Music

THIS EXISTS: Moby's porn-store sci-fi Christmas movie musical

by Tyler Munro

Every week, This Exists uncovers and explores musical peculiarities that exist in the dark corners of the internet, sometimes just outside the mainstream. Today we’ll take a look at Moby’s 2002 movie, Alien Sex Party.

Moby went into the new millennium as an unlikely superstar. He’d somehow gone from a quiet, marginal underground success to a quiet, inescapable chart-topper. Play ended up with 9 chart topping singles—Thriller had 7—and it went onto sell over ten million albums.

Play‘s success made Moby all but omnipresent, in part because he licensed each of the album’s songs for use in commercials, movies and TV shows and in part because its songs were awesome. While Play made Moby into an unexpected pop-star, leading to unlikely collaboration with Gwen Stefani, it did little to show his personality. In fact, if anything, Play made the listener question whether he had one at all (he does).

Released in 2002, Moby’s only feature film shows us his personality in the oddest way possible. It’s called Moby Presents: Alien Sex Party and no, we’re not joking. If the title sounds peculiar, just wait until we tell you the plot.

Alien Sex Party is, naturally, a Christmas movie. It’s been called “Clerks in a porn shop,” a pretty obvious comparison given that there’s a scene which takes place at the Quick Stop and stars Brian O’Halloran, but as far as plot goes, Alien Sex Party is a little all over the place.

Officially it’s the story of a prudish porn store owner who keeps his shop open all night on Christmas Eve for the big release of a new film and a signing by its star, but the plot is a pretty thin backdrop for a non-stop barrage of crude jokes and cruder songs, like the two minute punk song “Fuck Christmas, Fuck You,” which features Moby on drums and a traditional-turned-techno holiday song sung by porn star Dyanna Lauren.

All in all, Alien Sex Party is weird. Really weird. So weird, in fact, that a cameo by executive producer Moby in which he wears dildos on his head is far from the oddest thing you’ll see in the film.

Alien Sex Party is worth a watch if you can track it down, which shouldn’t be hard since it seems to be available, in several parts, on YouTube. You can buy the DVD here.