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