After her husband is killed in a car accident, Nancy Henninger rents out her backyard apartment to try to make ends meet. But her teenage son, Zach, is suspicious of her new tenant, Harry Longworth, who disappears at odd hours and carries what appears to be a strange weapon.
Opening narration[]
| “ | From the time we are children, we are taught to mistrust strangers. But are we always as wary as we encourage them to be? | ” |
Plot[]
Before appearing to rent the backyard apartment of Nancy Henninger, a mysterious stranger pulls a man carrying a suitcase into an alley. He uses a mysterious device to scan the man, then zaps him until the man with the suitcase melts into a puddle of green goop. The stranger uses a cylinder to collect some of the melted material. Later, he introduces himself to Nancy and her son, Zach, as Harry Longworth. He says he has come to the suburban community of Hunterville to set up a new factory for his company. Nancy is satisfied with his answer and welcomes Harry, but Zach is immediately suspicious of the man and protective of his mother.
Zach and his friend Josh take notice when three people disappear from town and Zak decides to conduct his own investigation. He follows Harry as he appears around town, and attempts to tell his friend's dad, Detective Dayton, that Harry is somehow involved. He breaks into Harry's apartment multiple times despite Harry's threats against him. He discovers a case containing cylinders in which alien serpents writhe in the green goop found at the scenes where people disappeared.
For far too long, Zak sees Harry as the villain of the situation. Zak and Detective Dayton follow a lead and Dayton reveals he is an alien before Zach knocks him down a set of stairs. Zach takes his gun and proceeds into the room with Harry. When confronted with a scene in which Harry has Zach's mother tied up in a chair, Harry attempts to explain that he is a government agent, finding and capturing aliens who have possessed human bodies in an irreversibly fatal process for the human host. Zach shoots him only to find out his mother has also been possessed by one of the aliens. Another agent appears to kill the impostor of Zach's mother and save Zach, deciding to recruit Zach as his new partner in their quest to rid the world of the alien invaders.
Closing narration[]
| “ | As long as an enemy is judged solely by his appearance, his victory is assured. | ” |
Cast[]
- Judd Nelson as Harry Longworth
- Garry Chalk as Detective Frank Dayton
- Barbara Tyson as Nancy Henniger
- Shaun Johnston as Parker
- Kaj-Erik Eriksen as Josh Dayton
- Larry Musser as Detective Pete Button
- Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Zach Henniger
- R. Nelson Brown as Bum
- David Abbott as Herbert Lowry
- Reg Tupper as Walt Coghlan
- Erica Carroll as Elizabeth Andrews