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story identification - Movie about sleepwalking people repairing an alien spaceship


I saw part of a movie on TV back in the late 1970's about a young couple who are traveling through a small town when they have a car wreck. All of the townspeople are yawning and tired all the time. I think it turns out that aliens are using the people at night to repair their spaceship.



Answer



This is "Night Slaves". IMDB didn't have enough plot details, but Movie Mistakes has a pretty good plot synopsis in one of their "what's this movie" questions.



"Question: I'm trying to find the NAME of an old (ABC?) TV movie, circa 1970's, likely mid 1970's. All I remember is the (basic) plot AND the final shot. PLOT: the main character (Andrew Prine?) has been in accident (?), or was hurt in the military and he has a plate in his head or some sort of surgery was done to his brain. Something is "odd" about the new town he moves into and the main character thinks the Sheriff / Police Chief is controlling the people and might even be doing doing something illegal. Also, the main character falls in love with a mysterious woman in the small town, and through some series of events he finds out that the people of the town are being controlled by outer space travelers who are using the towns people to rebuild their space ship, at night, while they are hypnotized while asleep. The Sheriff and his new love ARE the head aliens. They are using the towns peoples 'bodies' to do the repairs because they don't have physical bodies, they are just beings made of 'energy'. The main character can't be 'hypnotized' because of the plate / surgery to his head. Near the end of the movie he actually sees the people wandering out toward a field where the busted space ship is being repaired. LAST SHOT: the final shot is the main character's body, lying in a field, in broad daylight. He's gone off into outer space (or just his 'life energy' has gone')with the woman with whom he fell in love. Roll Credits. 11:00 o'clock news. I started thinking about this because there was an episode of "Eureka" where the town's people worked on a 'project' at night, while they were hypnotized. Same plot, different out come. Thanks


Answer: This sounds like the 1970 made-for-TV movie titled, Night Slaves, starring Andrew Prine, James Franciscus, and Lee Grant. Leslie Nielsen played the sheriff of a small western town where some strange force has turned the residents into zombies."



You can watch the full movie below;






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