The Varrow Mission (1978)

aka Teen Alien

It's Halloween, which means time for the local Spook Alley competition where groups of teenagers compete to make the best haunted attraction.  Every year the same rival group wins, so Carl manages to get the key to the old mill which has been abandoned for years and is rumored to be haunted.

Carl and his friends go to the mill to set up their Spook Alley. Their rivals follow to figure out what they are doing.  Strange things happen at the mill and the kids discover it's not haunted.  There's an alien there.

So... if the aliens mission is to take over the world by killing humans one by one, and he's been in the old mill for years, either he's really inept or it's not such a good plan.

Um... he's an alien from a far away plent with a machine that can make him look like any human, but he can't get through a chain link fence?

Oh yea, it's the 1970s - feathered hair on boys and girls, stilted acting, knee high boots on a boy, and it was legal for kids to ride in the back of picking up trucks and sit on the sides of the truck bed.  The music is moog, keyboard, needle drop and when I heard the closing theme, I joking thought "Love Theme From the Varrow Mission." Aaaaand that's actually what it was called.

The alien has 8x10 glossies on the wall of his lab. The lab is actually pretty cool and there are some nice special effects, especially considering the limited budget this film had.

This is long and slow paced, and sometimes tedious, but I liked it. I think it's a nostalgia thing, especially since in the 70s movies actually required money and effort, unlike now when anyone with a camera and computer can put out their own movie.

Accoring to info on IMDB by someone who worked on the film, it was made in Salt Lake City.  There was a radio contest to pick the teenaged cast, and the kids made the sets, did the make up and their mothers made the costumes.

Someone got a haircut

The days when parents didn't worry about brain
injuries and kids rode in the back of pick up trucks

The abandoned building for the Spook Alley.

The good kids

The bad kids - you can tell tell due to their arrogant
posturing. Plus this is the only guy I've ever seen
who wears his pants tucked into his boots.

Good god!  

Hey is this part of our Halloween display?

Nope