Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema Rewind.
Speaker 2: This is Rob Lamb and I am Joe McCormick, and
Speaker 2: of course a Weird House Cinema Rewind comes from the
Speaker 2: vault of Weird House Cinema. This was originally published on
Speaker 2: September sixteenth, twenty twenty two, and it is our episode
Speaker 2: on Extraterrestrial Visitors aka pod People.
Speaker 1: Yeah. This one, of course is a film that was
Speaker 1: featured on Mystery Science Theater three thousand back in the
Speaker 1: day and is a richly enjoyable movie on its own.
Speaker 1: But one of the issues in this episode back when
Speaker 1: we recorded it is of course that we did not
Speaker 1: have great film quality to go off of the best.
Speaker 1: I think the best quality available was pretty grubby. We
Speaker 1: complain about it a bit in the episode. But then
Speaker 1: something magical happened. In the months following our release of
Speaker 1: the original episode, several films put out an excellent restored
Speaker 1: Blu ray edition of Extraterrestrial Visitors. I found out about
Speaker 1: it months later ordered up a copy of it. I
Speaker 1: have now viewed it and I have to say it
Speaker 1: is beautiful. If you find any if you find anything
Speaker 1: in this film beautiful, you will find this restored version
Speaker 1: of it beautiful. You can actually make out details that
Speaker 1: are lost otherwise. Like, for instance, there's the character that
Speaker 1: has the I'm a Virgin T shirt. Well, now you
Speaker 1: can read all the details on that shirt and see
Speaker 1: that it's a Virgin Islands tourist T shirt. That's the
Speaker 1: full story there. And just in general, like everything's in
Speaker 1: just a richer quality. There's still a certain level of
Speaker 1: grubbiness just because it is still, you know, a Spanish
Speaker 1: genre picture of the nineteen eighties. But man, it's a
Speaker 1: fun package. So I highly recommend it to anyone out
Speaker 1: there who is a fan of extraterrestrial visitors, Spanish genre films,
Speaker 1: or or of course if you're an MST completist and
Speaker 1: you want a nice copy of this beloved film. And
Speaker 1: one more thing, it also has a CD in it
Speaker 1: that has the soundtrack on it, which which isn't much.
Speaker 1: It has, you know, just a few of the synthy
Speaker 1: bits that you hear, and then also that terrible pop
Speaker 1: song that they're recording in the studio.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, hear the engines roar now, I think.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So I actually got the experience of finding my
Speaker 1: car's CD drive putting that CD in there, rolling down
Speaker 1: all the windows and then you know, tearing around town
Speaker 1: with that's with that song blasting.
Speaker 2: Did you feel the wind in your eyes?
Speaker 1: I did, felt the wind right in my eyes. All
Speaker 1: systems will go, all right, let's jump right in.
Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema.
Speaker 2: This is right, and this is Joe McCormick, and we.
Speaker 1: Are going to the year nineteen eighty three for this one.
Speaker 1: We're going to be discussing a film that has many names.
Speaker 1: Its primary title in the United States is Extraterrestrial Visitors,
Speaker 1: but it is also widely known to Mystery Science Theater
Speaker 1: three thousand fans as pod People.
Speaker 2: Strangely, that title has nothing to do with the contents
Speaker 2: of the movie and makes it sound like it's a
Speaker 2: ripoff of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, when in fact,
Speaker 2: it's a ripoff of ET but with much grizzlier elements.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's. My rough understanding of this film is that
Speaker 1: it may have originally started as your basic killer creature
Speaker 1: in the woods sort of fair, but this is the
Speaker 1: year after ET. Cute aliens being befriended by children is
Speaker 1: big business, and so this gets folded into the plot.
Speaker 1: So it's one of these films that, much like the
Speaker 1: much like the film Grimlins, it's totally inconsistent, Like one
Speaker 1: second it's doing cute stuff and the next second it
Speaker 1: is in horror mode. And at the end of the
Speaker 1: by the end of the film, you're you're left wondering, like,
Speaker 1: who is this for? Like, there are parts of this
Speaker 1: film that I would show my child. There are other
Speaker 1: parts that I would not show them. There are there
Speaker 1: plenty of human characters I would not expose them to
Speaker 1: in this Well.
Speaker 2: I'd say even the cute stuff in this movie is grotesque.
Speaker 2: The scenes with Tommy, the child and his alien friend,
Speaker 2: like playing around and doing telekinesis parties in the in
Speaker 2: the bedroom and making like the toys dance on the
Speaker 2: ceiling and stuff. Something about that is its own kind
Speaker 2: of horror, even though I don't think that part is
Speaker 2: intended to be scary.
Speaker 1: Oh, I thought it was delightful. Tommy is absolute goodness
Speaker 1: and sweetness, and so is Trumpy. Trumpy is the name
Speaker 1: that Tommy gives to the childlike alien who comes into
Speaker 1: his life.
Speaker 2: So so in a way, this movie is going to
Speaker 2: be in the tradition of all the movies where a
Speaker 2: child befriends a benevolent, fantastical being, you think about the
Speaker 2: movie that was the direct inspiration for at least half
Speaker 2: of this, Spielberg's et came out the year before. But
Speaker 2: on the other hand, I think you can think of
Speaker 2: this as part of a subgenre of though it's not
Speaker 2: exactly correct in this movie, because the horror is being
Speaker 2: done by just other aliens that look identical to the
Speaker 2: one he's befriended, but it's part of the subgenre of
Speaker 2: child to be friends a deadly monster movies, like I
Speaker 2: think one of the core prototypes here is the original
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty one Frankenstein, The Universal Monster Movie, where there
Speaker 2: is a pivotal scene highlighting the creature's moral innocence as
Speaker 2: well as his destructive power. After the creature escapes Frankenstein's lab,
Speaker 2: he wanders the countryside where he encounters a child and
Speaker 2: the creature, being innocent and childlike himself, they play games
Speaker 2: together and they throw flowers in a lake until the
Speaker 2: creature accidentally kills the child while in the midst of
Speaker 2: a game because he doesn't understand cause and effect and
Speaker 2: he doesn't understand his own strength. And it's that's sort
Speaker 2: of what makes Frankenstein more of a grotesque tragedy than
Speaker 2: a movie about a sidistic evil monster. I don't know
Speaker 2: if that's exactly the case in Pod almost called it
Speaker 2: pod people extraterrestrial visitors. It's I'm not sure if this
Speaker 2: movie was trying to say anything about like the moral
Speaker 2: complexity of the beings in the relationship to humans. The
Speaker 2: child that in the movie does often say they just
Speaker 2: want to be our friends. Yet we do see the
Speaker 2: aliens totally unprovoked to just attacking humans.
Speaker 1: I do well, I don't know if they're completely unprovoked.
Speaker 1: Now to come back to Frankenstein, and I think Frankenstein
Speaker 1: is a great comparison here because the other aspect of Frankenstein,
Speaker 1: and this is president in the novel too, is that
Speaker 1: Frankenstein in Frankenstein's Monster rather and you can call him Frankenstein.
Speaker 1: It's it's fine, we checked, he's cool with it. The
Speaker 1: monster encounters a humanity that is hostile to him, and
Speaker 1: that fosters hostility, that fosters this this grudge against both
Speaker 1: his creator uh and the creator's fellow human beings, and
Speaker 1: so in this film, we kind of see the same
Speaker 1: duality Like this, we also see that Frankenstein, you know,
Speaker 1: with the with the child encountering the child or encountering
Speaker 1: the blind man. Because we have these two aliens and
Speaker 1: they both have they have different experiences with the humans
Speaker 1: they encounter. The first alien encounters poachers and hunters and
Speaker 1: vile band members and so forth. Like the first his
Speaker 1: first encounters with humans are all murderous. Meanwhile, the second,
Speaker 1: younger alien, his first encounter is Tommy, and Tommy like
Speaker 1: hatches him from an egg. Tommy is nice to him
Speaker 1: and feeds him and and they venture off to a
Speaker 1: world of whimsy with each other. Where the other one,
Speaker 1: the murderous alien, has none of that.
Speaker 2: Oh, I think I see what you're saying. So like,
Speaker 2: even though the other alien does like just randomly attack
Speaker 2: like innocent people, like in a bathroom or in an RV,
Speaker 2: it is because the other alien had previously encountered dangerous humans.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, Like at that point he's like, this is
Speaker 1: what humans are, and if I see one that, I
Speaker 1: have no other choice but to kill them before they
Speaker 1: hurt me. Like he's walking around with he has like
Speaker 1: a crossbow bolt in his chest most of the time
Speaker 1: because he's also been wounded by the humans. So yeah,
Speaker 1: this was the for me, the most interesting thing about
Speaker 1: this film watching it for the first time without any riffs,
Speaker 1: without you know, the added layer of overt humor provided
Speaker 1: by MST three K, because I seen this film multiple
Speaker 1: times before via that ms TH three K episode, which
Speaker 1: is one of my favorites. It's a classic MST episode.
Speaker 1: But I'd never really given the film a chance to
Speaker 1: succeed and fail on its own merits, and it does.
Speaker 1: It does both. Now, I do want to come back
Speaker 1: to the title of this film, because this is it's
Speaker 1: it's interesting that it has had. It has so many titles.
Speaker 1: So it was a French Spanish co production, and so
Speaker 1: it was released in its respective countries with of course
Speaker 1: French and Spanish names. I believe that the Spanish is
Speaker 1: what los novos extraterrestris, which is the new extraterrestrials, and
Speaker 1: then and then the French and French is not my
Speaker 1: certainly not my my happy spot for pronunciation, but I
Speaker 1: believe it is less monsters. So it's that's terrible, I know,
Speaker 1: but but I love what it means. The hatching of monsters.
Speaker 1: I think the Hatching of monsters might be the best
Speaker 1: title for this film.
Speaker 2: Because they do come from eggs. One egg is snuggled
Speaker 2: by a child in his bed and the other egg
Speaker 2: is is the other egg bashed opened by a poacher.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Multiple eggs are bashed open, ye by poachers, and we
Speaker 1: have poachers who are seeking eggs in the forest, so
Speaker 1: the egg trope goes pretty deep in this. But but yeah,
Speaker 1: this has had a ton of titles that we mentioned
Speaker 1: pod people. You can look up all sorts of crazy
Speaker 1: posters and vhs box art for this thing. And like
Speaker 1: I found one that just says a visitor and there's
Speaker 1: a weird illustration of Tommy and there's the shadow of
Speaker 1: something standing in a doorway, presumably the alien visitor, which
Speaker 1: looks nothing like anything in the film.
Speaker 2: Now, the shadow kind of looks like the silhouette of
Speaker 2: the Guiver, you know, it's like it's like a kind
Speaker 2: of robo alien humanoid shape with claws.
Speaker 1: And then there's another one I found and I love
Speaker 1: this one. This is a black box video release and
Speaker 1: this must be like this must be like us or Canadian.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I didn't I didn't look this up.
Speaker 1: But it has this wonderful, charming, childlike illustration of Tommy
Speaker 1: and Trumpy, and it just says ETV in gold swirling letters.
Speaker 1: That's Extraterrestrial Visitors. But for the cool kids ETV, it's
Speaker 1: like T two. Yeah, you know, I love it, Like,
Speaker 1: how did they think they could get away with that?
Speaker 1: Let's just call it ETV. Let's just cut straight to it.
Speaker 1: The kids don't care.
Speaker 2: This is G two baby.
Speaker 1: But Trump is very cute on this. I would say
Speaker 1: in general, we're talking about ET Trumpy. Trumpy is far
Speaker 1: cuter than et. ET is just a flesh bag with
Speaker 1: big eyes and a glowing finger. But meanwhile, Trumpy is
Speaker 1: this delightful mix. He's like all the better aspects of
Speaker 1: alf combined with snuffle up agains in a more bipedal form.
Speaker 2: What is the Star Wars character that Trumpy looks like
Speaker 2: from the most nicely cantina that has a long Ardvark snout?
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I forget his name, but yes, he does
Speaker 1: look like him, especially at one point in the film
Speaker 1: when Tommy puts a coat on him with.
Speaker 2: A hood garn Dan, Is that right?
Speaker 1: If you say so, I guess he also looks a
Speaker 1: little bit, but like Max Rebo, the blue piano player
Speaker 1: from Java's Barge. Yeah, of course trump he has hair.
Speaker 2: Yes, okay? So according to is this Wikipedia or some
Speaker 2: kind of Star Wars wikie, this creature with the goggles,
Speaker 2: the hood and the long snout is called garrin Dan,
Speaker 2: also called long Snoot. It says he it was a Kubaz.
Speaker 2: I think that is an alien species, and he is
Speaker 2: considered to be the greatest spy in the most sicily
Speaker 2: spaceport there.
Speaker 1: I mean, you barely notice him, you know, you have
Speaker 1: to look up his name. That's the mark of a
Speaker 1: good spy.
Speaker 2: But a big difference is that Trumpy is furry, whereas
Speaker 2: Garindn is not.
Speaker 1: Oh you don't want to carry all that fur with
Speaker 1: you on Tatooine. Though perhaps sheared first?
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, what so. One of the human characters describes
Speaker 2: the aliens as looking like a cross between I think
Speaker 2: they're saying a pig and a bear, though it kind
Speaker 2: of sounds like a pig and a pair either way.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure. I don't really see the pig part.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the snout doesn't look very pig like. It's
Speaker 1: more it's more snuffle up agaus. That's what I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I wonder if that line was written before the
Speaker 2: creature design was finalized.
Speaker 1: Maybe so, all right, at this point, we would would
Speaker 1: normally give you a little taste of the trailer. But
Speaker 1: I looked around for a while and I could not
Speaker 1: find any trailers for this film in any language. I
Speaker 1: was looking up the various releases. I was thinking, well, okay,
Speaker 1: I can't find the English trailer. Maybe there wasn't one
Speaker 1: or it's been lost, but surely I can find the
Speaker 1: English or the original one that they used in Spain.
Speaker 1: But I was not able to find anything. So I
Speaker 1: thought we might just have some audio from the film.
Speaker 1: Hopefully we'll get some of the charming synth music in
Speaker 1: there as well. Hey, come back down, Tommy, What are
Speaker 1: you doing? What was all that noise? Tommy? Did you
Speaker 1: hear me? Tommy? In the own room? All right? And
Speaker 1: a note on availability for this film. Sadly, this is
Speaker 1: not one where you can find it. Seemed to be
Speaker 1: able to find a better cut of the film, or
Speaker 1: at least like better film quality. I ended up streaming
Speaker 1: it via Prime and I know there are some some
Speaker 1: other streams available out there. Again, if you look around
Speaker 1: in the for the original Spanish and French titles for
Speaker 1: the film, you can find I believe you can find
Speaker 1: it in those languages, But in terms of finding like
Speaker 1: any kind of their stored footage, we're not there yet.
Speaker 1: So I don't know if this is a film where
Speaker 1: this is as good as the video quality is ever
Speaker 1: going to get, or if at some point we'll get
Speaker 1: something a little easier to watch, because yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: kind of kind of brutal at times. It's a film
Speaker 1: that already has a lot of fog machines and perhaps
Speaker 1: some day for nights effects going on and things get
Speaker 1: really muddy looking.
Speaker 2: The woods in this movie often look like the foggy
Speaker 2: forest that Graham Chapman gets lost in and oh where
Speaker 2: they find the Knights who say knee and Monty Python
Speaker 2: on the Holy Grail. You remember that sequence?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, this film makes makes great use of
Speaker 1: the fog machine. So sadly we're still waiting on I guess,
Speaker 1: a proper restored cut of this film. I hope we
Speaker 1: get there. I hope that it's out there somewhere just
Speaker 1: waiting for someone to discover. But I think for now,
Speaker 1: as far as I know, we don't really have a
Speaker 1: superior example of video quality to steer you towards. I
Speaker 1: know it came out on DVD, but I have no
Speaker 1: reason to suspect that that has better video quality than
Speaker 1: what's available elsewhere. All right, let's talk about the human
Speaker 1: beings that made this film. So we've mentioned the director
Speaker 1: of this film before. He's come up, because, especially when
Speaker 1: we've talked about Spanish films, inevitably some of the people
Speaker 1: involved in Spanish productions also worked on some of his films.
Speaker 1: This is jue Picuerre Simone. He was the director, the writer,
Speaker 1: and he also did visual effects on this film. He
Speaker 1: lived nineteen thirty five through twenty eleven. Spanish b movie
Speaker 1: director who became I'm going to say he became legendary
Speaker 1: for such films as nineteen eighty eight Slugs the Movie,
Speaker 1: which is a film that I distinctly remember seeing a
Speaker 1: trailer for when I was a child, and it made
Speaker 1: me afraid to use a toilet. It may be anxious
Speaker 1: about sitting on a toilet. That's how terrifying the trailer was,
Speaker 1: because there's a scene where you see slugs crawling on
Speaker 1: a toilet.
Speaker 2: Oh there's a toilet attack in it, or just slugs
Speaker 2: on it toilet.
Speaker 1: I can't remember. I think you know, we've talked about
Speaker 1: the trailer for Slugs of the movie at some point
Speaker 1: for trailer talk back in the day, but I don't
Speaker 1: think I could quite bring myself to watch it in full.
Speaker 2: Is that one of the movies kind of like the
Speaker 2: late seventies remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which
Speaker 2: is fantastic where the hero is a member of the
Speaker 2: local health inspection department.
Speaker 1: Is that so okay?
Speaker 2: I have a vague memory of something like that. Could
Speaker 2: be wrong.
Speaker 1: Simone's other film of note is nineteen eighty two's Pieces.
Speaker 1: This is a film that we've almost watched on Weird
Speaker 1: House before. It's been almost cued up in the past.
Speaker 1: It is a chainsaw movie with a lot of other
Speaker 1: extra strange things added to it, but it has a
Speaker 1: really fun cast.
Speaker 2: It's like, it seems kind of like if Texas Chainsaw
Speaker 2: Massacre was not rural and Texan but was about like
Speaker 2: an apartment building.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like an apartment building in Madrid or something. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of odd, so we may come back to
Speaker 1: that one. Simone also directed the nineteen ninety underwater sci
Speaker 1: fi film The Rift that one has Ray Wise and
Speaker 1: r Lee Ermie in it. He also did nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine Supersonic Man that has Cameron Mitchell in it. He
Speaker 1: did nineteen eighty one's Mystery on Monster Island that has
Speaker 1: Terrence Stamp and Peter Cushing in it. And he also
Speaker 1: did nineteen ninety two's Cuthulhu Mansion.
Speaker 2: Oh, I'd love to see what jan Pequerre Simone does
Speaker 2: with Terrence Stamp General Zod.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm curious. So there's also another writer credited on this,
Speaker 1: Joaquin Grau, who's credited as Jack Gray on the US version,
Speaker 1: a writer who worked He just worked with Simone on
Speaker 1: a couple of his other films, So I couldn't find
Speaker 1: out much about this individual. But let's get into the
Speaker 1: cast a bit here. So really the most of these
Speaker 1: cast members were people I was not familiar with. But
Speaker 1: there's one that has come up on the show before,
Speaker 1: and that is the character Bert, one of the Hunters,
Speaker 1: one of the poach in the film, played by Frank Bronna,
Speaker 1: who lived nineteen thirty four through twenty twelve. Not really
Speaker 1: a major character in this film, but a regular player
Speaker 1: in Simone's films, and he also turns up in a
Speaker 1: ton of Spanish bee movies of the day, including Return
Speaker 1: of the Blind Dead, which we previously covered on the show.
Speaker 2: He in this movie looks like a cross between Sam
Speaker 2: the Eagle and Leslie Nielsen. He has a kind of
Speaker 2: silver haired authority and yet he's just playing kind of
Speaker 2: a scummy poacher.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think he played a lot of heavies in
Speaker 1: his time. He shows up spaghetti westerns and horror movies.
Speaker 1: He has those really piercing eyes and often white hair,
Speaker 1: and also seem to be able to grow a lot
Speaker 1: of impressive facial hair. So if you look up just
Speaker 1: images of Frank Bronna in different movies, Yeah, he's a
Speaker 1: little chameleon like. He can play any kind of suspicious,
Speaker 1: sort of handsome dude with really piercing evil eyes. It's
Speaker 1: it looks like he made a career out of that.
Speaker 2: Wait, who was he in Return of the Blind Dead?
Speaker 2: Was he a was he like one of the corrupt
Speaker 2: politicians or something?
Speaker 1: He was? Memory serves he was the corrupt politicians henchman
Speaker 1: who you think is decent for a while and not
Speaker 1: as bad as the politician, but eventually reveals himself to
Speaker 1: be a predatory villain as well, and then he's killed
Speaker 1: by the dead. All right, other humans in this film
Speaker 1: we have. We have the character Rick, who's the frontman
Speaker 1: of a horrible band. This is played by Ian Sarah Dates,
Speaker 1: unknown Spanish actor known mostly for this film for Pieces
Speaker 1: for Mystery on Monster Island, so you know, he was
Speaker 1: a regular player for Simone, but he's recently directed and
Speaker 1: produced it looks like and yeah. In this he plays Rick,
Speaker 1: a perfectionist lead singer of a terrible band that makes
Speaker 1: everyone around him miserable.
Speaker 2: They're really it's like they're setting him up to be
Speaker 2: the villain of the movie. He's like the jerk who
Speaker 2: you know will finally get his come up and from
Speaker 2: the monster in the end. But no, it seems like
Speaker 2: in the end the movie you realize that he is
Speaker 2: sort of the hero of the movie.
Speaker 1: It's very weird, but he doesn't really do much that's heroic, Like,
Speaker 1: he doesn't really have an arc, he doesn't have a
Speaker 1: redemption story. He doesn't realize that he was a jerk.
Speaker 1: He just kind of by not he stops actively being terrible,
Speaker 1: but he doesn't really do anything all that good. I
Speaker 1: guess he's a little heroic, but for movie heroism, it's
Speaker 1: very mild.
Speaker 2: Oh no, I'm not saying he does anything qualitatively heroic.
Speaker 2: I'm saying he fills the hero slot in the movie,
Speaker 2: like he is the young guy who comes in at
Speaker 2: the end, you know, and like shoots the monster and stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, in that regard, you could say he's
Speaker 1: definitely filling the space that should be occupied by a
Speaker 1: more heroic figure.
Speaker 2: But no, yeah, complete jerk of a character, essentially no
Speaker 2: redeeming qualities. The only thing that changes really at the
Speaker 2: end is he just sort of like stops having lines.
Speaker 2: And yeah, I guess they're that.
Speaker 1: You know, Well, that's an eft is a blessing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: let's see another human of note in this. There's Nina
Speaker 1: Ferrer playing Sharon, a member of the band and Rick's girlfriend.
Speaker 1: Date's unknown, a Spanish actor who appeared in a handful
Speaker 1: of films, and this might be the best well known,
Speaker 1: at least outside of Spain as far as I can tell.
Speaker 1: Then there's also Susanna Biquerer, who plays Lara, a fan
Speaker 1: of the band. Lara is also a Miles spoiler. She
Speaker 1: will be one of the early victims in the film,
Speaker 1: but kind of a victim of both human more of
Speaker 1: a victim of the humans right as opposed to the
Speaker 1: aliens at any rate.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, it's confusing because I thought that her death
Speaker 2: is caused by humans, but then she gets the little
Speaker 2: like the Big Dipper inscribed on her forehead, which suggests
Speaker 2: she was killed by the alien.
Speaker 1: So I don't know, m all right, we'll have to
Speaker 1: suss that out at any rate. Beaker here a Spanish actor,
Speaker 1: mostly active and still active on television. For instance, she's
Speaker 1: currently in a show called Now and Then, which is
Speaker 1: apparently on Apple TV Plus. And she had a small
Speaker 1: role in Hostile Too as an Italian translator. And she is,
Speaker 1: according to her online acting profile, fluent in English, Italian
Speaker 1: and French.
Speaker 2: Oh, speaking of do do you have any idea whether
Speaker 2: the actors who appear on screen also provide the voices
Speaker 2: in the audio dub I wondered if there was any
Speaker 2: difference there, because I think I think most or all
Speaker 2: of this movie does not have live sound. The dialogue
Speaker 2: is dubbed.
Speaker 1: In right, So yeah, my understanding and I could be
Speaker 1: wrong on this is that again, it was a French
Speaker 1: Spanish co production, and I think lines were recorded for
Speaker 1: both a French version and a Spanish version, but I
Speaker 1: don't know I have both of those. If we're talking
Speaker 1: about two different takes in two different languages, I don't
Speaker 1: know if we're talking about one is the live take
Speaker 1: and the other is the dub or as is sometimes
Speaker 1: the case with films of this caliber, if both were
Speaker 1: dubbed and they just and they didn't do sound, I
Speaker 1: don't know. All right. We mentioned Tommy already, Tommy, the
Speaker 1: heart and soul of this film, the sweetness of this film,
Speaker 1: this film's hope for humanity, played by Oscar Martin born
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two, a French child actor who I think
Speaker 1: would have been like ten or eleven at the time
Speaker 1: of filming, which coincidentally is the age of my son.
Speaker 1: So I think that's why this film had more of
Speaker 1: an effect on me watching it this as opposed to
Speaker 1: the past, because like, here's here's this child that is,
Speaker 1: you know, that still has all of this innocence in him,
Speaker 1: and he's you know, he's into cute animals and caring
Speaker 1: for animals and nature, and he has his goodness in him,
Speaker 1: and you know, there's a lot of that that reminds
Speaker 1: me of my own son. And there's also this, you know,
Speaker 1: this fear of them growing ever older, getting closer and
Speaker 1: closer to that world of teenagedness in adulthood, and all
Speaker 1: of the complexities of all of that. So I think
Speaker 1: all of this made me think a little bit deeper
Speaker 1: about this film and read more into this film than
Speaker 1: I did in the past.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, this is explaining a lot. Yeah, I suspect
Speaker 2: your son would make better decisions than Tommy does.
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. We'll see what is tom We'll
Speaker 1: get into it. I'm trying to remember what Tommy's worst
Speaker 1: decisions are.
Speaker 2: Well, I don't know, now that I think about it.
Speaker 2: I mean, maybe Tommy. It's hard to blame Tommy too much.
Speaker 2: I think if him is essentially kind of unleashing an
Speaker 2: alien horror on everyone, but he doesn't, it's not so
Speaker 2: much his fault.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I would say he increases the amount of entanglement
Speaker 2: between the people and the aliens, but maybe that was inevitable.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Martin here playing Tommy is good. I enjoy him.
Speaker 1: I feel like he's a good He does a good
Speaker 1: job as a child actor in this and in the
Speaker 1: English dub. I don't know for certain, but we kind
Speaker 1: of have that same thing going on that we had
Speaker 1: with the House by the Cemetery, where I think we
Speaker 1: might have an adult woman dubbing the voice for Tommy,
Speaker 1: which adds to the sort of weirdness of the whole situation.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, yep. What was the kid in the house
Speaker 2: by the cemetery was up?
Speaker 1: Bob? Bob? Yes, at least this time a proper child's name, right, Tommy.
Speaker 1: That sounds like a child's name. Bob. That's a grown
Speaker 1: up's name, right, all right. A couple of other actors
Speaker 1: have not there is there are a numerous actors. There
Speaker 1: are really too many human characters in this because the
Speaker 1: band and has just multiple members and hangers on, some
Speaker 1: of which have no real impact on the plot. But Tommy,
Speaker 1: as we learned, Tommy lives with his mom, whose name
Speaker 1: is Molly, played by Concha Queitos born nineteen forty four,
Speaker 1: Spanish actor who worked mostly in TV and was also
Speaker 1: in Slug And then we have and then Tommy's uncle
Speaker 1: Bill lives with them. Uncle Bill is played by Manuel
Speaker 1: Perero who was born in nineteen twenty seven, a Cuban
Speaker 1: born Spanish actor I believe, who has a fairly diverse filmography,
Speaker 1: having appeared in movies that also feature the likes of
Speaker 1: John Finch, Steve Guttenberg, Alan Arkin, Leonard Nimoy, Julian Sands,
Speaker 1: Paul McGann and Paul Nashy.
Speaker 2: Of course, Paul Nashy.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I oh, man, I'm gonna get tripped up a lot
Speaker 2: when we're talking about the plot because this is uncle Bill.
Speaker 2: But I was definitely just thinking of him as grandpa.
Speaker 2: So he is grandpa to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's oh, he's awful. He's just a grumpy
Speaker 1: man who distrusts everyone, hates animals.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he really hates Carl and asc Yeah.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, so we'll discuss Bill. Uncle Bill is not
Speaker 1: a likable character, all right. And finally, the music. The
Speaker 1: music is definitely I think one of the best attributes
Speaker 1: of the film. The music here was done by Libra Pastor.
Speaker 1: Pastor worked on a handful of Simone films, including pieces
Speaker 1: a Spanish organ player and composer. He was apparently a
Speaker 1: member of the band Los Roberts and the soundtrack was
Speaker 1: released on vinyl in Spain. So some of these films
Speaker 1: we end up talking about were like, oh, what if
Speaker 1: they ever put this out on vinyl, wouldn't that be cool?
Speaker 1: This is one where it came out on vinyl originally.
Speaker 1: I don't think anybody's put it back out on vinyl.
Speaker 1: I don't know that it's available anywhere officially, Like it's
Speaker 1: a digital and it's a digital version. I don't think
Speaker 1: it ever came out on like cassette or CD, but
Speaker 1: it came out on vinyl. And the cover is pretty
Speaker 1: great because it has this wonderful illustration of Tommy looking
Speaker 1: up into the sky and there's like a halo of
Speaker 1: light behind him.
Speaker 2: Los Nuevo's Extra Terrestrace. So comb your local used record
Speaker 2: store if you find a copy right in.
Speaker 1: This has got to be worth a fortune, at least
Speaker 1: to certain very specific individuals. But anyway, the music in
Speaker 1: this is pretty fun that the score anyway, lots of synth,
Speaker 1: very atmospheric at times, also very goofy and carnival ask
Speaker 1: at times. I remember in the MST three K episode
Speaker 1: they distinctly made I think they made of music from
Speaker 1: the Hearts of Space joke in there, because it does
Speaker 1: have that kind of feel at times.
Speaker 2: Did this person THO Will also write the pop song
Speaker 2: that is that is diegetic music within the movie. It
Speaker 2: is the band the song the band sings in the studio.
Speaker 1: I do not know about that. I don't think that
Speaker 1: awful track which is known as idiot Control now among
Speaker 1: MST three k fans, I don't think that's on the
Speaker 1: score album here. And I did note that on IMDb
Speaker 1: there's another individual credited as well for music, and so
Speaker 1: perhaps that individual had something to do with creation of
Speaker 1: that track. I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I think outside the context of MST the song is
Speaker 2: actually called Burning Rubber Tires, which is a really wonderfully
Speaker 2: attractive name. But I would say this is actually it
Speaker 2: makes for one of the all time great MST skits.
Speaker 2: You know, you watch MST like a lot of times
Speaker 2: the skits are aren't the best part, but the skit
Speaker 2: in the pod People episode where they sing a parody
Speaker 2: of this song is it's got to be top three
Speaker 2: ever on the show.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah. Joel does a spoof of it and
Speaker 1: it's it's tremendous. Definitely. This is a situation where were
Speaker 1: watching it unriffed. I still had the echo of a
Speaker 1: number of the rifts in my mind as I was
Speaker 1: watching it.
Speaker 2: Steady as she goes we're flying over trout.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Except the weird thing is I thought some of the
Speaker 2: lines they sang in their version that we're just that
Speaker 2: I assumed we're just straight parody are literally the lines
Speaker 2: in the real song, Like I think all I want
Speaker 2: to feel is the wind in my eyes, which is hilarious.
Speaker 2: Is actually the lyric.
Speaker 1: I think it is? Yeah, that just sounds insane, Like,
Speaker 1: if I'm feeling the wind in my eyes, I probably
Speaker 1: need some goggles. Yeah, that's going to dislogic contact lens.
Speaker 2: Okay, you ready to talk about the plot.
Speaker 1: Let's get into the plot, all right.
Speaker 2: We get how many movies have we watched recently? I
Speaker 2: feel like this is a really common opening motif we
Speaker 2: open on a starfield, we're just looking at space. It's
Speaker 2: got to be, like, I don't know, at least four
Speaker 2: out of the last seven movies we've done.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, And I feel like this one especially is
Speaker 1: kind of an example of how not to do it logically.
Speaker 1: I feel like, if you want a logical example of
Speaker 1: how to do it, look at something like John Carpenter's
Speaker 1: The Thing right where we have starfield object entering Earth's
Speaker 1: atmosphere and then we pretty much cut to stuff on Earth.
Speaker 1: We don't go back to space. We were never just
Speaker 1: stuck in space without any hint of action going on.
Speaker 2: But there's something I do like about this opening, actually
Speaker 2: that's a little more stylish than I think most of
Speaker 2: the film is, which is the base beat Star. There
Speaker 2: is like there's kind of a pulse a beat in
Speaker 2: the soundtrack that is synchronized to the flaring of a
Speaker 2: star in the middle of the void. And then of
Speaker 2: course we see after that there's a big explosion. I
Speaker 2: guess that's supposed to be a super nova or something.
Speaker 2: I don't know, But then there's like a hunk of
Speaker 2: something flying through space toward the camera. And I got
Speaker 2: to say, from what I recall, this is completely different
Speaker 2: from the opening that I remember from the version of
Speaker 2: the movie that's used in the Mystery Science Theater episode,
Speaker 2: which I recall was grainy slow mo footage from a
Speaker 2: totally unrelated movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the film Ventures International version, which that's where we
Speaker 1: got the title Pod People, that was based out of
Speaker 1: Atlanta by the way back in the seventies. But the
Speaker 1: version they put out on I assume VHS that they
Speaker 1: used footage from Don dollars nineteen eighty five film Galaxy Invader.
Speaker 1: In the opening, Don Dahler, of course, is the guy
Speaker 1: did Night Beast?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've seen Galaxy Invader. Galaxy Invader and Night Beast
Speaker 2: have some things in common. Both of them are about
Speaker 2: a an alien that crash lands somewhere in like rural
Speaker 2: Maryland and then runs around scaring people.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, we really need to do one of his
Speaker 1: films at some point. They're all basically all the alien
Speaker 1: films anyway, and he has like what three or four
Speaker 1: of them. They're all essentially the same plot. They have
Speaker 1: different and different alien or different aliens in them, but
Speaker 1: they're they're always enjoyable.
Speaker 2: One thing I remember about Night Beast is the the
Speaker 2: the titular Beast has a really cool, like like shiny suit.
Speaker 2: It almost looks like a like a suit like a
Speaker 2: cool like singer from the seventies would wear, like in
Speaker 2: a disco band or something.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, he does have a shiny suit, doesn't he.
Speaker 2: But Okay, that's the opening of what wait, which one?
Speaker 2: Which name are we even using to call it? Extraterrestrial Visitors?
Speaker 2: And then we go down to Earth and we're looking
Speaker 2: at the woods of Fog and Bog. We're in Fog
Speaker 2: and Bog territory. The atmosphere again, it kind of reminds
Speaker 2: me of those misty woods with the knights who say, Nie,
Speaker 2: it's very atmospheric. In fact, like you could imagine some
Speaker 2: of these environmental shots being kind of cool in a
Speaker 2: better movie. Like the atmosphere is not bad, it just
Speaker 2: doesn't segue into very compelling action instead of what we
Speaker 2: get is like three poachers kind of bumbling about, arguing
Speaker 2: with each other, and it's like, are we here? Are
Speaker 2: you sure?
Speaker 1: Are you sure? You're sure?
Speaker 2: And I think they're trying to steal eagle eggs or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like fumbling around for a ladder, they're scaling
Speaker 1: a tree, and they have what they claim to be
Speaker 1: like three grand worth of eggs that they've stolen, like
Speaker 1: three thousand dollars worth of eggs they're gonna sell in
Speaker 1: the black market. I was wondering if they might be fabergets.
Speaker 2: I don't know what is the market for eagle eggs.
Speaker 2: Do people want to cook them and make eagle omelets
Speaker 2: or people trying to hatch eagles? What's the deal?
Speaker 1: I don't know, but the bottom line is the very least.
Speaker 1: When we meet these three poachers, they have no respect
Speaker 1: for nature. All they see is profit and they're gonna
Speaker 1: break the break the rules. They're gonna break all rules
Speaker 1: of law and man and alien to get what they want.
Speaker 2: They are bad dudes. And then we zoom out again.
Speaker 2: It's like, I'm tired of Earth. Let's go back to space.
Speaker 2: So we just see like auroras of weird energy in space,
Speaker 2: and we see the Earth from orbit and all kinds
Speaker 2: of stuff going on, and then we come back and
Speaker 2: then they're like, Okay, you saw that. Now, let's go
Speaker 2: back to Earth. Here's a kid in bed and he
Speaker 2: gets up out of bed to scold his cat. He's
Speaker 2: talking about, like, naughty kitty. I don't remember why the
Speaker 2: kitty is naughty.
Speaker 1: I gues it's just where it's not supposed to be.
Speaker 1: I think it got up to move around. Okay. He's like,
Speaker 1: all right, I'm going to take the kitten back to bed. Yeah.
Speaker 1: This is our introduction to Tommy, a child of absolute
Speaker 1: goodness who loves animals in nature, whose room is home
Speaker 1: to roughly one hundred different species that he's carrying or
Speaker 1: they are, and they're not only his charge, they are
Speaker 1: his friends. Oh he's just he is just childhood innocence.
Speaker 1: He is biophilia incarnate. He's he's just uttersweetness in an
Speaker 1: example of what humanity could be on this world or
Speaker 1: in the universe at large. Only likable human in the picture.
Speaker 2: Yeah, beautiful, wide eyed innocence and curiosity. I start contrast
Speaker 2: to the to the grumbling evil of the poachers. And
Speaker 2: then but let's go, let's go check in with the
Speaker 2: poachers again. So something crashes to earth. The poachers I
Speaker 2: think they're hanging out at a campfire where they're like, well,
Speaker 2: let's go investigate. And one of them stumbles into the
Speaker 2: crash site and it is a cave of glowing red fog.
Speaker 1: That's kind of weird.
Speaker 2: But he goes inside. In the cave is full of eggs.
Speaker 2: I don't know why, but for some reason, he's like,
Speaker 2: I gotta bash all these eggs. I gotta smash them.
Speaker 2: So he gets a stick or is it a stick
Speaker 2: or a hammer. He's just start bashing all the eggs
Speaker 2: for no reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's awful because he happens upon this holy
Speaker 1: grotto of extraterrestrial eggs, and his immediate reaction is just
Speaker 1: to start smashing them all, just like, must destroy all
Speaker 1: of these eggs, and you're like, no, don't do it,
Speaker 1: and he just keeps doing it.
Speaker 2: But oh no, there is something in the cave of
Speaker 2: glowing fog that does not like the egg bashing endeavor.
Speaker 2: We get a POV of some kind of creature that
Speaker 2: comes out from around a corner and attacks and kills
Speaker 2: the poacher.
Speaker 1: Dude. Yeah, this is creature number one, which I guess
Speaker 1: we're to think of as an adult creature or a
Speaker 1: mature creature of this species that was maybe already aboard
Speaker 1: this ship or this or whatever, or this piece of
Speaker 1: its planet, whatever the details may be concerning this thing
Speaker 1: that is crashed with eggs on it. But it's kind of,
Speaker 1: I guess, kind of an egg guardian. It does. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's supposed to be the mother, because we
Speaker 1: later get some testimony from from Trumpy creature number two
Speaker 1: in which he's asked where its mother is, He like
Speaker 1: points to the stars or points at a constellation on
Speaker 1: a map or something. So it's just another creature, a
Speaker 1: mature individual from this species.
Speaker 2: It may be Trumpy's brother or sister, but it is
Speaker 2: not his parent. But we're getting ahead of ourselves because
Speaker 2: we haven't met Trumpy yet, right.
Speaker 1: Trump, he's still so egg because not all of the
Speaker 1: eggs are smashed. It'll it will turn out later.
Speaker 2: Right, most of them are smashed. So then we follow
Speaker 2: the poacher some more. And I'm confused about what they're
Speaker 2: doing at this point because at first they were stealing
Speaker 2: eagle eggs, but then it shows them like aiming rifles
Speaker 2: at deer, so they just also happened to be hunting
Speaker 2: deer at the same time they are poaching eggs.
Speaker 1: It's confusing because it at first I thought, oh, I
Speaker 1: guess they're gonna shoot deer, because they at one point
Speaker 1: they're like the white haired one, the frank brown character,
Speaker 1: He's like, we got to get out of here. This
Speaker 1: feels weird. There's something weird in the forest. Let's move.
Speaker 1: But then they seem to stop to consider shooting some deer,
Speaker 1: so maybe they're not in that big of a hurry.
Speaker 1: And then they stopped a camp, not in a huge
Speaker 1: hurry after all. And then there are all these scenes
Speaker 1: where Brona is using the rifle to just look at
Speaker 1: things and look at people, doing things. So he's like
Speaker 1: aiming his high powered hunting rifle. I just random people
Speaker 1: in the forest.
Speaker 2: It's like the cop and Plan nine from outer space,
Speaker 2: who just points his gun at people whenever he's talking
Speaker 2: to them. Yeah, but let's go back to the house,
Speaker 2: so we check in with Tommy. He is we find more.
Speaker 2: We find out more about his innate curiosity because he
Speaker 2: is examining a centipede under a microscope and he's looking
Speaker 2: at all the little legs and the overlapping plates and
Speaker 2: the body segments and the parts, and you can tell
Speaker 2: how much he just loves learning about the natural world.
Speaker 2: But uh oh, the fact that he's looking at at
Speaker 2: a creature under a microscope, this leads to conflict with
Speaker 2: the guy I was thinking of his grandpa. But this
Speaker 2: is uncle Bill. Uncle Bill. Apparently he does not like
Speaker 2: the book Learning It is Witchcraft.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's right. It's mentioned that it's the centipede, and
Speaker 1: Tommy gives the what is supposedly the scientific classification for
Speaker 1: the species, and Uncle Bill just hates this. He's like, no,
Speaker 1: it's a centipede to me. We call that a centipede.
Speaker 1: And it's just heated over it heated this man is awful,
Speaker 1: and even Mom is not much help. She's like, well,
Speaker 1: it's dirty. It's like it shouldn't be in here, Like
Speaker 1: there's just Tommy has all this sweetness and innocence and curiosity,
Speaker 1: and it's just like Uncle Bill's just just pounding it
Speaker 1: into the dirt as to the best of his ability.
Speaker 2: There is far more bacteria on Uncle Bill than there
Speaker 2: is on the centipede.
Speaker 1: Come on, yeah, Plus, you should be so lucky as
Speaker 1: to have this beautiful predator in your house hunting other pets,
Speaker 1: especially if it were a house centipede, which you know
Speaker 1: has spread with humanity around the world, and there a
Speaker 1: specially known for praying on all sorts of things you
Speaker 1: don't want in your house, like like like bedbugs, for example, cockroaches.
Speaker 1: So yeah, like you want a house centipede around.
Speaker 2: Okay, Finally we get to the band or the what
Speaker 2: do you call that? I guess when I think of
Speaker 2: a band, I think of people who play instruments. This
Speaker 2: is a singing group, a group of singers.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, none of them are actually playing an instrument, right,
Speaker 1: there's just right.
Speaker 2: They're just singing over a pre recorded track. So we
Speaker 2: see them recording in the studio, they're flying over Trout
Speaker 2: and by this point we've essentially established the three movie formula.
Speaker 2: I know Mystery Science Theater also thought about the movie
Speaker 2: this way, but it makes a lot of sense. You
Speaker 2: got movie A, which is the Poacher's, Movie B, which
Speaker 2: is the Child with Pets, and then movie C, which
Speaker 2: is the singing Group.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this toxic bunch of band members, and they're various
Speaker 1: hangers on and producers. They're just they're just awful, Like
Speaker 1: this whole scene, like they're doing this terrible number, and
Speaker 1: Rick is just a perfectionist, an abusive perfectionist about the
Speaker 1: whole thing. He's like, it's awful, it stinks. We're taking
Speaker 1: it from the top. Like you get the impression that
Speaker 1: he's one of these guys who's like, we're gonna do
Speaker 1: five hundred takes of this scene until we get it.
Speaker 1: We're gonna keep doing this track until we're exhausted, until
Speaker 1: we get it right. And of course they're not scaling
Speaker 1: Mount Everest here. We heard the song. We know that
Speaker 1: it is absolutely garbage.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thinking of other people who do ridiculous excessive numbers
Speaker 2: of takes, I think of like Stanley Kubrick or something
Speaker 2: and not that this makes that behavior acceptable, because I mean,
Speaker 2: even then, I think it could be considered wildly excessive,
Speaker 2: abusive to the cast and stuff. But at least with Kubrick,
Speaker 2: you end up with a good movie.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's one thing if you're talking about someone who
Speaker 1: has also has a reputation for high quality work, Like
Speaker 1: I want to say that there are similar tales about
Speaker 1: Doctor dre being very perfectionists when it comes to producing
Speaker 1: tracks and all. Yeah, but at the end of the
Speaker 1: end of the day, do you have a Doctor Dre
Speaker 1: produced track, do you have a Stanley Kubrick directed film?
Speaker 1: You have idiot control?
Speaker 2: Now this is the wind in my eyes. But okay,
Speaker 2: So they sing the song and then Rick, the lead singer,
Speaker 2: is hideously abusive to all of the other singers. And
Speaker 2: then they're all going to pile into an RV and
Speaker 2: go up to the mountains for the weekend.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Perfect, everybody getting along. Great, let's take this to
Speaker 1: a crowded camper and head out to a crowded gabin somewhere.
Speaker 2: Oh, and then there's conflict over the fact that so
Speaker 2: they like open up the door to the RV. It's like, well,
Speaker 2: we all hate each other and we've been fighting. So
Speaker 2: let's let's go on to you know, spend the weekend
Speaker 2: in the woods. And they open the door to the
Speaker 2: r V and then here is like a lady who
Speaker 2: introduces herself as Laura. They say that she is the
Speaker 2: daughter of the boss of the record label. I think,
Speaker 2: so it's like they've got to be nice to her
Speaker 2: because you know, her dad is deciding their musical fate.
Speaker 2: But immediately this causes problems between Rick the Jerk and
Speaker 2: his girlfriend Sharon, because it's for some reason immediately clear
Speaker 2: that Rick and Laura this other lady are gonna, you know,
Speaker 2: they're gonna get together. And this other guy goes up,
Speaker 2: like the nice guy. I think his name is Brian.
Speaker 2: He goes up to the girlfriend Sharon, and he's like,
Speaker 2: don't worry about it. He says, this is a quote
Speaker 2: making out with chicks is part of his act as
Speaker 2: an artist. Smooth, very smooth.
Speaker 1: Just every everyone in this group is awful or they're
Speaker 1: enabling of awfulness. It's yeah, but also it works.
Speaker 2: He says that, and she's like, yeah, you're right, but okay,
Speaker 2: you know, so let's go on a road trip with
Speaker 2: people we hate and then there's a lot of driving scenes.
Speaker 2: We see them going up and down roads and the
Speaker 2: RV and winding along while the music plays.
Speaker 1: Yeah, more time is spent getting these characters to the
Speaker 1: countryside than getting that space rock from its origin to
Speaker 1: the Earth.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, we got to check in with Tommy. And here's
Speaker 2: where things really start to cook, because Tommy runs off
Speaker 2: into the woods and he stumbles across the glowing red
Speaker 2: cave and he goes inside into the red fog and
Speaker 2: he sees a dead man with led lights on his
Speaker 2: forehead in the pattern of the shape of the Big Dipper.
Speaker 2: And then Tommy's like, oh, it was a dead man
Speaker 2: with the Big Dipper on his head. Better steal one
Speaker 2: of these alien eggs.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: I want to ask this is a recurring motif where
Speaker 2: people in the movie who are killed by the aliens
Speaker 2: end up with the Big Dipper on their forehead in lights,
Speaker 2: And I'm wondering, number one, why does that happen? And
Speaker 2: number two, how does that happen?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I have a lot of questions about this too.
Speaker 1: Later on Trump he indicates that this is his home constellation,
Speaker 1: like this is where his mother is. So I guess
Speaker 1: Alien number one the non trumpye is killing people, or
Speaker 1: in some cases, perhaps finding dead people and riding the
Speaker 1: constellation on their forehead or making it appear with phosphorescent
Speaker 1: spores or something. Who knows what the xenobiological rationale is here,
Speaker 1: But I'm not sure why it would do. This is
Speaker 1: like it would be like us riding earth on dead
Speaker 1: aliens that we killed. It. I mean, I understand they
Speaker 1: want to go home, but you're not going to achieve
Speaker 1: that by just riding home on the forehead of your victims.
Speaker 1: So I'm not sure. I guess it's one of these
Speaker 1: things that don't overthink it. It looks kind of cool,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a neat effect. It just doesn't make
Speaker 1: a tremendous amount of sense.
Speaker 2: All Right, I won't overthink it from now on. That's
Speaker 2: just what happens. So, yeah, Tommy grabs one of these eggs.
Speaker 2: He's like, well, I'm going to take this back home.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's religious. Maybe it's like, oh, like we're thinking
Speaker 1: it's something bad, but as we as we later look
Speaker 1: like these these aliens they just want to be our friends.
Speaker 1: Maybe this is like last rites for them. Huh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well, so here's a thing we're thinking about an
Speaker 2: alien from the direction of the constellation of the Big
Speaker 2: Dipper would not see like it itself, would not look
Speaker 2: up into the sky and see the Big Dipper as
Speaker 2: the Big Dipper. That is a feature of our perspective
Speaker 2: from Earth. So if it were doing this in some
Speaker 2: ritual way, it would have to be sort of for
Speaker 2: our benefit or in an earth directed sense, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, Like that wouldn't be a native piece
Speaker 2: of imagery for them.
Speaker 1: Hmm yeah, well in that case it doesn't make any sense. Sorry, Trumpy,
Speaker 1: I can't help you.
Speaker 2: But anyway, So Tommy takes the boy home and we're
Speaker 2: gonna have some some good times with the egg. He
Speaker 2: sneaks the egg into his bedroom. He you know, he
Speaker 2: talks to his animals. I think his mom's like, Tommy,
Speaker 2: what were you out you know, what were you doing
Speaker 2: out there? And Tommy lies, he says, kitty was me owing.
Speaker 2: I thought he was hungry. But then after mom goes away,
Speaker 2: Tommy tells all of his other animals, you just wait
Speaker 2: and see, you're gonna have a new friend soon. And
Speaker 2: then the kid goes to sleep.
Speaker 1: Hugging the egg.
Speaker 2: So so sweet. Now back to the kids, the not
Speaker 2: the kids. I mean the I don't know, the people
Speaker 2: in the RV, the singers, they're up to no good.
Speaker 2: They're just again just being nasty. Like the record executive's
Speaker 2: daughter Laura. She goes up to Rick the jerk in
Speaker 2: the woods, and she's like kiss me Rick, and he's like, well, okay,
Speaker 2: and then she immediately in the next scene, they're like
Speaker 2: sitting around a campfire and she's taunting Rick's girlfriend, like,
Speaker 2: tell her what we did in the woods. Rick, And
Speaker 2: I don't know why. They're just like absolutely unnecessarily cruel
Speaker 2: to each other in a way that doesn't even make
Speaker 2: sense as like normal types of cruelty. It just it's weird.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just left feeling like these are all just
Speaker 1: horrible people and I don't care if an alien kills
Speaker 1: them in the woods.
Speaker 2: But this leads to this leads to Sharon like throwing
Speaker 2: water in Laura's face or something, and then Laura runs
Speaker 2: away and then what did you think happened here? What
Speaker 2: I thought happened was she like saw the poachers and
Speaker 2: then got scared and fell off the edge of a cliff.
Speaker 1: But oh, not only saw the poachers, but one of
Speaker 1: the poachers, the non Frank Bronna poacher and the non
Speaker 1: egg smasher one who's dead of course, you know, the
Speaker 1: non Frank Brona attempts to grab her and like abduct
Speaker 1: her or assault her or something, and so he runs
Speaker 1: away from from him, and then she runs off the
Speaker 1: side of a cliff and falls seems like quite a distance.
Speaker 1: She falls enough to where she's not completely unconscious at least.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so they eventually the RV people come and
Speaker 2: find her, and they take her back to the RV
Speaker 2: and they try to I don't know what does this
Speaker 2: medical scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like, okay, she at least has a severe concussion,
Speaker 1: so let's tuck her into bed and pour liquor down
Speaker 1: her throat. So they get a bottle of Jack Daniels
Speaker 1: or something, and they're treating it like it's a potion
Speaker 1: of greater healing or something.
Speaker 2: But so they eventually they're gonna they're gonna show up
Speaker 2: at the house, right, So they arrive at the house
Speaker 2: of Tommy's family asking to use a phone. You know,
Speaker 2: our friend is hurt. We need to call for help.
Speaker 2: Uh and uh, And how does the family react. Uncle
Speaker 2: Bill doesn't take kindly to strangers of course.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he grabs a gun. That's his first reaction to
Speaker 1: the strangers at his door pleading for help, and his
Speaker 1: attitude does not improve much at all when he finds
Speaker 1: out that they're in trouble. He's just like, all right,
Speaker 1: I guess we let him in the house. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but the phones of course are out. Uh they
Speaker 2: say because of the storm. But I don't think we've
Speaker 2: seen a storm.
Speaker 1: It's just I guess all that fog, that just hideous
Speaker 1: fog bank that's rolled in. It's just destroying phone lines
Speaker 1: and everything else.
Speaker 2: Here's a metal band name Storm of Fog.
Speaker 1: There you go. I like it. Oh.
Speaker 2: Also, the road is blocked so they can't leave, so
Speaker 2: they're just stuck here at the house, and they realize
Speaker 2: they're gonna have to spend the night and tomorrow they'll
Speaker 2: go find a radio in the ranger's cabin and then
Speaker 2: use that to call for help. So this place must
Speaker 2: be very seclude.
Speaker 1: I noticed that they didn't make much use of it.
Speaker 1: But they had a bar in this film, in the
Speaker 1: in this environment, in this cabin that reminded me a
Speaker 1: lot of the bar in The Devil Girl from Mars.
Speaker 2: Yes, really well stocked lots of brown liquors.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, multiple shelves, Like that's an extensive liquor collection.
Speaker 1: But I don't know, we don't really see people sitting
Speaker 1: around enjoying it. I guess they just didn't have time
Speaker 1: with all that's happening here.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, the poachers are out camping in the woods, and
Speaker 2: if they're having a hard time, I thought they were
Speaker 2: going to be getting out of there, but they're just
Speaker 2: hanging around for some reason. I don't understand what the
Speaker 2: poachers are doing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they at first they acted like they realized something
Speaker 1: was wrong and they needed to get the heck out
Speaker 1: of Dodge, But then they're not. There's no real rush.
Speaker 1: Later on they're like, all right, well, I guess we're
Speaker 1: walking out of here. They seem concerned about the fact
Speaker 1: that their truck is gone, but they don't really do
Speaker 1: anything about it. They accept that. The really bad poacher says, well,
Speaker 1: couldn't we steal those kids camper? And he's like, like,
Speaker 1: you idiot, you can't do that. Were already doing enough
Speaker 1: crimes here, we don't need more crimes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the bearded one that wants to take the RV.
Speaker 2: The other guys Frank Burana is more like, that'll get
Speaker 2: us into more trouble.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're just here to poach eggs. We're not here
Speaker 1: to kidnap, we're not here to steal vehicles. And the
Speaker 1: bearded guys like, well, we could do all those things.
Speaker 1: We have time, let's do those things.
Speaker 2: But so they're camping out in the woods and they, oh,
Speaker 2: they encounter an alien. And I think this is the
Speaker 2: first time we actually get a look at what the
Speaker 2: alien body forms are like in this movie. So the
Speaker 2: alien is like because sort of a furry squat Chewbacca
Speaker 2: style body, but much shorter, and then the head has
Speaker 2: like a pointy apex on top, and then long ardvark
Speaker 2: snout and then pointy l fears.
Speaker 1: I thought this scene was rather effective because when we
Speaker 1: see the creature here, and granted we have some context
Speaker 1: as well, we've seen presumably we've seen it kill already,
Speaker 1: but you know, it looks a little bit cute. There's
Speaker 1: some cuteness here. It's not just completely monstrous, but there's
Speaker 1: an uncanniness to it as well. And then also the
Speaker 1: lighting is very dark. The human characters here are being
Speaker 1: very cautious around it. And then another thing that I
Speaker 1: really like about the extraterrestrials in this film is the
Speaker 1: eyes they created for them are very expressive. They're very glassy,
Speaker 1: like living looking eyes that I think give them a
Speaker 1: lot of character.
Speaker 2: But to keep up with your theory that the alien
Speaker 2: only turns murderous because it is repeatedly exposed to aggression
Speaker 2: from humans early on, So it walks up to the campfire.
Speaker 2: I don't know what its original plan is, but they
Speaker 2: start shooting it with a crossbow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're kind of like the bearded guy, he kind
Speaker 1: of he's like, hey, come on in. He's trying to
Speaker 1: small talk the alien. He's offering it a big grotesque
Speaker 1: piece of meat that they've been cooking over the fire.
Speaker 1: You know, just already kind of an unsettling display. But
Speaker 1: then Frank Brona tries to net it. They fire a
Speaker 1: crossbow bolt at it, and the bolt hits it in
Speaker 1: the hits the alien in the chest. So yeah, these
Speaker 1: are not good ambassadors of humanity.
Speaker 2: Meanwhile, back at the house, uh oh, that egg's hatching.
Speaker 2: It pops open. There's a little kind of greasy, slimy
Speaker 2: little alien in there.
Speaker 1: So cute. So it's not cute yet it's already cute.
Speaker 1: It's already cute. It's the slimy little like like fetal
Speaker 1: elephant creature. And yeah, I don't know, I thought it
Speaker 1: was cute.
Speaker 2: Okay, I won't argue with you. He starts feeding the
Speaker 2: alien food. It's eating a lot. It really enjoys vacuuming
Speaker 2: up milk with its snout. He names it Trumpy. I
Speaker 2: assume that's because it has a long snout, and so
Speaker 2: that is like a trump beet. I don't think that's
Speaker 2: ever made explicit, but that's what I guess.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It could also originate in one of
Speaker 1: the two original languages for the film. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe it makes even more sense in French or in Spanish.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 2: But the kids like, oh, we're going to play now
Speaker 2: that you're getting bigger. Do you know what playing is? Trumpy?
Speaker 2: And Trumpy does not know, but Trumpy will find out.
Speaker 1: So this is the world that Trumpy is introduced to.
Speaker 1: This is the human world that he's introduced to, a
Speaker 1: world of copious amounts of food. A lot of it
Speaker 1: is breakfast, cereals, toys, play, friendship, all the things that
Speaker 1: were denied to extraterrestrial one.
Speaker 2: But remember now this is all taking place in the
Speaker 2: same house where the RV singers are staying overnight, and
Speaker 2: apparently Laura, the record executive's daughter who fell off the cliff,
Speaker 2: she dies overnight and they come and see her, and
Speaker 2: they see something is horrible about her face. We already
Speaker 2: know what it is. It's going to be the Big
Speaker 2: Dipper with the lights. But I guess overnight, also Trumpy
Speaker 2: becomes much bigger. He grows from like the size of
Speaker 2: a little toy on the on the shelf to basically
Speaker 2: the same size as Tommy. And we see that this
Speaker 2: great scene that is hilarious in the Mystery Science Theater
Speaker 2: version where Trumpy is just surveying the buffet of Tommy's pets,
Speaker 2: panting over the rabbits and the hamsters and the cat
Speaker 2: and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they make some great riffs in that episode about
Speaker 1: him considering eating all these animals. But in the original
Speaker 1: film he does not eat any of the animals. And
Speaker 1: I kind of get the sense that these are vegetarians,
Speaker 1: that they don't eat meat, which makes the earlier offering
Speaker 1: of the grotesque meat by the bearded poacher even more fitting.
Speaker 1: You know, he's like, like, come here, organism. Would you
Speaker 1: like some organism?
Speaker 2: But in the scene we also discover via interactions with
Speaker 2: a toy robot that Trumpy has telekinesis.
Speaker 1: Oh yes, like not even just a little bit, like
Speaker 1: not just a little bit of carry white, but like
Speaker 1: full power carry white, like full almost godline telekinetic powers. Well.
Speaker 2: ET does too. I think this is an ET touch
Speaker 2: from ET.
Speaker 1: Yeah, does E t like bring the whole room to life?
Speaker 1: It's been so long since I've seen ET.
Speaker 2: I think so.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think there's a scene where ET does basically the
Speaker 2: same thing Trump. He does, like makes all the you know,
Speaker 2: the toys fly around and stuff.
Speaker 1: I feel like Trump he probably does it better. I
Speaker 1: feel like I'm If I were to watch ET again,
Speaker 1: I would side with the Trumpy got because Trumpy basically
Speaker 1: uses a Simon game to cut a synth track like
Speaker 1: this Carnival synth track that starts playing like Trumpy does
Speaker 1: this by manipulating the Simon software.
Speaker 2: I did not expect your take on this movie to
Speaker 2: be so anti ET.
Speaker 1: I mean, ET's fine, you can't hate ET, but but
Speaker 1: I also I don't. I've also I've seen ET like
Speaker 1: once in my life. I've seen pod people or extraterrestrial
Speaker 1: visitors multiple multiple times.
Speaker 2: What else does Trumpy eat? So I'm trying to think
Speaker 2: do they ever feed him meat? Him suck up a
Speaker 2: bunch of milk. We see Tommy bring him, oh, a
Speaker 2: big old thing of Planters peanuts and you can see
Speaker 2: the label, So, I mean Planters surely they paid for
Speaker 2: that place.
Speaker 1: You know they did this the Reese's treatment, right.
Speaker 2: And they do a special effect where you know, Trumpy's
Speaker 2: snout is like a vacuum cleaner and it's sucking up
Speaker 2: all the peanuts. When we in this scene, we get
Speaker 2: some really good looks at Trumpy's eyes. I notice Trumpy
Speaker 2: has a vertical slit pupils cat ooh nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, these are lovely eyes. You know, whoever did
Speaker 1: this this costume? I feel like they they kind of
Speaker 1: knocked it out of the park. I like it.
Speaker 2: But Trumpy learns puzzles and games. He telekinetically solves a
Speaker 2: puzzle and manipulates a Simon says thing, Uh, there's a
Speaker 2: there's a bonding scene where Tommy is drawing and he
Speaker 2: draws this hideous picture and says, that's my mommy. Do
Speaker 2: you have a mommy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, his picture of his mom looks like a rick
Speaker 1: Flare Paz to Spencer, Yep.
Speaker 2: It Also it looks absolutely nothing like his mommy, Like
Speaker 2: it's not even close, not even the same hair color.
Speaker 2: But anyway, this is the Trumpy. You can do magic
Speaker 2: things here the scene, and Trumpy turns the child's bedroom
Speaker 2: into a living nightmare of carnival music, flickering lights, dancing toys,
Speaker 2: terrorizing the pets. He sticks to the ceiling like Baron Harkoneen.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also his eyes glow like stars. It's it's
Speaker 1: pretty great.
Speaker 2: Now. Is this the scene where Trumpy says where his
Speaker 2: mommy is and points out the constellation?
Speaker 1: I think so, because I think he shows in the
Speaker 1: picture Tommy's picture of his own mommy, and he says,
Speaker 1: where's your mommy? And He's like he points, and Tommy's like, oh,
Speaker 1: your mommy, You mean the trees. Your mommy's in the
Speaker 1: trees And he's like, no, Trump, He points that the
Speaker 1: map of the constellations and causes one of the constellations,
Speaker 1: the one of the dip, to glow.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now, exactly like an et. Also, there's a whole
Speaker 2: thing of Tommy trying to hide Trumpy from his family,
Speaker 2: like hiding him in the closet and stuff. Obviously this
Speaker 2: is more difficult. Well, while Trumpy is playing DJ in
Speaker 2: the bedroom.
Speaker 1: But there's the distraction of a dead woman downstairs, so
Speaker 1: I guess that probably helps cover things up. They're not
Speaker 1: as concerned about what new animal Tommy has a snuck
Speaker 1: into the house. But at one point, maybe later, but
Speaker 1: Mom gets short with Tommy and she's like, like, oh,
Speaker 1: more animals. They're all going out tomorrow. Yeah, that sounds
Speaker 1: kind of kind of harsh, Mom. You know, he loves
Speaker 1: these animals even don't get you.
Speaker 2: Come on, that's an empty threat. But meanwhile, speaking of
Speaker 2: Grizzly murders, Grandpa and one of the r V kids
Speaker 2: they go off looking for the ranger station. I think
Speaker 2: this is the guy Brian who earlier was like, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, don't worry about Rick making out with other girls.
Speaker 2: That's just part of his act. Brian and Uncle Bill
Speaker 2: they go to the ranger station. Uncle Bill just walks
Speaker 2: around pointing his gun at everything, and they find one
Speaker 2: of the poachers inside, but he is dead and he's
Speaker 2: got a big dipper in lights on his forehead, just
Speaker 2: like everybody else, and then one of the aliens attacks them.
Speaker 2: It seemingly kills the RV dude, and Grandpa escapes. Now
Speaker 2: here's a question I wonder about. Are we are we
Speaker 2: as the audience, supposed to be wondering if this is
Speaker 2: Trumpy doing the killing since in the scene right before this,
Speaker 2: Trumpy sneaks off and disappears. Or are we supposed to
Speaker 2: assume that this is a different alien that just looks
Speaker 2: identical to Trumpy. I think we discover it is a
Speaker 2: different alien, but I don't know if that's intentionally supposed
Speaker 2: to be an open question or not.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm not sure on this because it seems like,
Speaker 1: on one hand, the killing started before Trump be hatched,
Speaker 1: So if we're just looking at the timeline of events,
Speaker 1: we can't pin all the murders on Trump. There has
Speaker 1: to be another a primary alien out there, extraterrestrial one.
Speaker 1: So I don't I have a hard time understanding how
Speaker 1: we the viewer are supposed to think Trumpy might be
Speaker 1: doing this. But also it's hard to reflect on this
Speaker 1: because it's been so long since I had a fresh
Speaker 1: viewing of this, Like it seems like I've always known
Speaker 1: that Trumpy was innocent and incapable of murder.
Speaker 2: He is blameless. Did you notice the Ranger cabin in
Speaker 2: the woods here has framed portraits of Ronald Reagan on
Speaker 2: the wall.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that made me laugh. I feel like there
Speaker 1: was after I saw it. I have a vague recollection
Speaker 1: of there being a riff about the Gipper or something
Speaker 1: in the most two three K episode. But it is
Speaker 1: an odd inclusion because this again is Spain. It's supposed
Speaker 1: to be Spain, and it's filmed in Spain. I don't
Speaker 1: know why Ronald Reagan's on the wall.
Speaker 2: So we see the alien kill another one of the
Speaker 2: band members. This is the singer Tracy. He just he
Speaker 2: kills her in the r V and uh oh. This
Speaker 2: time Tommy happens to be looking through the telescope down
Speaker 2: at the RV outside I guess to witness this, and
Speaker 2: because the aliens look the same, he thinks Trumpy is
Speaker 2: the killer. Oh no, there is a rift between them.
Speaker 1: Now. Now, this is definitely the point at which, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's hard to imagine that this particular murder was itself on,
Speaker 1: that it was provoked in anyway. This seemed to be
Speaker 1: an unprovoked killing by extraterrestrial one.
Speaker 2: Sure, yeah, Tracy, what you think Tracy attacked the alien?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: I mean Tracy's just Jesus chilling.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, the rest of the survivors are all hold up
Speaker 2: in the cabin, oh except Tommy for some reason, like
Speaker 2: he runs off into the bog and fog to find Trumpy.
Speaker 2: And here there is a really weird scene where there's
Speaker 2: a standoff between Uncle Bill and Rick, the jerk lead singer,
Speaker 2: where Uncle Bill's like, have you ever used a gun before?
Speaker 2: And Rick says, I don't need a gun to defend myself,
Speaker 2: and then Uncle Bill says, yeah, you probably pay others
Speaker 2: to defend you. And then Rick aims the rifle at
Speaker 2: Grandpa here at Uncle Bill and then shoots in his
Speaker 2: direction without hitting him. He like shoots a glass beside
Speaker 2: him on the bar, and then everybody's like, why are
Speaker 2: you shooting at Uncle Bill? And he goes, I don't
Speaker 2: like anyone bugging me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the act of a rational character that
Speaker 1: we're supposed to greet.
Speaker 2: For now, Tommy comes back to so he ran off
Speaker 2: into the woods. Then he comes back and he finds
Speaker 2: Trumpy in his bedroom and playful happy music is chiming.
Speaker 2: But then there it begins this mad exchange between Tommy's
Speaker 2: a voice again, this is dubbed by like an adult woman,
Speaker 2: I think, and Trumpy's various like head nods and headshakes
Speaker 2: to communicate. So the kid is saying, Trumpy, no, stay there,
Speaker 2: stay away. Why did you kill that girl? Why did
Speaker 2: you kill that girl? Why did you do that? Now
Speaker 2: I can't be your friend anymore. Naughty, Trumpy, very naughty.
Speaker 2: Now they'll kill you. But Trumpy, I think, is able
Speaker 2: to explain himself with head nods somehow. He's like, no, no,
Speaker 2: it wasn't me, shaking his head. And then the kid's
Speaker 2: like was it someone else? Did another one do this?
Speaker 2: And Trumpy nods. He's protesting his innocence, and so eventually
Speaker 2: I think Tommy is convinced that Trumpy is innocent, and
Speaker 2: for some reason he dresses Trumpy up like a Jawa like,
Speaker 2: he puts a coat with a hood on over him.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure what the purpose.
Speaker 1: Of that is. I guess to sneak him out of
Speaker 1: the house. But there are no other children anywhere in
Speaker 1: the vicinity in the film at all, so I don't
Speaker 1: know exactly what Tommy was hoping to pull off with this.
Speaker 2: This is just my friend, the bipedal ardvark who wears
Speaker 2: a raincoat. Yeah, so we get another random alien attack.
Speaker 2: The other Trumpy species alien attacks one of the RV
Speaker 2: ladies in the bathroom. We get a mirror scare where
Speaker 2: she wipes the fog off of the bathroom mirror and
Speaker 2: it's standing behind her, and then it attacks. There are
Speaker 2: more scenes of Tommy and Trumpy arguing to Tommy saying
Speaker 2: that you have to hide or they'll kill you. And
Speaker 2: eventually this all comes to a head when the mother
Speaker 2: and Sharon I think see Trumpy like the kids trying
Speaker 2: to sneak him through the house and they're like, there,
Speaker 2: it's that monster. And Tommy tries to explain. He says, no,
Speaker 2: it wants to be our friend. He's good, he's good.
Speaker 2: They all want to be our friends, but we won't
Speaker 2: let them. And of course the mother doesn't believe that,
Speaker 2: so Tommy and Trumpy really have no choice. They flee
Speaker 2: into the woods, and here in the woods, you think
Speaker 2: the other alien is about to sneak up on Tommy
Speaker 2: and give him what for, but Trumpy intervenes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we finally have Extraterrestrial one and Extraterrestrial two aka
Speaker 1: Trumpy meeting up in the woods.
Speaker 2: Now, eventually there's a big showdown Uncle Bill and Rick
Speaker 2: that they shoot the other alien, the non Trumpy alien.
Speaker 2: Grandpa is killed in this scuffle, but Rick blasts the
Speaker 2: alien to death and then it, like turbo, buries its
Speaker 2: own body telekinetically.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have another self burying monster, kind of like
Speaker 1: some of the creatures in Crawl. Yeah, a great effect.
Speaker 1: I like it. I'd like to see more of it
Speaker 1: in my monster films.
Speaker 2: And there's a tearful goodbye between Tommy and Trumpy. You know,
Speaker 2: it's like they'll never accept you, Trumpy, we cannot be together.
Speaker 2: And the humans all walk off together, and Trumpy is
Speaker 2: left behind in the woods, and finally he wanders away
Speaker 2: into the mist. You never know if he gets back
Speaker 2: to his home planet or not, or what happens to him.
Speaker 2: He just wanders away, and then roll credits and Rick survives.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the weird choice, perhaps a product of this
Speaker 1: film probably changing its direction and priorities at some point
Speaker 1: in production they're like, oh, we forgot to do anything
Speaker 1: with Rick. Well it's all right, but I have to
Speaker 1: say that the ending to this film. It got me.
Speaker 1: I teared up a that, you know, because the aliens,
Speaker 1: it turns out, you know, they are good. And in fact,
Speaker 1: it's not just a matter where Okay, Trump is good,
Speaker 1: but the other one is purely evil. Like we have
Speaker 1: that moment where Trumpy is able to communicate with its
Speaker 1: fellow alien, and that seems to maybe even convince him
Speaker 1: of some of this stuff, like, no, okay, a lot
Speaker 1: of these humans are bad, but Tommy's cool. They have
Speaker 1: this moment, so the aliens are good, Tommy's good. Humanity
Speaker 1: itself is just hostile and violent and mean spirited, and
Speaker 1: Tommy and Trumpy are just too good for the world.
Speaker 1: And so, but what happens. Tommy has to push Trumpy away,
Speaker 1: He has to send him off into the woods where,
Speaker 1: you know, either he does find a way back to
Speaker 1: his home Planner, or he just lives in the woods
Speaker 1: as like a wild being, like a sasquatch, for the
Speaker 1: rest of his life. And we're left wondering, like, can
Speaker 1: Tommy retain his sweetness and goodness as he continues on
Speaker 1: in this world? Is he or is he saying goodbye
Speaker 1: not only to his friend Trump? Is he not only
Speaker 1: pushing Trumpy away from him? But is he pushing away
Speaker 1: his own innocence and his own hope for a sweeter world?
Speaker 1: And I think that's that's that was all going through
Speaker 1: my head here as I was, I was tearing up
Speaker 1: watching this. Uh, this, this poor extraterrestrial being left in
Speaker 1: the foggy woods and then walking off into the wilderness.
Speaker 2: Wow, the gospel of Trumpy.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And we also we have some some very potent
Speaker 1: synth music playing over all this, so that that also helped. So,
Speaker 1: like like I said, I'm I know, I'm reading a
Speaker 1: lot into this film. And also this film is you know,
Speaker 1: it's coming in the wake of ET. It's patterning itself
Speaker 1: off of existing media, and in doing so, it's retaining
Speaker 1: some of the inherent messages in those in those pictures.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. Also, maybe someone here, you know,
Speaker 1: he was he was trying to to to get this
Speaker 1: message across. Maybe he was trying to say something about
Speaker 1: about the world and about childhood innocence. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like the film does have a heart, you know,
Speaker 1: there's still there's still some heart there. And what heart
Speaker 1: is there is genuine I.
Speaker 2: Wonder what, you know, what kind of new themes and
Speaker 2: possibilities emerge from a sort of patch over job like this.
Speaker 2: Because I can't remember if we already said this, I
Speaker 2: at least read about this movie. I think you may
Speaker 2: have alluded to this that it was originally intended to
Speaker 2: be just more of a heartless kind of like alien
Speaker 2: slasher movies, just more like Night Beast or something. It's
Speaker 2: just about an alien that runs around killing people. And
Speaker 2: then ET came out and they were like, oh, we
Speaker 2: got to make this a sweet story about the bond
Speaker 2: between a child and an alien and a child's love
Speaker 2: and friendship from the hearts of space and trying to
Speaker 2: smash those two things together makes for such a weird product,
Speaker 2: but maybe also having some elements that would not have
Speaker 2: have been achieved had it just been an attempt to
Speaker 2: create an ET ripoff from the beginning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a great question because it kind of reminds
Speaker 1: me again of Gremlins, where the original Gremlins movie, by
Speaker 1: being totally inconsistent, seen to have a core message of haye, kids,
Speaker 1: monsters exist, and there's no Santa Claus, you know, which
Speaker 1: which clearly was nobody's key intention. But I think that's
Speaker 1: probably what comes comes. This is the kind of thing
Speaker 1: that emerges when priorities shift and the tone changes, and
Speaker 1: the tone is inconsistent throughout a picture.
Speaker 2: Every day I feel closer to doing Grimlins too.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I think it's it's a grand idea. I
Speaker 1: think we should. We should make it be our Christmas
Speaker 1: episode this year. Having done ETV, we have to do
Speaker 1: G two no stopping it all right, well that is
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial visitors or visitors or EVP, or of course the
Speaker 1: hatching of monsters. I think the hatching of monsters is
Speaker 1: really good because it also because we have different types
Speaker 1: of monsters. We have the alien monster and we have
Speaker 1: the human monsters. I think it's a good title. I
Speaker 1: wish I kind of wish it's stuck with that across
Speaker 1: translations mm hm. As always, we'd love to hear from
Speaker 1: anyone out there if you have particular thoughts and memories
Speaker 1: insight about this picture. You know, perhaps you know like us,
Speaker 1: grew up watching the ms T three K episode, perhaps
Speaker 1: you have prior experience with pod people or extraterrestrial visitors.
Speaker 1: Definitely write in and let us know. And hey, if
Speaker 1: you do find a superior copy of the film, out
Speaker 1: there that we're not aware of. Let us know. I'm
Speaker 1: hoping that if it doesn't exist now, at some point
Speaker 1: in the future, that'll be the next big one, because
Speaker 1: there are a lot of worse films that get the
Speaker 1: restoration treatment, and I'm not saying that that's bad. It's
Speaker 1: probably just a case of nobody's found superior footage from
Speaker 1: extraterrestrial visitors yet, but I hope they do. Maybe it's
Speaker 1: self buried itself in the Spanish forest somewhere it wants
Speaker 1: to be found. All right, till next time. Weird House
Speaker 1: Cinema publishes every Friday and the Stuff to Blow your
Speaker 1: Mind podcast feed We're primarily a science podcast, with core
Speaker 1: episodes on Monday, No no core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursday,
Speaker 1: sorry Mondays, that's a listener mail. Wednesday that's Artifact or
Speaker 1: Monster Factor short form episode, and on the weekends we
Speaker 1: do a rerun.
Speaker 2: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth
Speaker 2: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
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Speaker 2: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to
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