It's not the next Blair Witch Project. It's not even the next Plan 9 From Outer Space, but a Massachusetts filmmaker has turned $1,000 and some help from friends and neighbors into a short film.

The half-hour science-fiction comedy, An Alien Sneezed on Brook Street, premiered Sunday at Coolidge Corner Theater in Brookline, a Boston suburb.

The best and the brightest of the Boston neighborhood's ten and under set -- some of whom starred in the picture -- braved the cold to attend the relatively gala event.

According to the film's director, Peter Rhodes, An Alien Sneezed on Brook Street is about "people who are from somewhere else" yet end up embracing and being embraced by the local community.

They set out in their space ship -- a cunningly disguised refrigerator box -- in search of a bigger place to call home. After landing in an empty Brookline park at night, they are amazed by the wide open spaces of "the planet Brook Street," and decide to colonize it.

The next morning, the pair are surprised to find their new home full of children.

Rasco, the physically older but less mature alien, resents this incursion and plots to get rid of them. Gavoovoo, younger and wiser, makes friends with the children.

Unfortunately, Gavoovoo is allergic to almost everything on Earth. Her constant sneezing transports the children around her back to her home planet.

This is a children's film, so a happy ending is guaranteed. The children return, the community throws an enormous pizza party in the park, and even the irascible Rasco learns to enjoy life in the neighborhood.

It's tempting to ascribe all manner of metaphorical significance to the film -- the challenge of assimilation, the illusion that technology makes our world as small as Gavoovoo and Rasco's home planet -- but that's an exercise for adults.

For the children in the capacity crowd of 600, the film was all about having new friends to play with, an idea with which the audience could enthusiastically respond.

Rhodes is no stranger to space or film. A veteran filmmaker and editor, he worked on a NOVA documentary about the Earth as seen from aboard the space shuttle.

Despite a childhood spent watching Doctor Who from behind the couch in his native Britain, Rhodes claims he isn't "a space buff."

He simply wanted to make a film that could bring the families of his Brook Street neighborhood together. He chose the alien theme because he thought it was something kids could relate to.

And relate they did. Rhodes's cast offered numerous suggestions about how his alien characters should look, feel and act. The children's imaginations far outstripped Rhodes's limited budget, and in the end his aliens' otherworldly appearance was limited to shiny green tunics and bright green nail polish.

Unlike other movies made on a shoestring budget, Brook Street is more than a mere hand-held, Super-8 home movie.

Rhodes describes his film as "tacky -- all the seams are showing," but it's a professional production. A number of friends in the film business donated time, equipment and expertise to the undertaking.

"A huge number of people gave [us] things and services for free." Rhodes believes that either these people bought into his sense of community, or he owes "a lot of favors."

One of the film's stars, eight-year-old Rebecca Fuhlbrigge, described the experience of seeing herself on the big screen as "kind of exciting." Although she played an alien on camera, Rebecca doesn't believe that extraterrestrial life exists.

Her father Bob described the shoot as an educational experience. One Hollywood secret both father and daughter learned was that making a movie involves an lot of standing around between shots -- sometimes in sweltering July weather.

Rhodes doesn't know where he's taking his valentine to Brook Street next. He'd like a larger audience to get the chance to see it, but while he thinks it's appropriate for children's television, he hasn't decided on a suitable outlet.

In the meantime, he can take pride how the neighborhood he set out to celebrate joined the party.

When we imagine life in outer space, some controlling authority or organizing principle is usually involved, but in An Alien Sneezed on Brook Street, the only Prime Directive is love of one's community.