When The Human Duplicators was released, nobody really knew or cared about Richard Kiel. This all changed after 1977, when the big freak took on a roll that would make him a cinematic icon forevermore: Jaws. No, he wasn't the guy inside of Bruce the Shark in Jaws, because (a) – Bruce was a robot, not a costume, and (b) – that was 1975. No, when I say “Jaws”, I mean that Big Dick was the orthodontic Hiroshima who tried to put fatal hickeys on super secret agent James Bond with that bear trap he called a mouth. Toothy McChomp popped up two years later in another 007 endeavor, one of my personal favorites, Moonraker. Anyway, given Mr. Kiel's newfound cult status as “that guy with the stainless steel dentures”, somebody thought it'd be a guaranteed moneymaker to put out Jaws of the Alien and capitalize. Given that nobody (again, outside of “MST3K” viewers) knows what this fucking movie is, I'd say a simple name change didn't have quite the effect whomever optioned it had hoped.

Speaking of that name change, for anybody who's seen on of these VHS alias job before, you'll appreciate this. When the movie opens, the font used for the credits is an italicized, yellow-orange tinge all in caps, played over moving footage of the interior of a spaceship. As if in an intentionally cheesy method, all motion on the screen pauses just long enough (though the music continues) for “Jaws of the Alien” to pop up, in plain, red font... absolute Monterey Jack, kids. Anyway, the owner of said spaceship is Dr. Kolos, an intergalactic physician of the highest order. Dr. K isn't a practitioner of podiatry, optometry or gynecology though (ladies, I'll give you a second to process that potential horror), his field of expertise is robotics. Kolos is on his way to Earth on the orders of his superiors to infiltrate the human race with strategically placed android doppelgangers that will help them bring down mankind from the inside out. Side note: I can get past the idea of aliens speaking English, especially since they're trying to infiltrate humanity via the US scientific community, but I find it amazing that Earth isn't alone in the universe when it comes to giving people doctorates... Back to the task at hand, do these aliens want to take over the planet because they need a new one, or are they just here to wipe our shit out for entertainment? Meh, all that matters is that they're from another planet and they think that they can take over the world via a single goon with an over-sized pituitary gland and a knack for Erector sets... wow, this advanced alien civilization must not have much in their invasion budget.

The first step on Dr. K's stairway to success is Professor Vaughn Dornheimer. K shows up on the prof's doorstep, where he quickly stiff arms Thor the servant (a name that's pretty much wasted on an out-of-shape, balding piece of pork fat like this guy) before introducing himself to the Heimer's blind piano playing niece Lisa. That's right, she's blind and she plays the piano. Cliché? Of course it is! You know what's funny about Professor Heimie living in a mansion with a blind woman though? There's an awful lot of medieval weaponry on the walls, halberd wielding suits of armor in the halls, and particularly large and expensive vases precariously perched on thin tables throughout the place. Then again, given how Lisa seems to glide effortlessly through the place, you'd almost think she wasn't really blind, just a bad actress pretending she was... Whatever the case, Kolos (who speaks like a mix of Tom Brokaw and Moose from the Archies) takes an immediate shine to the gorgeous piece of no-see meat and asks her to lead him to her uncle. Uncle Vaughn Heimer (bad Van Hammer joke that only WCW fans with good memories will catch) is found in his laboratory in the mansion's basement... which isn't a basement, but more of a dungeon where the studio is storing the lab set from a bad Frankenstein movie. Heimer's working on his own android project with a pair of beautiful, busty lab assistants (emphasis on the “ass”) who he probably picked up at Hooters rather than any (respectable) college campus I’ve ever seen. Pushing his formidable size and weight around, Kolos declares that the professor now works for him... whether he likes it or not.

Three months later, another scientist named Munson shows up at his research facility for work one day just like any other day, the exception being that he's talking and acting very stiff and mechanically. No sooner can you say “Robot Freak Out!”, then Munson's headlocking a guard to death, smashing through doors, shrugging off bullets, and escaping the building with a suitcase full of random computer parts! Since he's not glowing green and declaring his intention for smashing things before doing so, it's to be assumed he's not the Hulk. As such, it's a pretty safe bet that Kolos and MC Heimer have perfected their android work and this Uber Munson is one of 'em! That safe bet becomes a guaranteed sure thing when it turns out that this is only the latest in a recent rash of similar incidences. Because of these serial technology thefts, National Intelligence Agency super guy Glenn Martin has been assigned to investigate, for fear that this may be the work of an international spy cartel. In case you were wondering, Glenn is our hero. He drives a convertible because he's the cooooool lady killer type of hero, but he leaves the top up to show that he's a conservative kind of guy who votes Republican, carries a gun, and oppresses minorities! And when it comes to the ladies, watch out all you vagina packing chicks out there, cuz Glenn's the kind of guy who will cancel a lunch date with his bimbo for work reasons, then force her to change her plans so they can work around him and make it a dinner date instead. He's calm, he's in charge, he knows the score, and he's a total DICK! YEE-HAW!

The body of the real Dr. Munson is found shortly after the crime by local authorities, in the bottom of a ravine not half-a-mile from Dr. Heimer's pad, thus proving the ages old saying that no matter how intelligent your race of alien androids may be, that doesn't mean they know squat about evading the cops! This of course comes back to haunt the villains later, when Glenn returns for some snooping and discovers the laboratory's secret cave entrance, guarded only by a motion sensor beam that Mr. Martin easily slips under. Climbing a ladder up through the caves (which has to be one helluva ladder considering there's probably a good mile or so worth of mountain between the floor of the ravine and Professor Heimer's basement), Glenn finds a cold storage room filled with caskets containing the bodies of those Kolos and Heimer have been making duplicates of in recent months! Supposedly they're being maintained in case the villains need to go back and make more of 'em, but since the folks are in various states of decay (one of which Mr. Martin manages to break the hand off of!), I'd say Kolos needs to use that mechanics degree her earned through the mail to fix their damn freezer!

Glenn gets himself captured when his gun proves useless against the androids' unstoppable guts. If only he'd had the foresight to shoot them in the head instead, considering every time we've seen one of 'em bump their head even slightly, they break wide open and random things that look like Pixie Stix™, candy wrappers, and silverware fall out, as if they were piñatas filled with crap from Kolos's junk drawer. Dr. K has to tell his faux servants not to kill Glenn, in spite of a fuming hatred for the flesh from RoboThor, who gets put in his place afterwards, but whose emotional outbreak of hatred kinda kills HeimerTron’s declaration that the robot dupes lack emotion and are thus perfect. G-Money gets cloned (via plastic salon hair drier chair as opposed to the “duel tube” method used on another human in the prior scene) and tossed into a cell in case further cloning needs to be done later. There, we learn that the real Professor Heimer is actually being held captive, and the guy doing Kolos's bidding is in reality another android... so, could someone please explain why Dr. K took over Heimer's operation in the first place if he didn't need his help and could go ahead and make androids anytime he wanted to anyway!? Does the term “doctor” on Kolos's planet mean “lacking in common sense and rationale”? I only ask because it’s sure as shit is starting to sound that way.

While real Glenn is trying not to drop the soap in the robo-showers, GlennBot heads back to the NIA offices to pretend he's the real deal. Suspicious of her boyfriend's odd behavior, Glenn's lady bimbo follows the evil android as it too breaks into a tech facility to swipe more robot parts. She freaks and GlennBot struggles with a security guard as it tries to escape. The guard is thrown to the ground and his head shatters, revealing him to be a robot too (what the fuck?!) as GlennBot continues trying to get the hell out of there. He's cornered and loses his right arm in an automatic door, but still manages to evade capture and drive away... hitting a parked car in the process. So I guess that in the future androids, in addition to teens and the elderly, are also going to need to be driven around by robot cars so they’re no loner a danger to themselves and others. How ironic... or just moronic... Gin and Tonic? Don’t mind if I do.

Back at the ranch, the dying Professor Heimer tells Glenn that he can destroy the droids with an electro-pulse cannon that he invented… or he could just stick with what’s been working so far and keep busting their melons open with whatever shit he finds laying around the set. Besides, the “pulse cannon” is really just a big flashlight with a telescope bolted to the top of it, so I wouldn’t put too much stock into it. Whatever the case, Agent Martin then breaks out of his cell with the help of Lisa who brings him his secret agent super coin he had dropped in the struggle with Kolos earlier. James Bonding his way through the steel bars with his coin's titanium dental floss of awesomeness, Glenn goes to retrieve the pulse cannon… which you’d think the villains would have destroyed sometime over the past 90 days, considering the script says that it’s the only weapon that can “kill” them. Once again common sense gets charred to shit on the backburner while everybody was so busy grinning like assholes over this whole “take over the world with evil robot clones” crap.

Speaking of Master Shit Chef Kolos, he’s fallen in love with Lisa and as such ignored direct orders from the Masters of the Galaxy (his multi-chromatic superiors) to clone her. Why they'd want to clone a blind chick with no real use is beyond me. Maybe they each wanted a Lisa of their own to sheath their 3-D meat gavels in during coffee breaks? Either way, Kolos's cyber goons turn on him, led by HeimerTron. As Glenn zaps the doppelgangers with the pulse cannon, turning them against each other in 5 times the amount of time it would’ve taken him to just bash their fragile Pottery Barn™ heads in with a crowbar, Dr. K saves Lisa from being robofied. Agent Martin then redirects his ass-whooping hero power to taking down HeimerTron and grabs a Morningstar from one of Heimer’s many “seemed like a bad idea at the time, but now prove themselves quite convenient!” weapons displays! Before he can do the hero thing and collapse the HeimerTron’s ceramic skull, the one-armed GlennBot shows up to help his brother/father Glenn! GlennBot is also still a Kolos loyalist, so he and HeimerTron roll around and smack each other with a rubber mace before they both finally go “obsolete” on each others' tin asses and the day isn’t so much saved as it’s just over. Thank Isis for that.

Kolos emerges from the basement/dungeon/lab with the rescued Lisa in his arms. Her sight may or may not have been restored (there's a hint it may have been, but no definite statement), but either way Dr. K states that he is indeed an alien who was sent to Earth to clear the way for a full scale invasion. He's also an android, but he found love, failed because he is not weak but rather Glenn was stronger (whu?!), and must now return to his home planet to face his punishment... all while he's surrounded by cops, who just let the guy stroll out back and teleport back to his spaceship... and the spinning glass cookie jar that apparently controls it. My grandma had a glass cookie jar like that once, but she didn’t use it pilot an intergalactic hat box, she just used it to store cookies. They weren't good cookies either, they were prune cookies... Gods be damned how I hated those prune cookies...

Jaws of the Alien brings us nothing new. As far as sci-fi thrillers go, we’ve seen the paranoia of androids walking amongst us and one day turning on humanity and taking over before, putting an I, Robot spin on Invasion of the Body Snatchers with a shortcut through the briar patches and poison ivy of McCarthyism Red Scare fear mongering doesn’t make it new or even so different. Kiel’s accent is hilarious and kills any type of menace or (later) sympathy that we should feel for the big brute, as do his oversized shiny disco smock and intergalactic ski-boots. Speaking of poison ivy though, the inconsistencies of the androids left big itchy welts all over my inner thighs and on the soles of my feet. Are they hand built or are they mechanically reproduced? If both methods are valid, then why use one over the other? Why is it that they’re perfectly malleable most of the time, but their heads and hands shatter with the slightest impact at other times? If Kolos knew that Prof. Heimer’s pulse ray could automatically fry the droids’ robo-brains, why didn’t he destroy it? And if he was just keeping it around in case of such an android rebellion emergency, why not fix the glitch in his droids that caused them to revolt in the first place? If he’s such a friggin’ smarty-pants, why didn’t he realize that RoboThor’s backlash against the “no killing” policy was something that needed to be addressed right away to avoid such rebellious actions? Speaking of the revolting droids, if RoboHeimer’s brain patterns were a copy of the living Heimer’s mind, then why didn’t RoboHeimer know about the pulse cannon too so that he could destroy it? And what was the fucking deal with the android security guard that GlennBot destroyed at the military base!? GAR! BRAIN-CHIP OVERLOAD! NO MAS! NO MAS! JOHNNY-5 NO LONGER WISHES TO BE ALIVE! *BLIP*……………………………………………………..

Sorry kids, but it looks like the Anubis-O-Matic 53000 unit I put together to review this movie for me finally crapped out its logic chip. I guess it preferred the sweet oblivion of being a toaster-combination-automatic-tattooing machine rather than try to figure out shitty Richard Kiel movies. Oh well, looks like I’ll have to take on The Golden Bat by myself next week… Aufwiedersen!