Teenagers from Outer Space (1959)

... aka: Boy from Out of This World, The
... aka: Gargon Terror, The
... aka: Invasion of the Gargon
... aka: Killers from Outer Space

Directed by:
Thomas Lockyear Graeff

Hilariously awful dialogue, robotic acting, an alien creature that looks like something that should be cracked open and dipped in butter and swishy boi aliens who walk like they have something shoved up their asses and talk like they have a learning disability are just four of the reasons Teenagers from Outer Space is one of the best bad movies there is. A quintet of male aliens land on Earth in a screw-shaped spacecraft and immediately start surveying the area. They need a breeding / growing ground for creatures called "gargon;" which are their reserve food supply and are played by Maine lobsters. The fast-growing creatures adapt well to the Earth's atmosphere, so the aliens plan on bringing a thousand more of them back and letting them graze on whatever happens to be living on our planet until they reach maximum capacity. A defector amongst the group is Derek ("David Love" / Charles Robert Kaltenthaler), who has learned how life used to be for their kind from an outlawed book. On their planet, children are raised to be obedient machines in a "supreme race" and never know their birth parents or about love or kindness.

After unsuccessfully trying to get them to go to an uninhabited planet instead, Derek gets into a minor scuffle with the other aliens and runs off. With an identification tag of a dog named Sparky (that got zapped to a skeleton with a "focusing disintigrator gun") in hand, Derek makes his way to a small town and finds the address on the tag. At the home lives sweet, orphaned teen Betty Morgan (Dawn Anderson, formerly Dawn Bender and a popular radio actress in her day) and her guaradian, Gramps (Ed Wood movie regular Harvey D. Bunn). Thinking he's there to rent out one of their rooms, Betty and Gramps decide to put him up and let him borrow clothes. Meanwhile, the smug, mean-tempered Thor ("Bryan Grant" / Bryan Pearson) has been put in charge of hunting down Derek - the son of their leader - while the spaceship captain (King Moody) takes the rest of the aliens back to their home planet. They'll eventually return with a fleet of spaceships to drop the thousands of gargon monsters off. Armed with a toy cap gun, Thor blasts nearly everyone he comes into contact with, reducing them to skeletons.

Because her boyfriend reporter Joe (played by the director as "Tom Lockyear") is too busy covering the sudden rash of murders going on, Betty takes Derek under her wing. They go to her flirtatious friend Alice's (Sonia Torgeson) home to swim, then go to where her dog was killed (also where a baby gargon has been left behind in a cave), all the while Thor runs around town zapping people. Before long, a guy he gets a lift from, a gas station attendant, a professor, Alice and a couple of cops are dead. After being injured in a stand off with police, Thor forces a doctor to extract some bullets from him and then kidnaps his nurse and then kidnaps Joe. Meanwhile, the small gargon left in a cave grows to monstrous size and terrorizes the locals. Derek and Betty must find a way to elude the trigger-happy Thor, stop the giganti-lobster and thwart the other aliens when they finally show up to drop off more gargons.

I could pick holes in this plot all day long if I wanted to and go on and on about how laughable nearly every single aspect of this low-budget production is, but there's absolutely no need to MST3K it. If you're a bad movie lover, watch it. It's that perfect example of a bad movie made with serious intentions that's not only wonderfully, hilariously inept but also extremely charming in its stupidity, simplicity and sincerity.

For a very long time, there was a mystery (and a lot of misinformation floating around) about this production, its director / writer / producer and its stars that's only recently been coming to light thanks to a few dedicated fans who've hunted down some of the people involved. The director was a UCLA graduate in their theater arts program and was the boyfriend of the (male) star at the time. The two split up at one point and Graeff passed away in the mid-80s. Co-star Pearson and his wife, Ursula Hansen (who has a small role as the professor's secretary), put up much of the budget and claim that nobody actually got paid to do this film.

It was filmed in 1957 and not released until years later. Needing a co-feature to bill with the first Godzilla sequel, GIGANTIS, THE FIRE MONSTER (aka Godzilla Raids Again), Warner Brothers purchased the rights to Teenagers for a reported 28,000 dollars. There's badly-incorporated stock footage spliced in for the lame finale and you'll recognize the stock music score from many other sci-fi and horror films, like the same year's THE KILLER SHREWS (1959) and NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD (1968).

Now in the public domain, this is an easy title to find on numerous budget labels.

SBIG

Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988)

... aka: Imp, The

Directed by:
David DeCoteau

Just like much of the music of the 80s, this is very enjoyable on a strictly camp / cheese level. It's all about knowing what you're getting yourself into. And if you don't know what you're getting yourself into with a film called Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama, I'm sure a lot of things are lost on you. Naturally, this is a silly low-budget horror spoof not for the critical minded, but that just makes it all the more endearing and charming to the right kind of audience. One day, I really could see someone putting this little gem in a time capsule and sending it into space as a prime example of fighting back against 80s conservatism with pure, no-holds-barred exploitation. It never pretends to be otherwise. It never takes itself seriously. It is the perfect example of a film crafted by people who have their target audience in sight and don't want to let them down. And it was reasonably well made considering it cost around "90,000" dollars, which, with the prominence of digital video these days, actually isn't too shabby of a budget. This movie wasn't made to change the world, it was made to entertain. And that it does.

Taffy (Brinke Stevens) and Lisa (Michelle "McClellan" / Bauer) are sorority pledges at the mercy of blonde meanie Babs (the late Robin Stille of THE SLUMBER PARTY MASSACRE fame), a future prison warden who gleefully subjects them to "institutionalized sadism" such as paddling their fannies and spraying whipped cream all over them (which of course then must be showered off). After a trio of nerds (Andras Jones, Hal Havins and John Wildman) are busted spying on the ladies, Babs forces them all to break into a shopping mall to steal a bowling trophy as part of their initiation rites, while she and a few of the other sisters (Kathi Obrecht and Carla Baron) keeps tabs on them using video monitors. There they encounter both foul-mouthed biker babe burglar Spider (Linnea Quigley, in one of her more amusing roles) and an evil, mischievous wish-granting Imp, with a LITTLE SHOP OF HORRORS remake inspired "soul" voice, provided by "Dukey Flyswatter" / Michael D. Sonye. The imp traps everyone inside and proceeds to turn some of them into murderous beings, such as Bride of Frankenstein, a zombie and a killer dominatrix with one helluva paddle. Ah ha! It's great stuff. Really! It's totally infectious fun.

The #1 thing that draws people to this film - perhaps other than that wacky title - is the casting coup of Quigley, Stevens and Bauer (the three most popular American Scream Queens of their day) all in one film. You will read a lot of nasty and unfair things online about all three of these women. People will say they cannot act. Others will say they don't have talent outside of taking off their clothes. And some people even go so far as to blame them for "ruining" independent horror films. Sure, none of these ladies are Meryl Streep, but it's not like they're trying to act in Sophie's Choice either. They were most often hired to do campy, over-the-top T&A horror-comedies and gave fully-appropriate, over-the-top comedic performances in these films. Furthermore, anyone who has followed their careers know that each is capable of doing other kinds of roles in other kinds of films when they're hired to do so. You can watch SAVAGE STREETS (1984) to see Quigley give a credible performance as a deaf-mute high school student, or GRANDMA'S HOUSE (1989) to see Stevens giving an intense portrayal of a psycho mother, or DEMON WARP (1987) to see just how much Bauer enhances any film she's in by always giving 110 percent.

Another thing some people don't take into consideration is that the budgets and schedules on these films (many were made in less than a week) simply did not allow for multiple takes. On DeCoteau's follow-up feature NIGHTMARE SISTERS (1987), these actresses were doing 30 pages (!) of the script per day, were still able to create amusing characters and had to somehow glide their way through a 10-minute-long take without stumbling. That takes a talent that someone like, say, Julia Roberts, does not possess. Quigley, Stevens and Bauer got so much work not only because they were nice to look at, but because they were dependable and on point. Filmmakers knew they could rely on them to get the job done and do it with charm, a wink of the eye and genuine enthusiasm. They deserve more respect than what they get.

As for the director, this is certainly one of his better efforts, if not his very best. It's fun, upbeat, well-made and reasonably well-budgeted (Charles Band was the executive producer) for one of these things. Shame the same cannot be said for most of his other films. He's spent the last 15 or so years basically Xeroxing the same hot-guys-in-underwear template over and over again.

Some of the humor is embarrassingly dated; let's hope "Have a nice trip, see you next Fall!" never crops up in another film, but a surprising number of the gags still work. There are some amusing one-liners ("It's a shame we had to kill her... I really liked the outfit she had on" being a personal fav) and several great Quigley cat-fights. The entire scene where familiar character actor George 'Buck' Flower (billed as "C.D. Lafleur") - as the mall's hearing-impaired janitor - explains the origins of the Imp to Quigley and Jones is hilarious. Not too heavy on blood or gore, this does at least offer several decapitations (including someone bowling with a head!) and a few other bloody moments. There's also a car flip, clips from DREAMANIAC (1986) on a TV set and ample nudity provided by Stevens and Bauer.

Sorority Babes enjoyed a healthy run on late night cable in the late 80s into the mid 90s. It was a frequent fixture on the USA Network's Up All Night program, where it built up a small following. Now it's easy to find on DVD, which is nice to see. This kind of good-natured B-movie needs to break through to the next generation of fans. I grew up on this fluff and it truly does enrich your life in a unique way Hollywood never could.

★★★

Passion in the Sun (1964)

... aka: Girl and the Geek, The
... aka: Passion of the Sun

Directed by:
Dale Berry

Contained as an extra on their GODMONSTER OF INDIAN FLATS (1973) DVD, this definitely has the stamp of Something Weird all over it. And I don't mean because their logo is actually stamped on the film throughout its entirety, I mean because it's both bizarre and awful. At the Royal Amusement Park in Las Vegas, a ridiculous-looking circus geek (some skinny guy in a shaggy black wig and dirty / torn wife beater with little patches of hair randomly glued all over his face) escapes from his cage (not too difficult when the damn thing isn't even locked!) and runs off. The narrator tells us, "... he was caged and tortured, forced to perform degrading stunts for a sick-minded, thrill seeking audience [that's us!]. A poor, twisted mind running wild in a body that has flipped from the lowest rung of the ladder." Complaint calls about strange screaming sounds have been rolling in, so coppers Sgt. Mike Green (director / writer / producer Berry) and his partner Officer Claude Hill (Bill Rhodes) head to the park to check things out. Finding nothing, they get another call to go to the airport to apprehend Raoul (Dick Eason), a criminal who should be arriving there at any time.

Our heroes are a little late night getting to the airport, as Raoul's contact Earnesto (Gregg Pappas, star of the director's hilariously awful HOT BLOODED WOMAN) has already arrived to pick him up. For some extra leverage, the thugs kidnap Josette (Josette Valague), a headlining stripper who's just flown in to do a gig at the Wailers Convention. Driving down the highway in a convertible, the duo do little to draw attention to themselves... unless you count slapping the poor stripper around and punching her in the gut over and over again for any passing motorist to see! After driving around for what seems like an hour, the criminals finally pull off the highway onto a dirt road and knock Josette out with a punch right in her face. The two men get into a struggle over the briefcase, Earnesto is shot dead and then Raoul drags Josette through the desert. She manages to get the upper hand and the briefcase and runs off. What follows is our thick n' juicy heroine streaking through the woods in a white bra and black panties followed by both the criminal and the cops.

Josette takes a few minutes off from the chase to bathe herself in a lake, sunbathe topless and even takes off her bra, goes to sleep (!) and has a dream of doing a strip routine with a silver sombrero. When she wakes up, she takes off her panties and washes them in a stream (!?) At the 50 minute mark, the crazed geek (Mike Butts) finally shows up. He drowns a guy and then chases Josette (who has managed to lose all of her clothes by this point) around. Josette finally finds a truck (which conveniently has a shirt and pair of cut off jean shorts inside!) and takes off, but the geek has hidden in the back. It screams, drools and licks the windshield. Our heroine and the geek end up back at the amusement park where it strangles the owner and traps the stripper on the Wild Mouse ride.

In between all of the "action," the film cuts to the Sans Suici strip club (where Josette was supposed to go) so we can see various strippers go through their routines. A few of these girls are fun to watch and at least two of them really know their stuff. Unfortunately, they're the only good part of this movie. Because full frontal was illegal back then, there are numerous hilarious scenes of the ladies holding up purses, towels, bras and other things at crotch-level, and in one case, even walking backwards, to conceal bush. The rest is a long drawn-out chase scene usually shot at long distance that never seems to end. This has some of the worst photography you will ever see and there's canned light jazz music that goes on and on. It's frequently awful enough to be really funny, so it earns its SBIG merit badge.

The credits say it was filmed "South of the Border" but it was actually filmed in Texas (you can clearly spot a sign for Galveston early on). The director also made HIP HOT AND 21 (1967) and HOT CHILLS WARM THRILLS (also 1967).

SBIG