Alison Hannigan

(On Cable TV, May 2019) Considering the continuous parade of dumb movies coming out of Hollywood, it’s probably unfair to single out the 1980s as being a particularly stupid decade. This being said: Wow, the 1980s were a particularly stupid decade, and you don’t have to look much farther than My Stepmother is an Alien as a mortifying example of that. The production history of that film is wild—the first draft of the film, written four years earlier, was meant to be a horror film as an allegory about child abuse. Good luck detecting any of that original intention in the deliberately idiotic result as it appears on-screen, though: Here we have a Science Fiction comedy in which no less than Kim Basinger plays an alien being sent to Earth to seduce a nebbish scientist (Dan Aykroyd) who accidentally holds the key to her planet’s survival. It’s already unpromising, and you haven’t experienced the execution of it all yet. The film squarely feels as if it’s been written for the kids’ market, and not the smart kids’ market. I’d like to talk about the film’s charm, but that’s a stretch—at best, there’s a nod of appreciation at Aykroyd playing a good-dad scientist (to Alison Hannigan, in her first movie role). Then there’s a Basinger, as a naïve (yet incredibly old) alien unaware of the effect she’s having on everyone else. There’s maybe a good film struggling to get out of this mess, but it’s not one we can get from what’s on-screen. The 1980s have produced some memorable films, and some infamous ones, but My Stepmother is an Alien is neither of them—it’s just dumb and forgettable.