Alien from L.A. (1988) on Netflix
PG19881h 27mAdventureComedySci-Fi
Wanda Saknussemm works at a Los Angeles diner. A letter says her archaeologist father fell into a bottomless pit, and she flies to Africa, where she drops into a hidden world below.
- Netflix2.6/5
- IMDb3.4/104,764 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes22%
Trailer
Plot summary
Wanda Saknussemm is a shy, geeky young woman with large glasses and a squeaky voice who works at a diner in Los Angeles. After her boyfriend dumps her for lacking a sense of adventure, a letter brings news that her archaeologist father died after falling into a bottomless pit. She flies to Zamboanga, North Africa, and while going through his belongings finds his notes about Atlantis, a civilization that apparently began when an alien ship crashed and sank toward the center of the Earth. Beneath his apartment she enters a chamber and sets off events that drop her down a deep hole. She wakes far underground, in a world where nobody believes the surface exists, and where she is taken for a spy.
Cast
- Richard Hainesas Professor Saknussemm
- Christian Andrewsas Brick Bardo
- Lynda Marshallas Fat Lady
Show all 19 cast
- Kristen Trucksessas Stacy
- James Lithgowas Donaldson / Wrestling Announcer / Emcee
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Alien from L.A. (1988)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Albert Pyun got the job by rescuing another film: producers Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan, dissatisfied with Rusty Lemorande's rough cut of Journey to the Center of the Earth, asked Pyun to finish it, and he offered to do that for free if he could make Alien from L.A. for under $1 million.
- Cannon asked Pyun to film in South Africa partly because Globus and Golan wanted to spend "blocked funds" that government rules would not let them take out of the country; gold mines and gold dumps served as the underground sets, the mining residue creating an unusual looking landscape.
- Kathy Ireland was chosen by Albert Pyun after he saw a photo of her, without a screen test, in what became her debut in a major motion picture; Pyun picked her for her tall stature, wanting to illustrate a physical difference between people from the surface and people closer to the Earth's center.
- Ireland says her character was changed between the time she was cast and the start of filming: she had read for a "flirty Madonna type", and they turned her into a geeky, clumsy, shy girl, which she liked better.
