''Stranded'' is a 1987 American

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imagination, imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, Paral ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apo ...

directed by Tex Fuller, written by Alan Castle, and starring

Ione Skye Ione Skye Lee ( ; Ione Skye Leitch; born September 4, 1970) is a British-born American actress and the daughter of singer Donovan. She made her film debut in the thriller '' River's Edge'' (1986) before gaining mainstream exposure for her star ...

Maureen O'Sullivan Maureen O'Sullivan (17 May 1911 – 23 June 1998) was an Irish-American actress, who played Jane in the ''Tarzan'' series of films during the era of Johnny Weissmuller. She performed with such actors as Laurence Olivier, Greta Garbo, Willia ...

Joe Morton Joseph Thomas Morton Jr. (born October 18, 1947) is an American stage, television and film actor. He has worked with film director John Sayles in '' The Brother from Another Planet'' (1984), '' City of Hope'' (1991) and '' Lone Star'' (1996). Ot ...

, Susan Barnes,

Cameron Dye Cameron Dye (born April 9, 1959) is an American actor and singer. He played "Fred" in the movie ''Valley Girl (1983 film), Valley Girl'' (1983), and also had roles in ''The Last Starfighter'' (1984), ''National Lampoon's Joy of Sex'' (1984), ''Bo ...

, and

Michael Greene Michael Harris Greene (November 4, 1933 – January 10, 2020) was an American actor who was active from the 1960s through the 1990s. Career Greene was born in San Francisco, California, the son of Gladys () and Harry Greene. Early in his caree ...

. It was released on November 20, 1987, by

New Line Cinema New Line Cinema is an American film production studio owned by Warner Bros. Discovery and is a film label of Warner Bros. It was founded in 1967 by Robert Shaye as an independent film distribution company; later becoming a film studio after ...

Plot

A grandmother, Grace Clark, and granddaughter, Deirdre Clark, live on a remote farm in the remote American South. They find themselves hostages of a family of aliens who crash land near their home. The aliens are escapees from a war-torn world hoping to hide on Earth. Due to a misunderstanding, the aliens kill the granddaughter's boyfriend, and this leads to their discovery and being attacked by the locals. The locals have been worked into a frenzy by the killed boy's father, a local hothead, which quickly devolves into a hostage situation. Hollis McMann, an African-American sheriff, tries to control the situation and get everyone, aliens included, out alive. His efforts are made more difficult by the alien family's robot guard, an alien assassin from the family's home world, and the prejudice of his own deputies and the locals.

Cast

Production

''Stranded'' marked the feature directorial debut of Tex Fuller, who had previously worked as a photojournalist and doctumentarian. After failed attempts at selling a feature adaptation of his 1977 documentary ''Death Row'', Fuller instead decided a lower budgeted more high concept film would be a better method of establishing himself. Fuller came across Alan Castle's script for ''Shockwave'' (which was retitled to ''Stranded'' to avoid confusion with ''

Shock Waves In physics, a shock wave (also spelled shockwave), or shock, is a type of propagating disturbance that moves faster than the local speed of sound in the medium. Like an ordinary wave, a shock wave carries energy and can propagate through a med ...

'') with Fuller quite taken with the scripts themes of fear and intolerance mixed with a high tension home invasion setup. After taking the script to producers Mark Levinson and Scott Rosenfelt, the film was put into production after the two responded positively to the script.

Release

New Line Cinema gave the film a gradual release by region in late 1987.

Reception

The

Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large na ...

found the film to be the kind of "picture a company will just throw out into the market, hoping to cop a quick buck". It found the acting, direction, special effects, and lighting to be lacking. Creature Feature gave the movie 3 out of 5 stars, finding it an entertaining and respectable piece of work. Moria found the film to be a disappointment and amateurish, especially the direction, pacing, and writing.

References

1987 films 1980s English-language films American science fiction films 1980s science fiction films New Line Cinema films 1980s American films

External links

* {{IMDb title, 0094050, Stranded (1987)