Starman, Vol. 2 - Invaders from Space / Atomic Rulers

Rating:
Summary: SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT !
Review: Anyone craving outstanding late-night entertainment has got to check this dvd out! 2 incredible nearly forgotten 60's sci-fi / superhero / kung-fu action / thrillers with zero budget special effects. If you're a fan of grade Z sci-fi (think FROM HELL IT CAME or THE BRAINIAC) this is a must for you. As usual, SOMETHING WEIRD VIDEO does a nice job by including lots of fun extras. But it's the feature films that are just unbelievable! I can't express how much i enjoyed INVADERS FROM SPACE! Part kiddie show, part action adventure, part sci-fi nightmare. Truly truly the stuff of bad dreams. Grab a 6-pack, turn off the lights, and get ready for a strange strange trip.

Rating:
Summary: Strange "Invaders" gives Starman Vol. 2 edge over Vol. 1
Review: For an overview of Starman movies and both Something Weird discs overall, see review under Starman Volume 1.
Unimaginatively titled, Invaders from Space is actually the most campy fun of the four Starman features. Starman is sent by the ruling council of the Emerald Planet to stop seriously ugly Salamander-like aliens, from the planet Koolamon in the Marpet galaxy, who are spreading a plague-like disease on Earth and who can adopt semihuman form. At the Yamano theater, an "unusual dance troupe gives a weird performance." (I couldn't have said it better myself!) Seems the Koolamonians, who have established a spherical undersea Earth base, are also operating undercover out of the theater as an avant garde dance ensemble! Starman gives a "signal ball" to a group of little kids (whose scientist dad has been kidnapped by the aliens) with which they can contact each other; dozens of fire-twirling Salamander men attack the kids near a weird castle in the woods; and they're also menaced by a way-creepy nurse in a surgical mask who then metamorphosizes into an even uglier witch in a long cape with glitter in her hair (the kids vaporize her into a puddle of goo). The Koolamonians then start messing with our gravity, stopping baseballs in mid-flight, and making everything run backwards! Starman battles the Salamander men in midair, underwater, and inside their flying saucers, while the alien leader slowly croaks, "Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha." Finally, the professor invents a special gun that kills the Koolamonians and Starman floats off into space as the children wildly wave goodbye. Print quality of Invaders is quite watchable overall, with tonal values, brightness, and detail/sharpness ranging from very good to excellent, although it suffers the most of the four films from moderate speckling/blemishing throughout and occasional light lining. Still probably as good as it has ever looked.
Atomic Rulers is, for my money, the least entertaining of the four Starman features. The plot involves evil agents from the country of Magolia who are carrying nuclear devices around in suitcases in some sort of plot to take over the Earth. Of course the little kids get ahold of one of the suitcases, so Starman, "friend of all children," battles the Magolian gangsters, saves a plane in flight, and eventually tracks the bad guys to their Bondian lair inside a mountain (that jittery helicopter and Magolian base miniature make Gerry & Sylvia Anderson's Supermarionation look like Industrial Light and Magic). Unfortunately, the bad guys just look like gangsters (there are no wild aliens, space stations, etc.) and Starman is in his suit-and-tie mode a lot. There's lots of running around, but only a modicum of crazy gymnastic fight scenes. Print quality on Atomic Rulers is, ironically, as good or better than the other three movies, with perhaps a bit less overall speckling and blemishing than Invaders or Evil Brain.
Volume 2 extras include another 25-minute B&W Prince Planet manga cartoon, circa 1965; dreadful 12-minute color Super 8mm amateur short (Mercury Amazing vs. Vampyrum), most charitably described as extremely crude; mildly campy 1960 16-minute color educational short, Exploring the Moon, wherein Dr. C. H. Clemenshaw, director of the Griffith Observatory, and annoying buddy Art take a simulated trip to the moon to study its topographical features; and my personal favorite, a 1960 Bell System-produced 10-minute color short, Talking of Tomorrow, a highly amusing, Jetsonian look at the "city of the future" where helicycle travel and outer space construction projects are assisted by such as-yet-unnamed but surprisingly accurately described telecommunications technologies as call waiting, teleconferencing, fax, picturephones, satellite TV, desktop computers, e-commerce, wristwatch radios, etc. (No hack job, it was designed by Tom Yakutis and Corny Cole [Inspector/Pink Panther], and animated by Disney/MGM/Hanna-Barbera artists Ed Love and Don Towsley, with backgrounds by Richard H. Thomas [1940s/50s Warner Bros./Pink Panther]). Volume 2 also includes the highly detailed and interesting essay on the Starman/Super Giant phenomenon. Extras on both discs still have the crummy logos in the corner. Bottom line: the greater preponderance of action sequences and outlandish mutants, not to mention those avant garde dance numbers, give Invaders from Space a clear edge over the other three movies. For this reason, plus the superior Talking of Tomorrow short, those new to the Starman series or Starman fans with limited funds would be well-advised to make Volume 2 their first buy.