Movie: (1965) Multi-eyed aliens try to frame a pair of smoochin’ teens.
First shown: 12/5/92
Opening: Crow and Tom quickly go through their “best friends” stage
Invention exchange: Tom is mocking Crow; The Mads demonstrate the router Ouija board, J&tB show off the funny gag fax
Host segment 1: Tom wants learn how to make out
Host segment 2: J&tB present their tribute to Earl Holliman
Host segment 3: J&tB are the Rip Taylor Trio!
End: The case against the film-makers (they just didn’t care!); Larry Buchanan visits Deep 13
Stinger: Greasy drifter in sweater dress
(211 votes, average: 4.55 out of 5)
Loading...
• I enjoyed this a lot more this time through (I called it “middling” last time). The biggest drawback is that the movie is sort of a comedy in parts — a failed comedy to be sure, but the film is intentionally trying to be funny, and, as we saw with “Catalina Caper” and a few others, that’s always a bit rougher to riff on. Still, the team slogs through pretty well, just as you’d expect at this point in season four. It’s a good example of what they were capable of by this point. In season two, this movie might have gotten the better of them. In season four, this is a movie they could successfully take on. The host segments help somewhat; even the Earl Holliman sketch — a “wtf” bit if there ever was one — somehow comes off.
• This episode has not yet been released on DVD.
• References.
• This ep was number 10 on the summer 1995 countdown Comedy Central did.
• Doesn’t it seem like this episode ought to have a short?
• Crow’s arm (which was apparently taped to Tom) comes off during the opening. They keep going, and it’s still taped to Tom’s back in the next segment.
• This movie, believe it or not, is (with some minor changes) a scene-for-scene, line-for-line remake of a movie called “Invasion of the Saucer Men.” That movie also stinks. Larry Buchanan did a number of these remakes for AIP.
• Do you think the presence of somebody (or some THING) named Ethan Allen in the credits sparked the idea for the Mads’ invention?
• I can’t find anything definitive, but I think Homer Formby IS dead. But I found an interesting tidbit: when he hit it big with his furniture refinishing products, he bought an entire island in the Florida Keys. He later sold it.
• “Dern smoochers!” and other variations became an immediate catchphrase.
• For those who don’t know, the double THE in the movie title occurred when the movie was re-released. It was originally titled just “The Eye Creatures.” Somebody decided to jazz up the title and slapped ATTACK OF THE on the title card, not noticing that there was already a THE. They just didn’t care (which also became a catchphrase).
• Wow, it turns out that MST3K invented rickrolling! Tom breaks into a chorus of “Never Gonna Give You Up,” at one point.
• Joel kinda has to lean over the puppet trench to smooch Servo, but he covers well.
• Literary reference: Joel invokes Ignatius Riley from John Kennedy Toole’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Confederacy of Dunces.” I PRESUME everybody in this audience has read it. If you haven’t, go and do so before Lady Fortuna spins the wheel of your destiny downward.
• The Earl Holliman sketch is silly and pointless, but I do like the line “…who would have been William Shatner had there not already been one.” How true that is.
• Call back: “…sing whenever I sing whenever I…” (Giant Gila Monster)
• I used to love Rip Taylor when I was kid. Glad to know he still with us.
• Note that the giant handkerchief is monogrammed “KM.” Hmmm…
• Mike scores again as “Larry Buchanan.”
• Cast and crew wrapup: screenwriter Robert Gurney Jr. also wrote “Terror from the Year 5000.” Production designer James Sullivan also worked on “Invasion USA.” Score composer Ronald Stein also worked on “It Conquered the World,” “The Undead,” “The Girl in Lovers Lane,” “Gunslinger” and “The She-Creature.” In front of the camera, Warren Hammack was in “The Side Hackers,” and “The Hellcats.” Jonathan Ledford was in “The Amazing Transparent Man.” Peter Graves was in a bunch of stuff, Tony Houston, who has a small part in this movie, wrote the screenplays for “Sidehackers” and “The Hellcats” and Jody Daniels was in “Girl in Gold Boots.”
• CreditsWatch: Host segments directed by Joel Hodgson. Additional music written and performed by Michael J. Nelson and Kevin Murphy — I assume they’re referring to Rip Taylor music. And good news: the “Ammendment” mistake has been corrected.
• Fave riff: “And don’t be alarmed if it suddenly becomes 2 in the afternoon.” Honorable mention: “She’s a female. They have less plumage.”
) to help our users cope with "trolls" and other commenters whom they find annoying. Go to our
Love this one. Love it love it love it! It’s so horribly bad, so poorly made and badly acted, that’s it’s prime fodder for Joel and the ‘Bots. As I noted earlier, the worse the film the better the efforts of the Brains, and this was just fantastic. I particularly loved at the end of the movie when Joel and the ‘Bots pointed out instances in the film which proved the producer and director just didn’t care.
So many weirdly funny moments, from the poorly made “classified” footage of the supposed UFO, to the oily guy who sleeps in a sweater dress, to the deranged old hillbilly out to keep “them smoochers off my property”, to those mugging air force voyeurs watching the kids neck,to the eye creatures themselves. Just seeing that unmistied would’ve had me laughing throughout, but Joel and the Bots’ special treatment made this gut-bustingly funny. The gang at the peak of their powers, they’re really firing on all cylinders in this one. This one’s in my top ten of all time MST3K favorites.
Can somebody please explain the “I’m gonna walk off my great expectations” line? I don’t get it. :(
#52: It’s a veiled masturbation reference, or that’s how Joel and the bots react to it. This film demands a series of hot showers afterward. Ewwwwww!
Randy
“Great expectation” = Erection…the rest explains itself.
I remember taping this episode and watching it relentlessly. Still one of my all-time favorites. “They Just Didn’t Care” is one of my favorite host segments of the entire series. I’ve still got this tape tucked away, boldly labeled “MST3K – Attack of the (the) Eye Creatures.” Unfortunately, I’ve watched it so many times, it now looks and sounds horrible. I have to laugh at the riffs from memory.
I have a fondness for this episode, since I can remember me and my friends having a laugh-riot over the horribleness of this movie way back before it became MST fodder…same for “The Horror Of Party Beach”. Somewhere, I still have VHS tapes of the non-riffed versions that were recorded from obscure late-late shows.
I hate to admit it, but I also remember actually owning a nightshirt similar to the one that the oily drifer is wearing. An extremely short-lived fashion trend, and the most UNCOMFORTABLE thing in the world to try and sleep in….you might as well go to bed wearing a full tuxedo and scuba gear.
This is a weaker episode for me. It has some great lines, and some pretty funny moments (the Rick Astley scene was hilarious), but as a whole I found myself actually a bit bored by the whole thing.
The host segments didn’t really help. Segments 2 and 3 went on too long and didn’t have me laughing much. Of course a little Rip Taylor goes a long way with me… very little. But the last host segment was very funny. Reminded me of the similar one they did with “Cave Dwellers”.
I remember catching part of this one way back when. It was the exact moment when the oily man left his bed and was revealed to be in an oily dress. My reaction was similar to Joel and the bots. For that reason, I was kinda hyped to see this… maybe over-hyped. I’ll give it another chance, but this was a 2 star episode for me.
Definitely my favorite episode. It’s the one tape I pop in whenever I need to reaffirm my faith in mankind. Or something.
The All-Kennedy Channel? Little Red Chevette?? Darling, your head is full??? I had to change into a pair of dry breeches after losing bladder control while watching this. How many times have I sung, “I can’t seem to get the stink out… your Wing Song stays in my car?” And, I swear, there are nights I drift off to sleep with Joel’s soothing voice describing one of the union suit-sporting eye creatures as “this whisper-thin fellow…” It’s just… beautiful.
So…I guess, in a sense, “Lazy Larry” Buchanan wasn’t so much a “filmmaker”, as he was a “film re-maker”. Between this half-ass remake and the absolutely ATROCIOUS “Zontar The Thing From Venus” (which makes “It Conquered The World” look like Citizen Kane), it seems that he wouldn’t able to conjure an original, unique thought if his life depended on it. Boy…there’s nothing like taking someone else’s “B” movie and painstakingly turning it into a “C” or “D” movie. What a boon to the industry!
I actually think this is one of the GREATEST Mst eps. I can think of two other Larry Buchanan movies they should’ve done: “Zontar, the Thing from Venus” starring John Agar and some kind of oil-splattered bird thing in a cave that could change shape and then pull an “Invaders from Mars” move by biting someone in the back of the neck and then taking over their body.
The other, and probably worst Larry Buchanan movie EVER made, is called “It’s Alive!” And no, it’s not that mutant baby movie from the ’70s. It’s from 1968 and it’s about this crazy-ass farmer who locks up this other farmer (an ex-paleontologist; coincidentally played by Tommy Kirk) and two travelers in a cave to feed them to his pet prehistoric fish-man. Which is portrayed by some douchebag in a wetsuit with a cardboard frog mask on his head.
BTW, “Zontar” was lampooned on “SCTV!”
It seems to me that this one, like “Warrior of the Lost World,” gets a lot less respect than it deserves.
How do you sum up this episode? It really is nondescript and lacks that money stuff of legends appeal. Yet I like it more than I really should. I guess you could say it was my all time favorite of the three or less star episodes. I guess it was the closing sketch that made this whole episode for me.
It was a lackluster opening and invention exchange. But can anyone make out what the sign in Deep 13 says or whatever is on Dr. F’s apron?
The Earl Holliman host segment was would have been a fine 30 second bumper. But this one gets milked well past its expiration date.
The Susan character’s voice is an exact double of the voice of Betty from Teenagers from Outer Space.
The host segment gold of this episode is the Rip Taylor sketch. They absolutely nailed him with their portrayal.
I’m going with the peeping Tom’s as the really icky of the movie. Okay so the drifters make some rude comments while hanging out late at night. Who didn’t do that as a youth? The military peeping Tom’s are leering away at something that really isn’t in the least bit sexy to begin with.
The “they just didn’t care” closing host segment is without a doubt my favorite since the frantic summation of Rocket Attack USA. The sarcasm just really sells what was a cleverly scripted sketch.
Favorite Riffs:
Shrill high pitch suspense music plays: Tom “Mariah Carey is running through the woods.
Joel “Man it’s really hard to see the road when it’s noon.”
Tom “Sure is dark out here. I hope I don’t get a moonburn.”
Joel “And don’t become alarmed if it suddenly becomes 2 in the afternoon.”
A really great episode that never grows old. Host segments were a lot of fun and the movie is so weird as the “They just didn’t care!” segment points out. I just can not understand how they thought car headlights in bright sun light would lull the audience into believing it was night?!
For a MST3K double feature, I like to pair this one with the Creeping Terror probably because of the similar production values.
This episode rarely gets any play time in my viewing schedule, and it’s easy to see why. The movie lacks the absurd, quirky quality that I look for in an MST3K film (although what counts as absurd varies… “Space Mutiny” and “The Beast of Yucca Flats” qualify).
The host segments are a drag. It’s the perfect example of how many jokes in the Joel era were tailor-made for people of a certain age. Earl Holliman–who? I’ve never seen “Police Woman” or any other show they refer to in the segment and I wouldn’t know Earl Holliman if I ever met him on the street. It’s just before my era. (Another prime example of the jokes-for-people-of-a-certain-age tendency in the Joel era is the segment in “Stranded in Space” where Tom rattles off a bunch of 1970’s TV shows like “Name of the Game.” Zzzzzz)
While we’re pointing out plot holes, why would aliens who explode when exposed to moderately intense lights (a few headlights) invade a planet where there is intense sunlight at regular intervals? That’s almost as stupid as aliens who find water to be highly toxic invading a planet where water covers 70% of the surface and where the stuff falls out of the sky quite frequently. (I’m looking at you, M. Night Shyamalan!)
The episode is a yawner, but not a total loser. There are some good jokes, and it is icky… But I probably won’t see this one again until we talk about it at the next go-around of the episode guide. See you in 2 1/2 years!
This may be hard to believe but this was the first MST3K episode where, even *with* the riffing I felt stupider after having watched it.
Geeze this movie was bad. The riffing was comedy gold but the host segments were hit and miss for me.
Sampo calls it a “comedy” but I would further refine that and say that I think the writers and actors in the film were actually shooting for *satire*. They not only missed hitting satire they missed hitting the broad side of a barn as well.
I will say though that my brain was malfunctioning because I thought the name John Ashley in the credits was familiar but I couldn’t place where….. And then I kept thinking he looked familiar but I couldn’t place where…. And then I was sure I’d heard his distinctive flat line delivery somewhere before but I couldn’t place where…. and *finally* it hit me…..
He’s ‘Captain Handsome’ (my personal nickname for the character) the Peace Corpsman from Cinematic Titanic’s “Danger on Tiki Island”. I think it’s kind of funny to have him show up again decades later and get the be the subject of a whole new bunch of riffs.
In addition to the stupid points Joel and the bots point out in the “They Just Didn’t Care” segment you can add the fact that, at the end, when the “smoochers” surround the “Eye Creatures” with their cars you see how close the cars are and yet the Eye Creatures didn’t hear them coming and try to get out of the way?
P.S. Sampo claims it was Servo doing the ‘Rickrolling’ but I could have sworn it was Joel!
Attack of the (the) Eye Creatures is a very poor remake of 1957’s Invasion of the Saucer Men and was part of a series of color remakes of old AIP films by Larry Buchanan intended for television broadcast. This was one of a group of films that was shot in 16mm and color and used to pad out one of American International’s television syndication packages. The plot, most of the characters, and even some dialog was lifted verbatim from AIP’s earlier work. While Invasion of the Saucer Men was not spectacular even by drive-in standards, it is Citizen Kane compared to Larry Buchanan’s remake. The only discernible name is John Ashley. Stretching credulity beyond its limits he plays a “teenager”. At the time John was 30, and looked every bit of it. The rest of the cast was made up of Larry Buchanan’s stock company of actors (I’m being generous here).
Favorite lines:
It was a dull movie, and Allstate was there.
“Here’s your receipt.” It’s for tax purposes.
All right, boys to the gym please, girls to the Home Ec room.
[flying saucer film] It came with ham and a choice of bun. “…to prevent a probable worldwide panic.” From a baglewich?
Sandy Baron and Robert Wuhl are back.
He’s Charles Nelson Reilly’s understudy.
“…later on we may watch them for a while.” I borrowed a camcorder from Rob Lowe.
“Bad things are going on up there.” Bad things are going on right in this room, I think.
The White Rock Café, where whitey comes to drink and dance.
Brought to you by White Beer, there’s a trailer park of flavor in every bottle.
Jesse Helms in retirement.
I can’t seem to get the stink out, the Windsong stays in my car.
We now join Ernest Hemingway at his home in Ketchum, Idaho.
I think we killed the Michelin Man.
O’Neal Ambulances…you plug’em we lug’em.
“Now will you come with us?” In this dress? Are you crazy? Let me slip into a jumper. Ah, I need a fresh bra.
Linc, Julie, Slimy.
David Lynch only aspires to make something this creepy.
[close up of Susie’s father nodding off] Dracula. No no, Gertrude Stein.
No, no, no, no, no—Don’t pass out on me now. [and a nod to Dirty Harry]
[of Mike, the sweater dress guy] Wait a minute, what am I doing in men’s clothes.
Final Thought: Mike Nelson as Larry Buchanan in his torn “I’m with Stupid” t-shirt, bad wig and baseball cap reminds me of Keanu Reeves. I give this one 4 out of 5 stars.
Favorite riff: Servo riffing Sinatra everytime the detective in the porkpie hat comes in.
Can you make a movie with no likable characters whatsoever? The answer apparently is yes, yes you can. I feel like I should shower after watching this movie.
I remember being around 7 years old watching this and The Slime People(creatures?) on my local UHF stations Saturday creature double feature(remember those?). I recall being quite entertained and terrified at the time. Ah to be young again… I’m pretty sure those weekly creature features are wholly responsible for my love of Godzilla and B-movies in general.
@59 I saw It’s Alive on IFC about a year ago and it’s one of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. It’s possibly Manos bad. Had MST done it there’s no doubt it would rank among the top 3 worst movies they’ve done.
The Earl Holliman sketch is one of the very few that I fast forward through. It’s a long haul, even though they all seem to know it.
On the other hand, “They Just Didn’t Care” is genuinely inspired. MST3k has done plenty of bad movies, but this one always felt like the laziest, half-arsed flick they had done up to this point (Monster A-Go-Go might unseat it in a few weeks). A few movies they did might have looked cheap or poorly done, but few others dared to have monsters show up half-dressed and no time continuity.
And the onesie: I don’t care if it’s this movie or Scrubs, adult men wearing something that looks like it belongs on an infant isn’t funny — it’s unnerving.
#2: Actually, it was kind of funnier the other way, because that implied not that you thought AOL was a substitution for a computer, but that you thought AOL was itself A TYPE of computer. The latter seems a bit clueless-er than the former. ;-)
I have to link you to the the page for this movie on TV Tropes. http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Film/AttackOfTheEyeCreatures It has one of the the best running gags on the site.
Man, you can just sense the lukewarm response to this one…I like it! I also think big-hair girl is kinda cute, actually!
I’d put this in the “Farce” category of films; a regrettable attempt at making a “comedy” that winds up being just plain offensive due to “funny” overacting, etc. (see also Catalina Caper, Wild, Wild World of Batwoman, Angel’s Revenge, Eegah!, Village of the Giants, Alien from L.A., and of course, the esteemed Hobgoblins.
The drifters in this movie icky? No scuzzy is more the word for it. At least they’re not as weird a pair as Big Stupid and Danny…
LAUGH!! IT’S FUNNY!!
I haven’t seen this for a long time since I only have it on tape and I no longer have a working VCR, but I watched it a lot when I could. I do have software to transfer tape to DVD, but I haven’t been able to figure out how to use it. I always marveled at how Susan’s hair stayed perfectly poofy through the whole movie, and I have to admit I like her and Stan together. I can even sympathize a little with the oily drifters, but not at all with the military peepers. Ugh. I wanted to reach into the movie and knock their disgusting heads together. At one time I did kind of wonder just where those surveillance cameras were located, considering they had good views of the “action” instead of just exteriors of the the cars, but then I realized that I “just didn’t care.”
They just didn’t care.
That guy in the weird striped mumu type thing is really disturbing looking but makes for one of the best stingers of all time. I highly recommend going on Youtube and watching the stingers for each season as compilations that they have on there. A good way to spend a couple minutes and really hammers home how hilariously cheesy MST3k movies were.
Did anyone notice at the end of the movie, just after J&tB exit the theater, Servo’s head pops briefly back into frame from the right? It looks like Joel –who is carrying him– might have gotten distracted and leaned into the shot slightly before we see the doors start closing.
Not a favorite of mine. Although the peeping toms deserve all the derision heaped upon them, I think the Brains overreact to all the smarmy randy men in the movie. It makes for some repetitive and not-so-clever riffing.
3 Stars
@ Stressfactor, #63:
Satire? Really? That may be giving this film far too much credit. But I’ll be willing to take your point if you can tell me–satire of what? Alien invaders? The military? Teenage movies? Grumpy old anti-smooching men? Latent homosexuality? If you start suggesting that the whole thing is a satire, even a bad one, you run the risk of letting Larry Buchanan off the hook. Compare this to something like “Hobgoblins,” which I think was aiming to be satirical (of “Gremlins” and 80s culture, primarily) and failed spectacularly, and perhaps you’ll agree that “The The Eye Creatures” doesn’t quite reach that level of stupid smug cleverness (i.e., a level that makes me want to smack Rick Sloane upside the head). To make satire, you have to care about something, and these guys…well, you know.
That being said, I like this episode–the military guys, who act about as well as the saps who are picked for army training films, make me squirm because they’re clearly trying to be funny and just end up looking creepy. But for me, this is only a run-up to the far more spectacularly awful “Monster a Go-Go,” which makes this one look positively watchable by comparison.
Great episode. What could you expect of Larry Buchanan? He used duct tape to edit his movies.
“The host segments are a drag. It’s the perfect example of how many jokes in the Joel era were tailor-made for people of a certain age. Earl Holliman–who? I’ve never seen “Police Woman” or any other show they refer to in the segment and I wouldn’t know Earl Holliman if I ever met him on the street. It’s just before my era. (Another prime example of the jokes-for-people-of-a-certain-age tendency in the Joel era is the segment in “Stranded in Space” where Tom rattles off a bunch of 1970?s TV shows like “Name of the Game.” Zzzzzz)”
Funny, a lot of us think that’s part of the appeal of the show. Are you sure you’re watching the right series?
It would be horrifying to find out your parents had seen this at the drive-in just, oh, nine months before your birthday, wouldn’t it? I think this movie isn’t meant so much to be funny or satirical as it is to pander to teenagers and their perceived need to: a) prove their mental superiority to adults; b) indulge their hormonal urgings, and c) live without unnecessary constraints.
In other words, it oozes ickiness.
No attempt at a coherent plot. Most of the men are slimy and only out for a little tail. The adults are repulsive and stupid and full of contempt. The military is just scary. Lots of pointless scenes, like the monster falling over the cliff, the monster in the closet, the drifter talking to himself while cleaning out the refrigerator. Ick.
It’s perfect MST fodder, and I really enjoy the whole ep (even the Earl Holliman sketch!). But I still think Larry Buchanan should be ashamed of himself.
@ #75, Blast Hardcheese,
I didn’t say it was good satire. In fact, it’s a satirical EPIC FAIL but I think they were trying to satirize these type of ‘alien invasion’ movies.
One of the big problems is that they’re inconsistent with it… well, that and they writing is really, really, really, really poor.
For most satires you can approach the subject matter one of two ways — you either satirize something by going in the *opposite* direction (for example, to satirize say Arnold Schwartzenagger style action movies you craft a movie where the hero, instead of being a muscular guy with military training, is a 130 pound computer nerd.) Or you can satirize by taking the movie and going over the top with it (for example, how the “Airplane!” movies satirized the airplane style disaster movies by taking the usual tropes and going all ‘extreme’ with them).
Here, they split the difference — and it does. Not. Work.
For example, the Air Force personnel are an ‘opposite’ type. As opposed to the military forces in most 1950’s sci-fi movies where the guys are generally competant — maybe over their heads but at least competant — these guys are INcompetant.
On the flip side with the cops they try to take the ‘extreme’ view. They take the usual trope of the police never believing the alien menace until it’s too late (or nearly so) and they run it right into the wall. The cops here are so disbeliving they come off as dumb.
The thing is that the movie goes off it’s rails, it fails to set down rules of satirical engagement, and meanders off it’s own point FAR too often and most of the characters are just… slimy instead of funny BUT… there are a number of scenes in there that do come across as flailing, poorly executed attempts at poking fun at 1950’s alien invasion style movies.
I’m NOT letting Buchanan off the hook though because it really wouldn’t have been hard to make a decent satirical 1950’s invasion style film. Others have done it. The fact that Buchanan fails so utterly and so… stupidly… is a crime.
#79: “Is a crime”.
Stressfactor is the rain that will wash away all the filth of this land…The Lipperts, the Woods, Francis and Buchanans.
Fun episode, while this is a remake of Invasion of the Saucer Men, The Eye Creatures is FAR inferior (IMHO) – at least the saucer men looked cool and not missing any costume pieces or what have you.
John Ashley was a teen hearthrob who would later star in some of those Filipino horrors like Brides of Blood (Danger on Tiki Island for you CT fans) and other low budget schlock.
Joels Hair – parted again
Joels Knees
Joel as Rip Taylor *They have so many eyes!!!*
Larry Buchanan just didnt care
Damn Smooches
Smooching could be good for Therapy
Fun episode, stupid monsters. Perfect film for the the riffing. Pun intended;)
An all-time classic. 5 stars from Droppo.
The oily guy, Rip Taylor, the whole thing.
Fantastic.
This was the first episode I ever saw. :P Really funny riffing too.
Literary reference: Joel invokes Ignatius Riley from John Kennedy Toole’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Confederacy of Dunces.” I PRESUME everybody in this audience has read it. If you haven’t, go and do so before Lady Fortuna spins the wheel of your destiny downward.
Read this book several times- in need of new copy-upon finishing it a couple of years ago on train back home from Chicago I lent mine to fellow random passenger who I struck up conversation with.
Finally, why isn’t this experiment on SHOUT!?
I found this episode worse than Castle of Fu Manchu and Fire Maidens of outer space. The reason being I have never finished watching this after a couple of tries. It’s that painfully bad to me.
Stressfactor:
Bad satire, to be sure–but allowing for satire also allows for anyone to write off bad filmmaking as *intentional* bad filmmaking–as in, “See? I know that only half of the the eye creatures are wearing full costumes, but that’s the point, get it?” That was my problem with “Hobgoblins”: the guy was trying too hard to be tongue-in-cheek. I guess, at a certain point, you step in and say. “No, I don’t get it. It’s still a crappy movie. Go away, you lousy director.”
It could just be my own hangup–I remember, as a grad student, giving a seminar paper on Jonathan Swift, and after I had spent 20 minutes delivering what I thought was an elegant and brilliantly insightful argument, the professor sat back and obliterated everything I had just said with a quiet, “Yes, but of course you know Swift was being ironic here.” I remember going home that afternoon and practicing saying. “You want fries with that?” in anticipation of my future career.
Ahem. “Invasion of the Saucermen” does not “stink”. It’s actually a surprisingly good movie. Give it a chance. It’s not as good as The Blob, but probably one of the top ten movies of its type.
The re-make is terrible – they tried to make it campy, but overdid it and the result is that most the characters are obnoxious. The original, everything was played straight. Sure, some things like the two losers were meant to be funny, but even they were likable. And it had some great lines
“Do you know how to use that thing?” the girl asks the salesmen when he pulls out a luger.
“Ask the dead german I got it from.”
@ Blast Hardcheese,
If someone has done an incompetant satire then the satire won’t actually work and no amount of them saying that it was “intentional” will change that.
My satire instructor in college explained it this way — Satire is a way of pointing out people/societies’ flaws. It is like holding up a mirror to someone. People tend not to like having their flaws pointed out so the satirist warps the mirror — making it like a funhouse mirror — it still shows flaws but it shows them in a humorous manner in order to make the bitter pill easier to swallow.
With a movie THIS incompetant Buchanan doesn’t succeed because it’s more like he smears mud on the mirror so we can’t see anything AT ALL. Instead of IMMEDIATELY recognizing what exactly he’s satirizing and seeing it clearly we’re left scratching our heads and saying “Well, I *think* he was going for this here and going for something else over there… but I”m not quite sure.”
If you can’t get your satirical message through you still fail at satire. No amount of saying part of what he did was “intentional” will change the fact that he never presents us with a full picture — He never let’s us know *exactly* what his message is supposed to be.
Just SAYING you mean what you produce to be satirical doesn’t make it so if you still can’t get your message through. And a bad movie, heck doing ANYTHING “deliberately” badly, is not a satirical statement in and of itself.
So while I think Buchanan was trying for satire because he muddled his message he didn’t succeed and wasn’t going to.
Stressfactor:
I think we’re actually in agreement here (I’m just being more obtuse–and I won’t even hide behind saying it’s intentional). What satire needs is both an underlying moral foundation and a hope that, as you say, your audience will get the object of the satire. *The Simpsons* can do it because it has both; in the case of this movie, I guess I just don’t see what larger vision Larry Buchanan would even be trying to convey here. Maybe that’s because, as you say, the mirror is so muddied that you can’t tell what the pictures are he wants to distort. I would probably prefer to call this a “parody,” which doesn’t necessarily have to have the moral element I think is essential to satire–but this isn’t even good parody, because it ends up being exactly the thing it’s supposedly making fun of. So yeah–epic fail as satire, as parody, as a movie, as an attempt at coherent communication–as anything but an MST episode. I’m not even sure Buchanan himself would try to defend the thing.
Guys, don’t get so analytical with a made for TV movie Buchanan had to do with a budget of 25.000 dollars. AIP wanted “something” to distribute on several tv stations, it didn’t matter for them if it was a goofy movie about Eye creatures in turtlenecks. Also, I would recommend Invasion of the Saucer Men, entertaining on its own.
@ Neptune Man,
English Lit minor back in the day… some things are hard to shake.
I think Blast has the part of it… there were maybe some thoughts of parody/satire/comedy rattling around here but yeah…
The only ones who succeed at parody, satire AND comedy here are Joel and the bots. The movie is just… painful. I wasn’t kidding when I said a part of me felt dumber for watching it.
And just to get back on track… it takes a brave, brave man to not worry about how silly he’s going to look planting a kiss on a puppet.
The worst thing in this movie are its characters, too many jerks for my taste. And I agree with you, the making out sketch is one of the best sketches I’ve ever seen. I know some people who would eagerly kiss Tom Servo.
Stress and Neptune:
Well said, the pair of yiz. Neptune, thanks for bringing my feet back on the ground. Over-analysing is weird fun, especially with cheesy movies. More fun than analysing the good stuff, lemme tell you. But it’s a tough drug to shake. Stress, your last line is pure gold. It’s those sketches that keep me coming back to the MST well. I know what you mean about the pain: my painful moment’s coming up with “Monster a Go-Go,” a movie I can’t believe I’ve watched multiple times. Maybe I keep hoping it’ll make sense. I did that with “Star Wars Episode I” as well, and it didn’t work any better there.
THEY JUST DIDN’T CARE.
My God, what the HELL did Old Larry have to be smoking to turn Invasion Of The Saucer Men, a really good 50’s Sci-Fi movie into…THIS? And he did this with other 50’s B-Movies as well?! Oi…
The The Eye Creatures are, hands down, the WORST alien invaders on the show. They’re even more inept then The Neptune Men or The Martians.
Judging by the piss-poor attempts at humour in the film, I’d say Larry Buchanan didn’t die, he just got cloned and changed his names to Jason Friedberg and Aaron Seltzer. Wait, I take that back. Larry’s a better filmmaker.
I think Tom put it best in the final host segment:
“You see, the night that The Eye Creatures led their bone-chilling attack on Earth was actually A LOVELY SUMMER DAY! You couldn’t have picked a NICER DAY to film a night sequence.”
“Yeah, it’s hard to see the road when it’s noon.”
5 Stars.
(And the Greasy Sweater Dress Drifter scares me…)
I keep thinking sweater-dress guy looks familiar and appeared in another MST film. And on first viewing, I assumed the night-shirt thing was considered pajamas at the time, but never caught on. Thank goodness.
The first peeping military guy was the lead in the Zontar movie, which you can see a brief version of as an easter egg on the Zontar episode of SCTV from their box set (season 2 I think). Yep, Larry B sucks. It was brave of J&TB to tackle this movie, what with the not caring and all about the plot, continuity, logic, basic decency, lighting, effects (I’m wincing as I type that word). It’s hard to make fun of something when the makers didn’t even care themselves.
Wasn’t there a scene in another MST movie where leering men on-duty watch couples make out? It’s creepy enough when we are treated to oily close-ups of couples kissing, as if that is our deepest wish; e.g., Starfighters double-date scene.
Great episode! Movie is just this side of watchable (so many slimy characters), but the riffing is good, as are the host segments.
Took several viewing before I realized what they were saying when the kids were in the old man’s house…
He’s very well read. The Speck-Whitman letters, John Gacy makeup book… :laugh:
I love how several times all J&tbs say is Eeeewww. :laugh:
And I figured that Stan Kenton must be a sports figure with all the Wows.
I love how they keep naming that bald guy — Phil Silvers! Richard Deacon!
Fave riffs…
God, I hate the public.
Waitress, I think we’re down here.
Yes, I worked for Benny Hill for many years.
Maybe her hair is an egg sac, or maybe it’s for water storage…
I think someone mentioned it, but that’s definitely Joel doing the rickroll. You can see his silhouette rocking out when he sings it.
…Man, that guy really did look like Rick Astley.
I gotta say, some of the stuff that the filmmakers Just Didn’t Care about is stuff that I don’t much care about either. Cheap costumes? Lousy lighting? So what?
A GOOD movie (which this wasn’t, of course) can overcome flaws like those or even, with sufficient work, turn them into virtues. In contrast, a BAD movie can’t be salvaged by elaborate and convincing costumes or by the most state-of-the-art lighting in the industry. I’d rather watch a ridiculous-looking monster do something entertaining than watch a cool-looking monster just wandering around looking for its mark.
Also, I’m pretty sure that the icky characters were SUPPOSED TO BE icky, and at least they weren’t THE STARS of the film. Some films present icky characters AS their stars but expect us to perceive them as non-icky, and that’s just insulting. No matter what you’re giving the audience, admit that that IS INDEED what you’re giving the audience, that’s a big step up from pretending that you’re giving the audience something better and expecting them to play along.
Unless I am mistaken, which is entirely possible, Larry Buchanan was a big-time conspiracy theorist of the nuttiest stripe. Again, I’m relying on foggy memories of the Psychotronic Video Guide here, but I believe ol’ Larry made some paranoid, cranky (as in, nutzoid, not angry) movies about the Kennedy assassination, possibly even Marilyn Monroe, LONG before both of those topics had been well flogged in the mainstream paranoid media.
I bring this up simply because you can smell that whiff of paranoid cockoo nutzoidism in this movie. The BIG REVEAL that the military is probably covering up ALL SORTS of frankly not very threatening alien invasions is SUPPOSED to be the movie’s one big “gotcha” to the audience. Instead, it comes off, well, pretty much like any “devastating” point any cranky, paranoid nutzoid makes. As in, really? You’re hanging your hat on THAT? Okay…