James L. Conway’s Wild 1980–81: From UFOs to Family Aliens to Monster Mines
In just two years, James L. Conway directed three very different films — the conspiracy sci-fi Hangar 18, the family comedy Earthbound, and the cult horror gem The Boogens. Here’s a look back at one of the strangest mini-careers of the 1980s.
Three Films, Two Years, Three Different Worlds
Not every director in the 1980s had a blockbuster trilogy or a string of box office smashes. Some carved out their corner of the decade in stranger, scrappier ways. James L. Conway is one of those names. Between 1980 and 1981, Conway delivered three movies from three wildly different genres — a paranoid UFO thriller, a warmhearted alien family comedy, and a subterranean monster flick.
It’s the kind of filmography that makes you pause and wonder: how did one filmmaker jump around so much, so quickly? And why is only one of those movies still talked about today?
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Hangar 18 (1980) — Sci-Fi and Paranoia on a Budget
The first stop on Conway’s short-lived feature film tour was Hangar 18, a movie that couldn’t have come at a more perfect time. Post-Watergate America was deeply suspicious of its institutions, and UFO lore was at a peak in late-night talk radio and pulp paperbacks. The plot — astronauts stumble onto evidence of alien life, only to see a cover-up unfold — fed right into the era’s fears.
Hangar 18 was released by Sunn Classic Pictures, a Utah-based company that specialized in pseudo-documentaries and family-friendly programming. It wasn’t a blockbuster, but it found an audience. The film later developed a minor cult following, especially after being lampooned by bad-movie enthusiasts, but it’s still a fascinating artifact of Cold War paranoia and low-budget sci-fi ambition.
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Earthbound (1981) — Burl Ives, But Make It Alien
Next up, Conway swerved hard in the opposite direction. Earthbound is the least-remembered of his three films, but maybe the most curious. Imagine E.T. but filtered through the sensibilities of a Hallmark movie.
The plot: a small-town innkeeper (played by the legendary Burl Ives) shelters a group of gentle, stranded aliens who just want to get home. It’s wholesome, it’s goofy, and it feels more like a TV pilot than a theatrical feature — which makes sense, because that’s exactly what it was. Networks passed on the show, so it was cobbled together into a feature and given a token release.
Of the three Conway films, this one simply didn’t have a chance to make a dent. Too soft for sci-fi fans, too obscure for family audiences, Earthbound is now a footnote. Still, there’s something charming about watching Burl Ives treat alien refugees with the same warmth he brought to Christmas specials.
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The Boogens (1981) — A Cult Classic Emerges
Finally, Conway struck gold — or at least cult gold. The Boogens is a no-frills monster movie about miners unleashing ancient, tentacled creatures in the tunnels beneath a Colorado town. It had a budget of around $600,000, a regional distribution rollout, and reviews that ranged from lukewarm to downright dismissive.
But here’s the twist: Stephen King gave it a thumbs up in Twilight Zone Magazine. That one little blurb was enough to give the film a second life. Cable airings and VHS rentals in the 1980s and ’90s cemented it as a beloved oddity, and today it lives on thanks to Blu-ray restorations and boutique label reissues.
The secret of The Boogens isn’t that it’s great — it’s that it’s fun. The monsters are rubbery and oddly charming, the atmosphere is pure drive-in grit, and it scratches that itch for old-school creature feature fans.
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From Film to Television — Conway’s Pivot
After this three-movie run, Conway never made another feature. Instead, he pivoted to where he’d make his mark: television. His credits read like a greatest hits list of late-20th-century TV — MacGyver, Charmed, Smallville, Supernatural, and, most famously, a long relationship with the Star Trek franchise. He directed episodes across The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise.
In hindsight, that jump makes perfect sense. Conway was versatile, efficient, and adaptable — the perfect qualities for episodic TV. His short feature career may look bizarre on paper, but it also showed his range. Who else in Hollywood could go from government cover-ups to kindly grandfathers to slimy underground monsters in just two years?
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Why James L. Conway Deserves a Second Look
So why revisit Conway’s trio of oddities today? Because they remind us that the 1980s weren’t just about Spielberg blockbusters, slasher icons, or high-concept comedies. They were also about filmmakers like Conway, hustling in the margins, trying different genres, and leaving behind curious time capsules.
Only The Boogens has real staying power, but all three films are worth checking out if you want to see the decade in its full, messy, fascinating spectrum. And celebrating directors like James L. Conway — the ones who didn’t become household names but kept the B-movie machine running — is exactly what Movies of the 80s is all about.
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Movies of the 80s
We love the 1980s. Everything on this page is all about movies of the 1980s. Starting in 1980 and working our way the decade, we are preserving the stories and movies of the greatest decade, the 80s. https://www.youtube.com/@Moviesofthe80s
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