If you’re in the mood for a stoner comedy about aliens landing in a remote area of New Zealand in search of a good time, then cancel your plans tonight, because director Shae Sterling made Alien Addiction just for you.
Local boy Riko (Jimi Jackson) is interested in hanging with his mates, sampling the best cannabis, and looking for girls. One day at the pub, they see a news item about a fiery object falling from the sky and crashing nearby. It winds up being a typical flying saucer crewed by odd-looking extraterrestrial visitors (I mean, I guess, what do I expect aliens to look like? These are the size and shape of human teenagers with large blue latex heads and bulging stomachs, dressed in stylishly goth black leather).
“…a stoner comedy about aliens landing in a remote area of New Zealand in search of a good time.”
The film ticks some unusual checkboxes. It’s set in New Zealand, populated by some rough and tumble mates in a small farming town, who love to get high. Riko’s moko (traditional chin tattoo)-sporting Maori Auntie (Veronica Edwards) with a shotgun is not to be trifled with. There are blue aliens, and an evil alientologist and his clueless math-nerd lab assistant. The aliens hit town ready to get down and discover an idea about what makes for a good psychoactive substance that is frankly, disgusting.
Even though there’s a lot here you haven’t seen, the story is boilerplate. You could easily assemble the script by cutting and pasting cliches: clueless stoner + alien + overly literal interpretation of slang for weed. Cheech and Chong would nod approvingly. This humor was never meant to be cerebral, and it certainly is not. Suppose Jason Mewes’ character, “Jay,” from Kevin Smith’s View Askewniverse films, lived in New Zealand and discovered aliens in his Auntie’s bathroom while masturbating. In that case, Alien Addiction‘s Riko is what you’d get.
"…it's all funny, albeit a mean kind of funny."
