Kathy Ireland tumbles off the pages of Sports Illustrated and into the center of the Earth as the ALIEN FROM L.A., on Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome.

Malibu carhop waitress Wanda Saknussemm (Ireland) has ratty hair, geeky glasses, and a headache-inducing voice, and has just been dumped by her studly surfer boyfriend Robbie (future director Don Michael Paul, ROLLING VENGEANCE). Wanda resolves to change herself and wishes for an adventure, which she gets when she receives a letter informing her that her estranged archaeologist father Arnold (Richard Haines) has fallen down a bottomless pit and is presumed dead. Traveling to North Africa, Wanda discovers that her father believed that the lost city of Atlantis was still thriving at the center of the Earth. She discovers the location of said pit when falls into it herself. She rescues Atlantean miner Guten (FALCON CREST's William R. Moses) who leads her into Atlantis which is ruled by Lord Over (Fats Bookholane, THE WILD GEESE) and propaganda media that alternately deny and acknowledge the existence of aliens as its convenient to the work ethic of the citizens.

While Wanda thinks they mean aliens from outer space, she does not realize that her father has been captured as a suspected alien spy and that she is being stalked by Shank (Janie du Plessis) who abducts her to profit from both slave trader Mambino (Deep Roy) and government General Rykov (also du Plessis) who believes that aliens from the surface world are planning an invasion. When Wanda manages to escape with Guten's help, the entire city is out to get her when the government puts a reward on her head. While Guten seeks help from Professor Galba (Lochner de Kock) who has become unpopular with the government for speculating on the reality of a surface world, Wanda meets cute with thief Charmin (Thom Matthews, RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD) who reluctantly becomes her protector as she and her father attempt to get back to the surface.

A science fiction-tinged variation of THE WIZARD OF OZ – a number of the cast play dual roles above and below ground including Linda Kerridge (FADE TO BLACK) as both Wanda's Auntie Pearl and Guten's bar owner girlfriend Roryis – ALIEN FROM L.A. "on the surface" seems to have all the makings of a wild eighties Cannon picture with Ireland, tax break haven South Africa standing in for North Africa, and some impressive underworld sets that seem patterned after BLADE RUNNER's crowded streets of perpetual night bombarded by video bulletins and advertisements – however, that is actually pretty much all that it has. The story is so slight that one realizes that much of the running time is taken up by running down corridors with the only real danger posed to Wanda and her father being the disagreement between Rykov and fey Consul Crassus (Simon Poland, MASQUE OF THE RED DEATH) over whether the "aliens" are spies coming ahead of an invasion or accidental visitors who can bet sent back to the surface if they promise not to tell of the Atlanteans' existence.

While the story is more coherent than Pyun's earlier science fiction pic VICIOUS LIPS for Empire Pictures, it's similarly strongest element is Pyun's eye for slick, music video visuals (cinematographer Tom Fraser toiled in low budget eighties fare and some adult flicks before becoming a prolific mainstream television camera operator), and some catchy tunes. Pyun would take over the behind schedule JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH which he would rework as a sequel to ALIEN FROM L.A. before also walking away from the production which was credited to producer Rusty Lemorande (ELECTRIC DREAMS) who posted on the defunct IMDb boards years ago that he only shot the opening scenes set in England.

Given a relatively wide release by Cannon, ALIEN FROM L.A. then went to VHS from Media and laserdisc from Image but was perhaps more familiar in recent years as the subject of a Mystery Science Theater 3000 (a fate that also befell the sequel). When MGM acquired the Cannon library through Polygram, they put out a DVD using the existing fullscreen video master and that was it until Vinegar Syndrome's 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 1.85:1 widescreen Blu-ray from a 2K scan of the original 35mm interpositive. Shot in a warm, smoky, filtered eighties style, ALIEN FROM L.A. loses the haze of the video transfers, restoring highlights in those shafts of light and shadows lost in the murk of video and the on the set fog machines. Ireland never convinced as a geek, but her "makeover" is easier to distinguish from her earlier look here while the varying degrees of make-up and prosthetic work on the underground characters is also easier to appreciate (with Matthews' features looking intentionally smoothed over rather than the loss of fine detail in earlier transfers). Colors in the wardrobe and set accents also now pop against the browns and grays of the underworld sets. The Ultra Stereo soundtrack is rendered in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo, conveying not only some of the surround atmosphere and give breadth to the score but also better containing the high pitch of Ireland's headache-inducing voice. Optional English SDH subtitles are available.

Extras include a trio of new interviews. In "Making a Fairytale" (13:45), Pyun recalls his four picture deal with Cannon including his previous film DOWN TWISTED which featured both Matthews and Kerridge shot in Mexico where the devastation of the recent earthquake and the participation of archaeologists in the assessment of the damage gave him the idea for the film (which originally was titled "Journey to the Center of the Earth" with no credit to Jules Verne who was cited in the credits of the sequel). He reveals that Ireland was thankful that she did not have to spend the entire film in a bikini and that she got on better with the locals in South Africa and Namibia than some of the local cast members during apartheid. He also briefly touches on the troubled sequel.