering how in the hell did ‘Heatstroke’ slip past me considering it’s my personal mission to watch every horrible Sci-Fi Channel original movie ever made. I also have a dungeon in my basement where various sexy women come by and whip me into submission so you can kind of see where this whole pathology originates. Good thing for me that my DVR picks up my back when I’m slacking because buried deep amongst the unwatched morass stuff on that seemingly bottom storage drive is ‘Heatstroke’ simply begging to be watched. And wouldn’t you know that ‘Heatstroke’ did not disappoint as it could easily qualify as one of the most insanely stupid movies ever made. Outstanding.

Back in the mid seventies while watching his Saturday morning ‘toons, little eight year old Stevie O’Bannon had his show rudely interrupted by some rather bizarre looking aliens intercut with flowing volcanoes. Oddly enough I totally remember that while I was watching Superfriends back then with the difference being little Stevie wouldn’t not sleep again. Ever. I on the other hand sleep like a baby every night with blissful ignorance of our impending doom.

Thirty plus years later Captain Steve O’Bannon (Sweeny) is a dog eyed borderline paranoid schizophrenic convinced that there are aliens on the planet earth. How this cat passed his psyche exam to get into the armed forces is beyond me but there he is and

he’s in charge. One day while on alien recon on the beach of some lovely island locale in his one-man bicycle plane, hell if I know the real name of what that thing might be, Captain Steve crashes into the photo shoot, via alien chicanery, of Caroline the supermodel (McKellar). The two have a little confrontation, sexual tension is established and it’s time to move on.

Captain Steve and his crew of alien researchers / special ops badasses have narrowed where they believe the aliens are located, they just don’t know why they are here. Steve’s boss back in Washington wants this nutty program shut down, and rightfully so because it’s a stupid ass waste of my valuable tax dollars, but damn if our team doesn’t actually get a hold of a real live, hottie murdering rubber alien. Think E.T. crossed with the Predator’s mouth crossed with The Alien’s acid spitting abilities crossed with that creature from The Arrival. Only crappy.

Now Mister Government Man is ready to take action by dispatching eight or nine of the most worthless soldiers ever to save the planet earth… but save us from what? What exactly do these aliens want? For thirty sleepless years Captain Steve wondered just that until a magical back rub from a suspect supermodel made it all crystal clear. Global warming anybody? Anybody? You thought it was those aerosol Right Guard cans, but now we know it’s those Stinking Aliens. Take that Al Gore. And these aliens are just minutes away from completing the microwave process on the planet earth unless the insomniac Army Captain and the Supermodel can put a stop to their evil, murderous, nefarious plan. Those Aliens don’t have a freaking chance.

True enough there is nothing really right about ‘Heatstroke’. The special effects, which are kind of important in a movie about alien invasions, are easily some of the worst you will ever see. The story is total nonsense… I mean we still have thousands upon thousands of troops in Iraq looking for WMD’s but upon getting word that aliens are trying to cook the earth we send eight undertrained inept soldiers and a supermodel. D.B. Sweeny really looked exhausted in this movie so I’m thinking they wrote in the whole insomniac angle after he showed up on set looking like he’d just been on a six week bender, not that this stopped my man from being far and away the best actor in this flick.

But these immense shortcomings do not necessarily equate to a movie that lacks entertainment value. The first time the world’s worst CGI alien chases the bikini clad hottie down the beach we realize this has to be played for camp. I guessing director Andrew Prowse might’ve gone into this movie attempting to make the next ‘A Space Odyssey’ but after observing how tired his star looked and seeing the eight dollar special effects budget, he made the wise decision to play this for laughs, enjoy the beach and then get the hell out of town. At least that’s what I would’ve done.

Clearly a movie need not be good for me to get some enjoyment out of it and on no level is ‘Heatstroke’ any good, but it does have its moments of comedy gold. And the Sci-Fi Channel keeps up on its consistent record of craptastic crap.

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