OK, I understand that writing a review of Alien Private Eye is like falling down an abandoned missile silo in north-central Kansas in the middle of a blizzard. Maybe somebody'll spot my mortal remains in the spring, maybe not. I write this in the faint hope that some fellow collector of video trash has found a copy in a bin somewhere, and is wondering whether it's worth $2.00, 3 for $5.00, and is checking out imdb.
Fellow wanderer from the 21st century, cop this treasure and you'll never be alone the rest of your life. People will follow you around in public begging to borrow it, and hotties of both sexes will throw pebbles against your windowpane at 3:30AM to try and get you to come out and play, and, oh, please bring THAT TAPE.
Maybe the weirdest part about this turd-on-tape is that all concerned didn't drop off the edge of the earth after it was...released? ejected?? The producer/ director/ writer/ honeywagon driver, Vik Rubenfeld (all over the credits simply as--VIKK, just--VIKK) has one other professional credit: executive producer of the syndie Early Edition. Hey, better than what I've got. Aspiring showbiz types, remember this. It IS possible to fall in pigsh*t in the movie bidness and arise ten years later smelling like a tea rose.
The protagonist, Nikki Fastinetti, does in fact look like one of the Pini's elves, particularly after gluing on the pointy ears that are the only indication he's an alien. Seriously, there's no other aspect of his being that has anything to do with his being from another world. He has no special powers, no interesting anatomical anomalies, no scene in which he beams up out of danger. His clothes, though. Oh sweet lord his clothes. Mr. Fastinetti is garbed throughout in the most amazing pimp vines imaginable. All I can guess is that these were either left over from some other production, or the director's girlfriend whipped these up in a moment of pure inspiration and wouldn't be denied.
But John Alexander's in it (Mikey from MIB). And Robert Axelrod, who's had one of those great careers that show that there is a middle ground in Hollywood between stardom and utter obscurity, a place where nice people buy cars on time and get mortgages and take budget-conscious vacations and build sensible stock portfolios (OK, for all I know Robert Axelrod is a painthuffing derelict who lives in a packing crate, but given his career of steady work and respectable little parts, it COULD happen).
Also something called "Nur Nur," one Nur Nur Cummings, who's overcome the stigma of being called Nur Nur and has actually produced another crappy movie. Nur Nur plays the #2 alien, and looks a whole lot like Mark Blankfield (and if that's before your time, a butch Gene Wilder). Nur Nur does the entire movie in a Peter Lorre voice. Not vaguely Peter Lorre, but a full-on Peter Lorre. Why? Only Nur Nur and his father confessor know. Like Lemro's alien-ness, it has absolutely nothing to do with anything else in the movie.
Cliff Adduddell hasn't done anything else, though. He doesn't need to. Cliff Adduddell is Kilgore, the bad guy. Kilgore is EVIL. Kilgore has a picture of Adolf Hitler, about the size of a baseball trading card, mounted 'way high up on the wall of his sanctum sanctorum, that he passionately worships. Kilgore snarls, emotes, shoots underlings, and is as much fun to watch as three seven-year-old boys with superhero capes on a backyard trampoline. His double-take near the end of the movie is an American classic. You'll howl, you'll throw things, you'll cop the shot as PC wallpaper.
What else? Oh, in the big sunfight between Nikki and the bad guys, watch for the ol' Switched Girlfriends Ploy. It's like Kilgore's Big Take, I won't attempt to describe it-watch it, savor it, rewind over and over again.
Do you treasure your multiple copies of Housegeist, each with a different title? Then find Alien Private Eye and store it in your nitrogen-atmosphere, 42º preservation vault, along with all the other great movies in your collection that you're 1000% sure will never, ever, ever see on DVD.
