There are posters for this movie, but they suck so *shrugs*

I went through a bit of a watch-list spree on Amazon not too long ago and added a butt-ton of horror movies to my watchlist. In doing so I came across this interesting oddity that I’d never heard of before.

Night of the Lawyers sounds like something that involves a bunch of zombie lawyers on a bloody rampage, but alas, tis untrue. Instead it’s about a big haired alien on a mission to find a missing fugitive. Said alien arrives on earth riding a dirt bike powered by sparklers–

That’s gotta be, like, a quarter of the budget right there.

While on his quest, our extraterrestrial Elvis impersonator also accidentally looses an item of mass destruction after inadvertently pissing off a bunch drunken bikers (I’m not making this up.)

The device doesn’t really react well to being accidentally wedged into one bikers hand and the alien flees the scene. Right before the biker dies the device winds up implanted onto the back of the head of Bob, of one of the ER surgeons trying to save him. After doing everything in his power to save their friend, Bob doesn’t take the abuse of the bikers idiot friends too kindly and, displaying sudden unusual strength, ends up shoving one of the fools away…and right towards a very unscrupulous ambulance chaser who happens to be hanging out in the hallway.

Feel free to call us if you want 40% of anything we may get you.

Bob is, of course, sued and winds up loosing the case, even though the idiot is clearly faking his oh-so-traumatic injuries. This pisses Bob off and he follows both attorneys involved in the case to a bar. While there he inadvertently overhears the two of them talking about a possible job opportunity at a firm for his former attorney. Something in Bob snaps and one blue strobe light later, the attorneys have disappeared.

Honestly, after all the flashing lights they probably just had a seizure and are convulsing
on the floor.

Meanwhile, the alien finds out from his commanding officer (who he refers to as sir, but is clearly a woman) that the device he’s lost could end up destroying the entire human species if he does, in fact, happen to loose it (Oopsie). He then spends the rest of the movie ineptly attempting to retrieve the blue, strobb-y doomsday device.

Night of the Lawyers is what would happen if you wanted to do a sci-fi spoof in the same vein as Airplane!, but only had enough money for three special effects, a bit of fake blood and a camera rental. It feels like something that was made in the 80’s, complements of the soundtrack and some interesting font choices

–but it actually came out in 1997. The whole thing feels like it was a made for TV movie, yet the swearing and female nudity prove otherwise. Its villain, the evil Moriarty, is evil in the same vein that Dr. Evil is evil. He strikes an imposing figure, he’s got a secret bunker in the basement of the firm, there are trap doors everywhere, and he even has an evil plan to fill the Senate and House with more, Gasp!, lawyers.

Mwa ha….ha?

But he ultimately ends up being pretty inept (Although he does pull double duty as the alien…). He pushes the wrong death trap door and almost kills off the Attorney General and when he finally goes to confront Bob at the end, he chooses to bring along two idiotic nincompoops who nearly hurt themselves before they even make it past the curb.

Remember everyone, these people went to LAW SCHOOL.

In short, this is not a movie that takes itself at all seriously. There are inside jokes at the expense of the characters, the alien keeps trying to make people look the other way so he can flee, there are comedic sound effects, there’s a detective who’s job it is to figure out why all the lawyers are missing yet hates lawyers so much that he himself starts to strangling one after the poor schlub is already dead.

In all fairness, anyone who’s lost in a divorce case probably feels the same way.

I’m honestly a little confused how it made it into the horror section. It’s clearly a sci-fi comedy. There’s little blood and the only horrific thing to happen is the mass disappearance of lawyers across the country. Hell, even at the end when the protagonists are being surrounded with gun-totting idiots in the dark they don’t come across as all that concerned for their own safety.

But even still, it’s an okay little flick. The budget is laughable and the characters even more-so (and not always in a good way.) But despite all that, and a few moments of crappy editing, you can also tell it’s got some heart to it and also a few moments that made me chuckle. If you get enjoyment out of Troma movies, feel free to give this one a shot.

Night of the Lawyers used to be available on Amazon Prime, but it seems to have been removed as of late. I’m not sure how, other than possibly finding a VHS copy, one can view it. Maybe you can find it on Youtube somewhere.

*Note: I would have liked to have added some background info about the movie, but I couldn’t find a damn thing about it, other than an IMDB page. So I had to screencap everything directly from Amazon and Youtube. All I’ve been able to discern, based on the video quality, is that I don’t think it’s ever made it past a VHS release.