I must have blood. I am dying.
The world wasn't crying out for a remake of Roger Corman's low-budget science fiction chiller Not of This Earth in 1988, but it got one all the same. Produced by Corman's post-New World company Concorde Pictures, the revamped Not of This Earth was co-written and directed by Jim Wynorski (of Chopping Mall fame), who took the screenplay for the 1957 film and grafted on a lot of gratuitous T&A, in addition to cutting in footage from such New World Pictures as Battle Beyond the Stars, Galaxy of Terror, Forbidden World, Piranha and Humanoids from the Deep, and appropriating an entire scene from Hollywood Boulevard. That's rather brazen, but not terribly surprising considering this film was part of a wave of ill-advised, Corman-approved remakes and belated sequels like Wynorski's Big Bad Mama II, Hollywood Boulevard II, and Rock 'n' Roll High School Forever. (There's even a moment where a character hears the beginning of a radio ad for The Big Doll House, which is especially incongruous since it was released 17 years earlier.)
Apart from adding a few scenes (so more scantily clad women can be ogled and then drained of their blood), Wynorski and co-writer P.J. Robertson follow the original script by Charles B. Griffith and Mark Hanna to the letter, only occasionally dropping in distracting references to AIDS, Darth Vader, and the Klingons. Then, of course, there's the copious female nudity, some of which comes courtesy of top-billed Traci Lords, who left the world of hardcore pornography behind to assume the Beverly Garland role of the nurse who's hired to administer blood transfusions to the secretive Mr. Johnson (Arthur Roberts), an alien who has come to Earth in search of blood and can kill at will by removing his sunglasses and zapping his victims (an effect Wynorski either got very cheap or paid through the nose for because he uses the hell out of it). The other major roles are filled by Lenny Juliano (as Mr. Johnson's sarcastic assistant), Ace Mask (as the befuddled doctor treating him), and Roger Lodge (as Lords's CHiPs-referencing motorcycle cop boyfriend, who -- unlike his '50s counterpart -- gets to have a sex scene), and most of the minor roles appear to have been given to strippers and porn actresses (as in the scene where, instead of three bums, Juliano picks up three hookers for Mr. Johnson's edification). All concerned make an effort, but the entire enterprise smacks of creative bankruptcy, and the cheesy '80s synth score doesn't help matters, either. Still, Corman went ahead and remade Not of This Earth again seven years later, this time with Michael York as the blood-starved alien. I've never seen it, so I can't say it's better, but it can't have turned out much worse.