This Day in Horror History: ALIEN NATION Opened in 1988

On this day in horror history, Graham Baker’s buddy cop neo-noir sci-fi film Alien Nation with James Caan, Mandy Patinkin, and Terence Stamp opened in 1988.

A co-production between American Entertainment Partners and 20th Century Fox, Alien Nation grossed over $32M worldwide, becoming a moderate success. It’s since gained a cult following, spawning a short-lived TV series, five TV films, a set of comic books, and a number of novels.

Producer Gale Anne Hurd said: “We wanted the aliens to be more like a different ethnic race than like lizard people, … We didn’t want our audiences thinking, ‘Gee, look how different these aliens are.’ Rather, after about five minutes we wanted the audience to accept them as different from us, but not so different that no one is buying the storyline. We wanted the aliens to be characters–not creatures.”

Evidently, a remake is in the works with Art Marcum and Matt Holloway (Iron Man) penning the screenplay and Jeff Nichols (Take Shelter, Midnight Special) directing.

For those of you out there that might not know, the film takes place in Los Angeles circa 1991 where humans live alongside extraterrestrial humanoid beings whose spaceship crash-landed three years earlier. This coexistence is not always harmonious, as exemplified by segregated slums and the uneasy partnership of police detective Matthew Sykes (Caan) with new humanoid partner Sam Francisco (Patinkin). However, the pair begin to overcome their differences as they investigate a slum drug ring led by the slippery William Harcourt (Stamp).

The film sports a 53% approval rating over on Rotten Tomatoes with a Critics Consensus that reads: Alien Nation takes the interesting premise of extraterrestrials living among us and doesn’t do enough with it, emphasizing a police procedural plotline over the more intriguing sci-fi elements.

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