I don't remember how I came across it, but I read a synopsis of "Inalienable" somewhere so I sought it out. It's a sci-fi flick and I generally try to give those a chance since there's not enough good sci-if out there and occasionally you come across a no-budget gem like Primer. This was not one of those movies, but it may be a gem of a different kind, or at least fools gold. It's firmly in the "so amazingly bad it's hilarious" camp.
Lots of spoilers follow, and I'll say up front I had to fast forward through parts of this so I may have missed some things, but as I said - it's just that bad.
It was written by Walter Koenig - Chekov from the original Star Trek. He also has a fairly big part in the film. I used to think his hair was just an outrageously bad toupee back when he was on Babylon 5. Now it's got grey in it though, so I'm wondering if it's actually the world's mightiest comb-over.
Chekov also gave his son a fairly big part. As far as I can tell this guy's only previous claim to fame was playing "Boner" in the craptastic 80's sitcom "Growing Pains".
His daughter, a stand-up comic, has a much smaller bit part, doing really bad stand-up comedy related to the plot of the movie.
The star of the movie is Richard Hatch, from the 70's version of Battlestar Galactica, and another cast member with distractingly bad hair. He's got longish dark brown hair over a craggy 60+ year old face.
I've never heard of the director, and looking at IMDB he hasn't done much. This is not surprising.
So on to the plot;
Richard Hatch is a scientist. A "brilliant" scientist according to his much younger blond female colleague. He's studying AIDS in monkeys or something like that. Chekov is his condescending boss. Hatch is torn up over the death of his wife & son, who were killed in a car accident. This is shown through flashbacks with the help of one of the worst child actors I've ever seen (worse than Anakin in Episode 1, seriously) and a clearly stuffed deer.
A meteor lands on the property of one of Hatch's friends (played by the guy who was in the TV version of Alien Nation and another memorably bad movie - Robot Jox). He finds a strange pod-like thing inside it, and since Hatch is a scientist, brings to to him. Hatch doesn't have time for this bullshit so he just stashes it in a corner of his lab. He works late, falls asleep at his desk and winds up infected by an alien life form.
A day or two later when he realizes something is very wrong (orange mucus helps him come to this insight) he consults the guy who played Cameron in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off". Finds out it's a parasite, but it shares his DNA. Oh, and removing it would kill him instantly.
As the parasite develops Chekov finds out about it and calls in the Feds, so Hatch and Blondie flee to avoid having him become the subject of medical experiments. They stop for the night and hide out in a barn, where Hatch "gives birth". This isn't shown directly, but a "baby" (which is much larger than the protrusion on the side of his gut was) is removed.
The next morning we get our first look at Baby Boy. He kind of resembles a kid with Down syndrome, but with four giant mealworm-like tentacles stuck to his back and no nose. Throw some Rocky Dennis from "Mask" in there too. He looks to be about a 35 pounder, big for a newborn! Hatch starts to bond with the tyke but the Feds show up instantly and snatch up Hatch and the baby. Blondie is told to go home.
Flash forward to one week later. Patricia Tallman (from Babylon 5) shows up as a mad scientist type, and Baby Boy has grown to midget-in-a-suit size surprisingly quickly. Both Hatch & Baby Boy are despondent and being kept separate, so they them see each other and Baby gets better quickly, so they decide to let father & "son" stay together at least some of the time.
Of course Hatch still isn't happy about being held prisoner so he tries to escape. Beating up several much younger guards in the process, he is eventually subdued. Baby Boy gets loose though, and proves to be quiet a handful, strangling a few people with his tentacles in an effort to defend himself and his father. They're both taken down eventually and do not escape.
Meanwhile Blondie is working hard on the outside to find Hatch and get him out. Chekov takes this opportunity to make fun of the sci-fi fans he's had to deal with for years at cons - they distribute leaked video of Hatch & Baby Boy over the internet in a montage sequence. A guy in a wheelchair wearing a spacesuit and a cowboy hat typing away furiously is a highlight.
A little while after the news gets out, Baby Boy seems to have stabilized no longer needs his father quite so much, so the Feds let Hatch go since he's pretty much just been a pain in the ass anyway.
This all leads up to the movie's dramatic climax, and it's just what you might expect - a big courtroom drama! Seriously. It takes up about 45 minutes of a hour and 45 minute movie.
Deanna Troi from Star Trek: The Next Generation shows up at this point as the deputy attorney general representing the (evil) government side. If you thought Troi couldn't act on TNG just wait until you see this! She chews scenery all over the place. At one point she literally cries to the heavens.
I was describing this to a friend and he insisted I was making it up. Nope. Not only is it real, it's out on DVD (Usenet too). It's freaking amazing. Ed Wood lives on.
more info here:
http://www.walterkoenigsite.com/inalienable.htmlhttp://www.amazon.com/InAlienable-Erick-Avari/dp/B002M2Z3TChttp://www.imdb.com/title/tt1027874/
