A group of boarding school kids encounter an alien from Venus and team up with the small extraterrestrial, which they name Meba, to catch a bunch of dastardly crooks.

This is a charming, odd, obscure low budget movie from the Children’s Film Foundation, which was a UK non-profit-making organisation that used to make cheap films for kids with pretty simple, straightforward stories. Other sci-fi/fantasy CFF productions include THE GLITTERBALL and THE MONSTER OF HIGHGATE PONDS.

In this movie the alien can transform into a little cartoon flying saucer (with eyes) that zips around the place. When not flying, Meba is a small puppet-creature that is basically a pair of googly eyes wrapped in a white yashmak. This alien is meant to be endearing… but Meba looks bloody creepy!

SUPERSONIC SAUCER features kids who sound so terribly old-school British (even the girl from South America does!), which is par for the course with a Children’s Film Foundation movie, and the plot is nothing special. So the main attraction is, of course, the alien Meba – who remains a bit freaky-looking throughout the movie!

And this is what I want to know: is Meba a sentient flying saucer that can turn into a little creature with big eyes, or is Meba a little creature with big eyes that can turn into a flying saucer?

With a story by Frank Wells, the son of H.G. Wells, I’ve read some claims that SUPERSONIC SAUCER was an influence on ET, but I’m sure it’s probably too obscure to ever have gotten onto Steven Spielberg’s radar.

SUPERSONIC SAUCER was released on DVD by the BFI as part of a triple bill of Children’s Film Foundation movies.