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This is the first time in a long time I've actually sat down and watched a movie I haven't seen before. This last week my aunt's been kicking around and she's cool enough that I felt confident treating her to a double feature of Tokyo Gore Police and Vampire Girl Vs. Frankenstein Girl, but I'm still burning through the countdown-to-no-discs backlog. Since the rest is Weird Japanese Stuff though, and not very good at that, and it is October and all, I figured I might as well dedicate the rest of the month to cheesy horror movies from the 80's. Because those totally don't comprise every other movie I do one of these for normally. It's like one in three tops. Anyway, Terrorvision.
After a couple logos, we get the glorious words, "A Charles Band Production" followed by the even more glorious words: Planet Pluton, Sanitation Department, Mutant Creature Disposal Unit. That much speaks for itself, but the former need some explaining. Charles Band is the guy who started Full Moon Pictures. Any time you have a really weird, fun, 80's movie that's totally baffling and noticeably low budget, like practically everything I file under Weirdly Awesome? Odds are REALLY good Charles Band is the guy who sand very little money into it. Also, wow. Was this movie really made in the 80's? Because this doesn't look like it was made in the 80's. This looks like someone spoofing the way things looked in the 80's and going so far overboard with it that they lose all credibility. It's... stunning. We've got a mom in one of those lycra aerobics leotards talking to her daughter whose hair is twice the size of her head and contains every color in the neon spectrum, not shutting up about MTV, their whole house is full of... 80's art, which I didn't really realize was a thing until I saw this much at once, and... there's so much more I'd love to expound on but stuff is happening.
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So.. Dad's pounding on the satellite dish with a hammer, which apparently works and... OK, the remote for this TV of theirs is like... the controller for Steel Battalion or something. It has a spinning radar dish on it. And... oh wow. Just wow. This movie is so visually intense. It's just so hard to express coherent thought just looking at their couch. But anyway, the parents are going out swinging, Big Sis has her Heavy Metal Boyfriend over for a date, and Kid and Grandpa are watching an off-brand Godzilla movie hosted by Elvira. Sorry, "Medusa" because "horror movies and war stories are educational! They teach survival skills!" Grandpa is a kindly old survivalist nut you see. He's a big fan of jerked lizard tails, since they're an inexhaustible resource. Anyway, long story short, a hideous space monster crawls out of the TV, so Grandpa and kid go down to get some AKs and such out of the basement bomb shelter. And dear gods what is with Dad's posters? He has like... Golden Age Comics Porn plastered up all over the place. And... nude sculptures with fountain nipples... and there was a pile of writhing nude girls when they were flipping channels on the TV, but believe it or not, we're still in solid wholesome PG-13 territory.
Now the monster just liquified Grandpa and used its vacuum tongue to suck him off the floor but... yeah this still feels very PG-13. Anyway, the monster is just a big ol' wad of meat with giant goofy googly eyes and tentacles and this weird little claw thing, and it can apparently jump in and out of TVs. Also, is the wife from the parents swinging partners here Audry from Little Shop of Horrors or something? That voice is really familiar. And... was that paining a monolith from 2001 with boobs? If art counts we totally qualify for Boobs by Paragraph 3. Not particularly expecting the real thing to ever show up, but it's really doing this strange incredibly dirty yet wholesome deal. Oh and here's the alien sanitation worker accidentally sent the alien begging the people of earth to physically destroy all their satellite dishes and TVs for the next 200 years to make sure they don't accidentally intercept his here monster. The parents write it off as a cheesy B-movie, which is totally reasonable because, well, it is and all.
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Also, the monster just kinda half-regurgitated Grandpa's head on the end of its tongue (handily covered by his regurgitated clothes) to lean around a corner and convince the parents he wasn't eaten which, honestly, in a movie without such an aggressively light tone to it, that'd be pretty darn disturbing. Is that S&M Betty and Veronica fan art on that one? And man, Space Janitor guy is so awesome. "... may lead to the eradication of all life on your planet! I'm sorry for the inconvenience." And... OK, this is weird. Mom and Dad lock Kid in the bomb shelter to keep his warnings of doom from because they want to bang these weirdos they dragged home. So, Kid calls the live call-in number for the Elvira knockoff (the dire warnings keep cutting in and out with the cheesy TV) and begs for aid. She makes fun of him, hangs up, and then starts calling him over to the TV as part of the show, in kind of a surreal Videodrome sorta way. Trying to get him to make out with his TV basically. Then at the last second cutting away to this screaming monster face. In fairness, he'd already tried calling the police when stuff first went down and they blew him off, but it's weird that that was his #2 option, and it's kind of awesome that the host was such a horrible monster.
Anyway, after an extended bit of dorky comedy where Swinging Dude asks is Dad is a Manly Man (read: bisexual), all 4 adults are eaten. Not all at once, I'm just kinda lagging behind explaining this stuff. Kid uses explosives to get out of the bomb shelter when Sis and Metalhead return from their beer run or whatever. He tries to get them properly armed with heavy weapons. Uh... long story short, Sis and Bro open the door to their parents' room where we see all 4 adult heads, covered in slime, with the bulk of it writhing under the sheets. "So have any of you seen Grandpa?" "Right here kids!" WOW.
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So... cutting to the chase, the monster bursts out and is about to eat Metalhead, who I'm just going to start calling Ted "Theodore" Logan because he so is, but stops when he sees his spike covered glove. We suddenl y have a hideous space monster childhood flashback, where the person in charge of feeding him wore similar gloves, as people from Pluton who raise monsters apparently wear. Realizing this, the kids decide to befriend the monster, and teach it what sorts of food are appropriate to eat. Also to rock out. Kid is keeping a gun trained on it through this whole deal by the way. We've got lightning bolt wipes going on through all this too I should mention. Also, I love how they're just calling the monster "Monster." They then teach the monster their names, and about TV. I love the fact that they have confirmed that this thing has eaten their parents and grandfather and don't seem to be upset at this in the slightest. Kid and Ted are just arguing over which of them has the right to exploit Monster for celebrity status. Oh OK. They actually all buy that all the adults are having an orgy. Kid never actually saw it eating Grandpa I suppose. Also, Elvira Knockoff? You're way too slutty. That wasn't a double entendre, that was just a full on filthy comment. Also, "Look Medusa, this is serious!" is a wonderful line. The kids really insist on using yon late night creature feature show as their means of showing their pet monster to the world. She continues to be a rational jerk though.
Monster is pretty addicted to watching TV and hates commercials. Also, here's the cops come to arrest Kid for prank calling them a couple times now. And oh hey, here's the space warning again. I love how this guy opened by urging everyone to destroy their TVs and is continuing on hours later. I guess he figures, if nobody listened to him at first, they've now received their monster and should proceed with survival tips. Also, monster kinda freaks out and eats Ted on seeing this. Shame. It also eats Cop, which goes without saying. So now Kid finally gets around to busting out the guns and explosives and trying to kill it. More than he's been doing. Sis has awesome lines. "How would I even know where its brain IS?" "It didn't sound too dead when it ate that cop." Oh and NOW they've worked out that their parents have been eaten. Meanwhile, the monster is just hanging out in the hot tup watching cheesy horror movies and laughing. And chanting "TV" in sing-song fashion.
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So anyway, they toss the crazy remote into the water and run, which... somehow summons Space Janitor out of an already smashed TV. He's wearing a ridiculous space suit. "On my planet, a Hungry Beast is a household pet, not unlike your dogs and cats." "They're very loveable before they mutate." I love this guy so much. And apparently in cases of fast fossilization, he can clone their parents from the monster's stomach contents with their minds intact. "They'd be the real mommy and daddy. They'd just have to live in special aquariums." This movie is weird. And oh hey, Here's faux Elvira actually showing up after Sister's crazy pitch about throwing a party. She heroically brains Space Janitor over the head, assuming he was their space monster, somewhat understandably. his cracks his helmet, and causes his head to explode. She is confused at how this doesn't make her the hero, and largely goes directly into Screw you guys, I'm going home Mode.
And then I guess the monster eats everybody. We just kinda fade to black as it attacks everyone. Then the monster, very poorly imitating faux Elvira (like, part of her head is sticking out of the top of it) taps her driver on the shoulder and asks to be taken back to the studio. I guess it plans to take over her job of hosting a cheesy creature feature show, maybe eating people now and then. Which... is pretty logical. I mean, it did seem pretty content to just sit around watching cheesy horror movies all day and all.
So... that was a bizarre movie. I mean, if you just look at a list of everything that happens, it seems like a horror movie... and a rather porn-y one at that. In proper context though, it's just harmless wholesome goofy fun. And a potentially lethal concentration of pure concentrated 80's. Seriously. Words cannot convey.
