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Teenagers from Outer Space

Teenagers from Outer Space

List Price: $7.98
Your Price: $7.98
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Argh! The Gargon! Quick! Get the focusing disintegrator ray!
Review: I've always been a fan of these schlocky '50's B-Sci-Fi movies, and this is certainly one of them. This is one hilarious scene that is fixed in my mind: when one of the "bad" space teens blasts a gas station attendent to a smoking skeleton with his "focusing disintegrator ray" he snickers, "I guess it's a self-serve station now." Overall, unfortunately, this isn't one of the best of the B films. The monster ("the Gargon") is a lobster, of all things, and you only see his shadow. And the movie is awful slow at times. Probably the funniest thing of all is that one man wrote, directed, produced, acted in and wrote the music for it. Where are these polymaths these days?

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good quality dvd at a good price
Review: O.K., it's all been said: So bad it's good; needs an MST3K version released, etc. etc. I'd just like to add that for once, the cheap Alpha dvd version of this movie is a very good, sharp print at only half the cost of the Image disc. Worth thinking about if you're considering a purchase. And as far as cheesy '50s teenage drive-in flicks go.... I thought it was neat-aw-reet! Of course, the good quality picture helps. Go for it!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: There's A Lobster Loose!!
Review: Poor Derek (David Love). He just doesn't fit in with his fellow "teenagers" from outer space. He can't agree with them that the humans on planet earth are nothing more than food for the hideous "Gargon", the lobster-monsters they plan on introducing to our unsuspecting world. Derek rebels, causing his comrades to hunt him down. Along the way, we are introduced to Betty (Dawn Bender) and Gramps (Harvey B. "Bride Of The Monster" Dunn) who rent Derek a room in their home. Unbeknownst to them, one of Derek's cohorts, named Thor, is on Derek's trail. He's busy blasting people right and left with a death-ray, skeletonizing them on the spot! Check out the babe in the swimming pool (Betty's friend). Watch as she's turned into a stack of bones before our eyes! Can Derek escape his shipmates? Can he save the earth from becoming one gigantic lobster ranch?? Watch and find out! Worth having just to hear Derek's kermit-the-frog voice! TFOS was written, produced, and directed by Tom Graeff, who also appears in the movie as Joe (under the name Tom Lockyear) the local reporter! I like this one a lot for some strange reason. I can watch it over and over without getting bored ...

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: So Bad, It's Brilliant!
Review: This has to be once of the worst movies ever made. As a drama, it's a complete failure, but it succeeds quite well as an unintentional comedy. With bad acting and horrible production values, it's a real stinker, but it is just so consistently bad that you'll find yourself laughing the entire ninety minutes. Get a copy of this classic and enjoy it with some friends.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Good but not in Robot Monster's league
Review: This movie is a must see for anyone who masochistically enjoys 50s era B scifi movies. Of course this movie is hideously bad but it lacks the inventiveness of other B flicks. The dull and slow Derek and goofy Grandpa are good characters. Poor Derek is lost and without a map. Thor works well as the deranged and obsessed alien teen sent to recapture sensitive Derek. The small part of Betty's slutty friend Alice is amusing. But the film can start to drag. I love how in the ending you don't even see the climactic event. How cheap!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: So bad that it's good!
Review: To other aging baby-boomers out there, this trifle may stir memories of Saturday afternoons at the local picture-show (circa 1959). The most laughable aspect of this movie is the lobster that keeps growing until it becomes a giant shadow of a lobster. We aren't even speaking of a Japanese guy in a rubber monster-suit here. The plot is simplistic and hokey. Earth is invaded by aliens seeking grazing lands for their herds of space cattle, which bear an uncanny resemblance to earth-bound lobsters. There is the obligatory ray-guns and guys running around in cheesy looking space-suits. A dishy looking blonde woman in a swimming pool gets zapped by a ray-gun and turned into a skeleton. There's some low-budget special effects from the 1950s showing plastic and cardboard spaceships. If one considers the corny dialogue, the bad acting, and the general low-budget look, the whole movie can be taken as fun in a low-brow sort of way. This film remains on my personal list of the all-time "so bad it's good" kind of movie. Proceed at you own risk. And remember, everybody watch the skies!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Some Kind of Strange Masterpiece
Review: Tom Graeff's "Teenagers From Outer Space" is some kind of strange, perhaps accidental masterpiece. How did such a low-budget effort,using unknown (mostly untalented) actors wind up being so entertaining?

One big reason for this movie's 'success' is its pulp sci-fi look and feel. Watching it is like reading a 1950s sci-fi comic book, or like reading a sci-fi short story from the same period. The pulp look derives from the costumes and choice of locations used, as well as that of the monster "Gargan". A pulp feel results from the fast pace (actually rare in the sci-fi B-movie genre), some surprising violence, and the earnest, if inept, acting style.

A few scenes betray Tom Graeff's directorial talent: the laser gun attacks at the gas station, and especially, the unexpectedly effective car chase. These may frustrate some viewers; they suggest how much "better" the film might have been. But for some, they are balanced by the wonderfully comatose performance of the lead actor and the ludicrous spectacle of the "Gargan".

The DVD issue of "Teenagers From Outer Space" deserves a top recommendation. The film transfer is clear and rather impressive, the sound more than adequate. Inside the colorful keepcase there is a really informative essay. Another big plus is the collection of original trailers for other films in the B-Sci-Fi genre, most of which are in fine shape and--in some cases--are more interesting than the films themselves. Included here is, fortunately, the rarely seen trailer for "Teenagers From Outer Space": the wondrous film that includes NO teenage actors, but will entertain generations to come.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Looking Forward to Seeing How It Ends
Review: When I was 10, this movie played on the Saturday night late show. I looked forward to it all week, getting more excited each time it was advertised, showing a scintillating preview of a woman getting zapped into nothing but a skeleton and other neat stuff. When Saturday night finally arrived, I sat down to watch... and immediately met Derek (who appeared to be about 30 years old), the head teenager from outer space. Derek and another space teen skeletonized a dog with their ray gun, and one teen immediately experienced remorse after discovering the dog's metal tag and realizing that intelligent beings lived on this planet (Earth).

I didn't get to see any more of the movie because my parents made me go to bed at 10:15, but if the rest of it was as good as that first part, it was a stupendous film, a masterpiece, the Citizen Cane of ray-gun-sci-fi flicks. Ever since then, I have been saving up to buy the video, and I am almost there.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Better treated as a MST 3K episode
Review: While this movie can stand on its own, it simply begs for a Mystery Science Theater 3000 treatment, and it got one. I believe this was the funniest MST-3K'd movie ever, I mean eye-squirting funny. The voice-over for Grandpa alone is worth the price. You'd perhaps be better served finding this one on the MST-3K collections that are also coming out on DVD.


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