Here's a quintessential film example of one of the films that I love, that is absolutely terrible. This poor film consistently makes "all time worst" movies lists, and it is deserving. Originally titled "Invasion of the Gargon" or some such nonsense, the producers in 1959 decided to instead cash in on the burgeoning teen movie craze, and re-titled the film to "Teenagers from Outer Space." It's abysmal.
David Love, who was never in anything else, plays young alien Derek, who comes to Earth on an expedition with a group of other aliens. Their objective is to find a breeding planet for their gargons, space lobsters (I'm not making this up) that grow to enormous proportions when subjected to the right atmosphere. The appropriate planet will be used as a breeding ground and the giant gargons will be used to feed Derek's people. At least that's the plan. But wouldn't you know it, the Earth has the improper balance of nitrogenic compounds to grow the lobsters, so the boss alien, played by King Moody of later "Get Smart" fame, declares that the aliens better skedaddle.
Meanwhile, Thor the bad-guy teen alien (yes that's really his name), has blasted a puppy with a flesh-peeling death ray so that nothing remains except a skeleton. Derek becomes very melancholy over the whole affair, wondering why Thor would be so mean. Thor sneers at Derek's weakness, and King Moody discovers that the nitrogenic compounds will actually make the lobsters, ahem gargons, grow enormous. Food forever!
Except that Derek points out that the dog's license means that there are intelligent creatures around, and that the gargons can't be left there. Everyone argues, Derek grabs a flesh-peeling death ray gun and skedaddles, looking for the owners of the license and the dead dog. BUT, HUGE SPOILER, King Moody proceeds to inform the home planet that Derek was gone AWOL, and is in-turn informed that Derek is actually the son of their Supreme Executive Overlord Dictator Ruler person and must not be harmed. So King Moody leaves Thor with another flesh-peeling death ray gun and makes him promise not to hurt Derek, but find and hold him. Then they put a lobster, sorry! gargon, in a cave and leave it there. They fire up the ship and skedaddle.
The rest is a series of nonsensical encounters where Derek runs, Thor chases him, Thor shoots stuff and Derek runs. The film is full of exceptional non-sequiturs such as Grandpa renting a room to Derek 2 minutes after he meets him, Alice heavily flirting with Thor at the pool until she figures out that he is going to roast her, and the best of all: Betty calling the local power plant, reaching the exact guy that runs the generators, and without having to identify herself or why she is asking, successfully getting him to increase the power plant output to kill the giant lobster, I mean gargon, by yelling at him through the phone.
Ok, the gargon. It's a lobster. Well, I guess I should say that its a transparent image of a lobster superimposed over the top of the film to be "scary". Considering that the reported budget for this film was a total of $14,000 (12 Angry Men was shot 2 years earlier at a budget of $337,000, and is considered low budget), I guess we should be happy we get anything at all that's supposed to be "big scary". In some places this film is listed as a horror movie- I guess its because they have a big plastic skeleton that they use for every death ray victim, and that is supposed to make us feel...?
Believe me when I tell you that the only thing scary about this movie is the wooden acting, the terrible dialogue and Betty's bulletproof hairdo. There is a rumor that years after he created the movie Tom Graeff (the guy who played reporter Tom),
This movie also contains one of the best lines ever uttered in a sci-fi offering- King Moody saying "When we return to our planet, the high court may well sentence you to torture and death for your treason!" The inflection with which King Moody delivers the word 'torture' in not to be missed. This film lends itself to treatment by TV shows like Mystery Science Theater 3000 (they in fact did an episode with the film), or you can pop the corn, sit back and do your own MST3K.
IMDB says 3.8/10. They are wrong. This is at least a 5.8, just for camp factor.
Comments