A Quick Look: SPACED INVADERS (1989 - color)

At my place for some years now, October ends with a screening of SPACED INVADERS. This delightful comedy features a group of Martian misfits who hear an anniversary re-broadcast of the Mercury Theater's "The War of the Worlds" and take the signal to be authentic. Heading for the source of the signal, the Martians invade the sleepy little town of Big Bean. Their plans of glorious combat and ultimate victory are crippled when the locals mistake them for trick-or-treaters, and that's just the beginning of the fun! Film was popular when released in 1990, and for a few years there was a video and TV staple. "Let me explain the whole situation in a nutshell. There are five of us, and four billion of them. They have strategic air commands, nuclear powered submarines, and John Wayne!"

UPDATE: Those interested in getting the film may do better than the nice DVD release by hunting down the VHS version. Rather than cropping the film for video and television, it appears the distributors instead unmasked the film to make it fit a TV screen. This means there's actually more information (and a few gags) visible in the video version unseen in the theatrical print.

A Quick Look: ERNEST SCARED STUPID (1992 - color)

   Although despised by the hoi polloi, Jim Varney's commercial pitchman Ernest P. Worrell struck a cord with real people and became an icon of the late 20th Century. Commercials led to video specials which ultimately led to the big screen and a series of successful features. ERNEST SCARED STUPID probably represents the high water mark of that series (though most fans agree the best film of the franchise was the previous entry, ERNEST GOES TO JAIL). My generation's answer to ABBOTT AND COSTELLO MEET FRANKENSTEIN, horror and slapstick comedy combine. Long ago in Brairville, Missouri, old-world troll Trantor has been abducting the children of the settlers. The right Reverend Fennious Worrell leads the townsfolk in a successful effort to capture and imprison Trantor, burying the monster under the roots of a tree. Trantor vows revenge and places a curse on Fennious, claiming that a Worrell will release him to again spread his terror across the land. A hundred years or so later and your old buddy Ernest does just that on the night before halloween. Now it's up to our lovable redneck to make things right and stop Trantor before the monster can resurrect his troll army -an army powered by the captured souls of local children! A lot of familiar faces from the hit TV series Hey Vern, It's Ernest! are a part of the fun, but Gailard Sartain is conspicuously absent. Prior to this entry, he was a regular supporting player. Earth Kitt plays old lady Hackmoore, the only one who knows the score. I saw this one theatrically myself. The following films never reached this level, although ERNEST RIDES AGAIN is pretty fun. Of note is the opening title sequence, which incorporates a lot of clips from older films like MISSILE TO THE MOON, PHANTOM FROM SPACE, and THE SCREAMING SKULL. It was the first place I got to see a glimpse of THE HIDEOUS SUN DEMON! ERNEST SCARED STUPID, a halloween tradition at my place. "Bring me the head of Ernest P. Worrell!"

A Quick Look: THE BRAINIAC (1960)

   When it comes to weird movies, one must make a space for THE BRAINIAC. This loopy Mexican import saw quite a bit of TV play back in the 60's. In a truly stupefying plot, we open with the Spanish Inquisition trying a man who has been using the black arts to corrupt and destroy everything moral and decent. So strong are his powers that he knows the identities of the hooded men passing sentence, and vows his revenge upon them by returning to life 300 years later and killing their descendants. Seems a weak threat, but it's tied to a passing comet and it will return in 300 years. The warlock set aflame at the stake, he somehow transfers his being to the comet. Sure enough, 300 years pass and the comet returns to the skies over 20th century Mexico. The comet falls to earth (in one of the goofiest effects shots you've ever seen) and then transforms into the warlock. Then the warlock transforms into a sort of Martian werewolf which sucks the brains of his victims out via a long, pulsating tongue! Soon, he's stalking the people he vowed to destroy, occasionally turning into the hairy beast-man to do the job. (Weirdly, everyone he desires to kill still live in the exact same area as their ancestors did 300 years previous.) That doesn't even begin to describe it, folks. Any semblance of logic is tossed out the window for whatever the director thought made for a good visual, apparently. The biggie is the Brainiac's habit of eating his victim's brains. The victims are clearly fed upon during the attack, yet later he's seen in human form eating the intact brains which are sitting in a tray and being eaten with a spoon! So, if I follow this, the Brainiac sucks the brains out of his victims with his straw-like tongue... then spits them up whole? And then nibbles on them at his leisure? THE BRAINIAC is considered emblematic of imported Mexican horror films. They tend to have very moody photography inspired by the Universals of the 30's and 40's, but mixed with threadbare production values, listless pacing, and some of the most bizarre plots ever committed to film. Before genre fans of more recent decades began discovering the outre offerings of countries like China and Turkey, the Mexican stuff was considered some of the wildest stuff there was! And this particular film was for decades probably the most visible of the bunch! I've often wondered why an American producer didn't farm the film for it's monster scenes and then build a science fiction picture around them. It would've made a lot more sense!

A Quick Look: THE BEAST AND THE VIXENS (1974 - color)

   Here's a particularly odd 70's offering. THE BEAST AND THE VIXENS was apparently a skin-flick cash-in on the Bigfoot craze, though the sex and nudity practically vanish in the second half. So I'm not sure if the film is supposed to be a skin flick with a monster or a monster movie with skin. I'm unsure how to classify it. Either way, it's a dirt-cheap exploitation movie in which some young people go to a woodland cabin and get mixed up with murderous crooks while Bigfoot is lurking about and abducting young women. None of that is anywhere near as exciting as it probably sounds, though the first few minutes are an absolute delight if you're a fan of cheapo monster movies. Unfortunately, it goes down hill fast and never quite recovers. Idiocies abound, like showing the monster imprison young women in his goofily cheap cave and barring the entrance with little more than a tree branch (most disturbingly, the movie apparently forgets the girls are even in there and we never see them again). The most notable bit of casting is that of magazine model and porno queen Ushi Daggard (Daggart?), who really wasn't all that pretty. Issued on VHS (and later disk) as THE BEAUTIES AND THE BEAST. Let me best describe it as it progresses. It starts off a monster movie, becomes a drama of sorts, then turns into a skin flick in earnest, then more boring drama, then threadbare crime film. Odd, dull, and goofy. Can YOU screen the whole thing in one sitting? Even I had to lean on the fast forward button, and that's not a habit of mine!

A Quick Look: KILLERS FROM SPACE (1954)

   Here we have a movie somewhat better than it's reputation would have us believe. Peter Graves is a test pilot/scientist who miraculously survives the crash of his plane during a survey of a recently-exploded A-bomb. Soon, though, he comes to realize that he's being controlled by beings from another planet -creatures who saved Peter from death in order to use him as a spy! Ultimately, the invaders plan to destroy all human life with an army of enlarged insects and lizards! Moody little picture has some great visuals (and some shakey ones, too, admittedly) and a neat cast which includes a number of familiar faces. Economical, but effective science fiction suspenser is usually written off because Harry Thomas' invader make-ups are considered so farcical. This is the movie with the infamous "aliens with ping-pong ball eyes" which has drawn considerable scorn over the years. In truth, the enlarged eyes of the invaders (explained in the movie as mutation caused by the death of their sun) are actually cradles from egg cartons. Somber, almost claustrophobic picture is best watched with the lights out. The same production team also gave us the interesting-but-listless PHANTOM FROM SPACE and the threadbare THE SNOW CREATURE, which was possibly the very first yeti movie.

A Quick Look: VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED (1960)

   One of the classic British science fiction thrillers was THE VILLAGE OF THE DAMNED. In it, a mysterious sleep falls over a tiny rural village. Later, every woman of child-bearing age is just as mysteriously with child. The children born are uniformly light-haired and fine-featured, and it is soon discovered think and act as a collective. More terrifying is that the children evidence strange powers of mental and physical manipulation. One of the greats, done in that essential British style of playing the concept absolutely seriously. George Saunders stars. Recommended highly.
   The film sired an inferior semi-sequel film, THE CHILDREN OF THE DAMNED. It's not that CHILDREN is a bad film or anything, it's just that VILLAGE was so superior. In the 1990's was a re-make of the original film, which from the start was more or less universally agreed to be a pointless affair.

A Quick Look: THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN (1957 - color)

   In 1957, Hammer Films of England had found some success with it's science fiction pictures and turned an eye toward gothic horror. Rather than the comparatively budget-minded approach of the Quatermass films, however, THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN was a lavish, full-color production boasting some of the top talent the Brits had to offer. Peter Cushing shines as the driven, though immoral, Dr. Frankenstein. Christopher Lee plays the Monster. Both actors would be associated with the genre from then on. Though the story of Frankenstein challenging the laws of science and creation to patch together his own test tube human being who escapes and goes on a rampage was highly familiar by this time, Hammer's take was so vivid and effective that it set a new standard. Some have dismissed Hammer's winning formula to be little more than taking an old idea and adding to it color, cleavage, and blood, but there's much more to it than that. The film features a level of production value worthy of period costume epics, and the straight-faced British approach to acting really sells the fantastic plot. A trend-setter, and a success. THE CURSE OF FRANKENSTEIN did so well for Hammer that the studio began looking for similar properties. THE HORROR OF DRACULA firmly established the studio's new position as King of Horror. THE REVENGE OF FRANKENSTEIN followed shortly after, kicking off a wave of elegant color re-interpretations of classic horror stories that would last through the next decade. Hammer would periodically return to the Frankenstein legend, with Peter Cushing playing the not-so-good doctor in titles like THE EVIL OF FRANKENSTEIN, FRANKENSTEIN CREATED WOMAN, and FRANKENSTEIN AND THE MONSTER FROM HELL.