The Creature Wasn’t Nice (1983)

Also known as Naked Space and SpaceshipThe Creature Wasn’t Nice was directed and written by Bruce Kimmel, who is probably best known for his other movie, The First Nudie Musical, as well as his acting career. He’s also worked on numerous stage plays, written twenty-five books and even put on production of a musical, Levi, that was based on the story of Levi Strauss with a book by Larry Cohen and a score by the Sherman Brothers. He also came up with the idea for The Faculty.

Kimmel’s director’s cut was only seen twice before producers cut it to pieces. Kimmel loved the old science fiction movies but thought that slashers were evil and despicable.

Beyond Leslie Nielsen — which explains the Spaceship and Naked Space titles being named after Airplane! and The Naked Gun — this has a great cast with Cindy Williams, Gerrit Graham and Patrick Macnee, all of whom seem to be having a wonderful time. Along with Kimmel, they make up the five-person crew of the Vertigo, which is looking for new life when they must land on a planet.

Soon, a goopy red alien is on board and singing “I Want To Eat Your Face” and there’s also a series of parodies, like a cooking show and an elderly Dirty Harry. There’s also footage from This Island Earth and Spectreman, as well as a talking computer that was supposed to be played by Broderick Crawford.

It’s all over the place and frequently falls apart, but Cindy Williams is so plucky and Leslie Nielsen is always funny even in sub-zero parody films and this doesn’t reach those lows.

This feels like if no one on Dark Star smoked grass.