Until this year, the only way to see UFOria at home was on a 1987 VHS tape, and even that version had some of its original songs swapped out after the music rights expired. Cameras rolled way back in June 1980, but Universal, which eventually wound up with the finished film, apparently had no clue what to do with it. The studio’s confusion even made the pages of Rolling Stone in 1983. Somehow, UFOria still didn’t reach theaters until 1985.

Sheldon Bart (Fred Ward, Tremors) wanders in from the desert looking for an old running buddy. Brother Bud Sanders (Harry Dean Stanton, Alien) preaches a little, sells stolen cars a lot, and is looking for a partner. Sheldon is more than happy to sign on. Then he meets Arlene Stewart (Cindy Williams, American Graffiti), a deeply religious supermarket cashier who’s absolutely convinced a spaceship is coming. Sheldon is smitten. Bud, naturally, sees dollar signs.

Writer-director John Binder, making his directing debut, isn’t terribly interested in delivering the wacky sci-fi comedy the title promises. UFOria is much more of a loose, scruffy character piece about faith, loneliness, hustling, and the surprisingly short distance between believing in something and selling it to somebody else.

Ward is terrific as a loudmouthed con man who starts melting the second Arlene enters the picture, and he makes both sides of Sheldon feel completely believable. Williams, still in her Laverne & Shirley years when this was shot, gets plenty of laughs without ever turning Arlene into the punchline. Stanton practically sleepwalks through Bud’s schemes in the best possible way, all crooked charm and casual confidence. He shot this in 1980, the same year he talked Goldie Hawn into joining the Army in Private Benjamin. Here, he’s selling salvation instead. Part grift, part gospel, all oddball.

That loose wavelength is also where UFOria may lose people. The story wanders. The tone keeps changing. Just when you think you’ve figured out what kind of movie you’re watching, the final act takes another left turn and gets stranger still. Some viewers are going to love that refusal to explain itself. Others may start wondering how much time is left.

There’s also something unexpectedly bittersweet about watching it now. Stanton died in 2017, Ward in 2022 and Williams in 2023, and seeing the three of them bouncing off one another with this much looseness and personality gives UFOria an extra little sting. Whatever else the movie is, it’s a chance to spend another 90 minutes with three performers who knew exactly how to make oddballs feel human.