A wandering band of aliens, in a guitar shaped spacecraft, are trawling the universe in search of the source of rock ‘n’ roll. They arrive in the American town of Speelburgh (!), where Frankie (Craig Sheffer) and his band The Pack seem to be the big thing in town. Frankie’s girlfriend Dee Dee (Pia Zadora) isn’t happy, however, as Frankie won’t let her sing with the band. The arrival of the aliens changes the dynamic and all kinds of singing and dancing trouble breaks out. At the same time, unnoticed by the excitable teens, two chainsaw wielding lunatics have escaped from the asylum and a gigantic tentacled monster has risen from the nearby toxic lake.

“Voyage of the Rock Aliens” is simultaneously risible rubbish and great fun. The songs are cliched and awful, both musically and lyrically, but are incredibly catchy and enjoyably silly – The Pack play a mutant form of spiky rockabilly whereas the aliens are into synth-heavy new wave jams. The dance routines are stupidly simple with most of the dancers struggling to keep up with the choreography, which give the routines a certain parodic charm. The acting is over the top and I assume deliberately stylised. Pia Zadora is mesmerising when on-screen for all the wrong reasons – is it just me or is her head too big for her body? Craig Sheffer let’s his cheek bones act on his behalf, while Tom Nolan, as Abcd, the leader of the aliens, looks quizzically perturbed throughout. Michael Berryman and Ruth Gordon have smallish roles as an escaped lunatic and inept town’s sheriff. Director James Fargo provides plenty of whacky energy and the film zips along at decent pace that ensures there is never any opportunity for it to get boring. The fashions are of the none-more-‘80s variety and are incredibly garish while the “special effects” are wonderfully rubbish. Overall “Voyage of the Rock Aliens” is pretty bad on any normal metric, but it has great energy, a high-cheese factor and a set of songs that are so bad as to be good. All that makes for enjoyably silly, campy, light-heated fun. ( )