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Episode Guide: 418- Attack of the the Eye Creatures

Movie: (1965) Multi-eyed aliens try to frame a pair of smoochin’ teens.
First shown: 12/5/92
Opening: Crow and Tom quickly go through their “best friends” stage
Invention exchange: Tom is mocking Crow; The Mads demonstrate the router Ouija board, J&tB show off the funny gag fax
Host segment 1: Tom wants learn how to make out
Host segment 2: J&tB present their tribute to Earl Holliman
Host segment 3: J&tB are the Rip Taylor Trio!
End: The case against the film-makers (they just didn’t care!); Larry Buchanan visits Deep 13
Stinger: Greasy drifter in sweater dress
1 Star2 Stars3 Stars4 Stars5 Stars (211 votes, average: 4.55 out of 5)

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• I enjoyed this a lot more this time through (I called it “middling” last time). The biggest drawback is that the movie is sort of a comedy in parts — a failed comedy to be sure, but the film is intentionally trying to be funny, and, as we saw with “Catalina Caper” and a few others, that’s always a bit rougher to riff on. Still, the team slogs through pretty well, just as you’d expect at this point in season four. It’s a good example of what they were capable of by this point. In season two, this movie might have gotten the better of them. In season four, this is a movie they could successfully take on. The host segments help somewhat; even the Earl Holliman sketch — a “wtf” bit if there ever was one — somehow comes off.
• This episode has not yet been released on DVD.
References.
• This ep was number 10 on the summer 1995 countdown Comedy Central did.
• Doesn’t it seem like this episode ought to have a short?
• Crow’s arm (which was apparently taped to Tom) comes off during the opening. They keep going, and it’s still taped to Tom’s back in the next segment.
• This movie, believe it or not, is (with some minor changes) a scene-for-scene, line-for-line remake of a movie called “Invasion of the Saucer Men.” That movie also stinks. Larry Buchanan did a number of these remakes for AIP.
• Do you think the presence of somebody (or some THING) named Ethan Allen in the credits sparked the idea for the Mads’ invention?
• I can’t find anything definitive, but I think Homer Formby IS dead. But I found an interesting tidbit: when he hit it big with his furniture refinishing products, he bought an entire island in the Florida Keys. He later sold it.
• “Dern smoochers!” and other variations became an immediate catchphrase.
• For those who don’t know, the double THE in the movie title occurred when the movie was re-released. It was originally titled just “The Eye Creatures.” Somebody decided to jazz up the title and slapped ATTACK OF THE on the title card, not noticing that there was already a THE. They just didn’t care (which also became a catchphrase).
• Wow, it turns out that MST3K invented rickrolling! Tom breaks into a chorus of “Never Gonna Give You Up,” at one point.
• Joel kinda has to lean over the puppet trench to smooch Servo, but he covers well.
• Literary reference: Joel invokes Ignatius Riley from John Kennedy Toole’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel “Confederacy of Dunces.” I PRESUME everybody in this audience has read it. If you haven’t, go and do so before Lady Fortuna spins the wheel of your destiny downward.
• The Earl Holliman sketch is silly and pointless, but I do like the line “…who would have been William Shatner had there not already been one.” How true that is.
• Call back: “…sing whenever I sing whenever I…” (Giant Gila Monster)
• I used to love Rip Taylor when I was kid. Glad to know he still with us.
• Note that the giant handkerchief is monogrammed “KM.” Hmmm…
• Mike scores again as “Larry Buchanan.”
• Cast and crew wrapup: screenwriter Robert Gurney Jr. also wrote “Terror from the Year 5000.” Production designer James Sullivan also worked on “Invasion USA.” Score composer Ronald Stein also worked on “It Conquered the World,” “The Undead,” “The Girl in Lovers Lane,” “Gunslinger” and “The She-Creature.” In front of the camera, Warren Hammack was in “The Side Hackers,” and “The Hellcats.” Jonathan Ledford was in “The Amazing Transparent Man.” Peter Graves was in a bunch of stuff, Tony Houston, who has a small part in this movie, wrote the screenplays for “Sidehackers” and “The Hellcats” and Jody Daniels was in “Girl in Gold Boots.”
• CreditsWatch: Host segments directed by Joel Hodgson. Additional music written and performed by Michael J. Nelson and Kevin Murphy — I assume they’re referring to Rip Taylor music. And good news: the “Ammendment” mistake has been corrected.
• Fave riff: “And don’t be alarmed if it suddenly becomes 2 in the afternoon.” Honorable mention: “She’s a female. They have less plumage.”

151 Replies to “Episode Guide: 418- Attack of the the Eye Creatures”

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  1. Stressfactor says:

    Oh, someone above had brought up Susan’s hair… and that’s another ridiculous thing in the movie. Not just the style but the fact that it’s one of the most *obvious* examples of a hair piece I think I’ve ever seen.

    The 1960’s in general were a time when women actually wore a lot of falls, pieces, and wigs even when they had full heads of hair but the good quality ones at least *match the person’s hair color*. In several shots you can see that Susan’s piece is a slightly lighter shade than her natural hair. Couldn’t even spring for a decent hair piece.

       2 likes

  2. touches no one's life, then leaves says:

    #31: “an exceptionally inferior makeout movie (but is there a superior makeout movie?”

    Well, that depends. Are the adjectives “inferior” and “superior” modifying the noun “makeout” or the noun “movie”? ;-)

       5 likes

  3. Neptune Man says:

    #100: He made a movie called “The Trial of Lee Harvey Oswald” (in 1964!), in a what-if scenarion where Oswald is not killed by Jack Ruby.
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xo4kRAG6yYc Here’s the first part.

       1 likes

  4. Keith in WI says:

    Lots of discussion here on the possibility of satire and/or parody. My thoughts are that the original “Invasion of the Saucer Men” was intended to have some of those elements as part of the film, and the incredibly crappy re-tread that “Eye Creatures” is misses the point precisely because it is so awful. Watching the original, there is a definite sense that the filmmakers are poking fun at the entire genre of alien invasion/science gone amok movies, as well as the youth culture of the day and the military. As was pointed out before, the original plays it pretty straight, but that is why it works. The aliens are classic 50s creations, the kids are obsessed with necking and drinking beer, the old codger wants those kids “off my property,” and the military is all business (No slimy peeping toms in the original.) They spent some time with the effects to make them over the top – like the aliens – so that people seeing this would have bit of a chuckle instead of being genuinely scared. There is a fair amount of camp in the original in my opinion. Compare this film with the aforementioned “The Blob” and they are very different films. The blob was straight, but was intended to be at least a little serious. From the title to the details of the film, “Saucer Men,” is never really intended to scare the audience or send some kind of message. Satire – B grade satire to be sure – but still satire.
    The big problem with attempting to place Buchanan’s film in that same light is that there are too many elements from the original film that are missing and when it is executed in such a bumbling fashion there is no way to hold this up as anything but a steaming pile of celluloid, if you catch my drift. One of the major plot points is that the aliens inject their victims with alcohol via hypodermic needles that emerge from the tips of the fingers. This is why slimy drifter #1 bites the dust and is later determined to have died of acute alcohol poisoning. I always felt that this was originally used to poke fun at the notion of specialized alien weapons. How are they going to kill us? Ray guns? Robot army? No, demon alcohol. For a kid watching the show on late night TV I didn’t find it very unusual, but as an adult, it seems silly in a way that might even be considered satirical. But when you leave this out, it destroys any of the possible satire that might have originally been intended. There are so many other bits and pieces that could be picked on but after all,

    THEY JUST DIDN’T CARE!

    Liked the episode, but since I have a bit of a soft spot for the original movie, seeing this wretched re-make, even with the great riffing from the J&TB is a bit painful. A lot of creepy characters in this movie, but some great riffs, and I love the closing host segment, one of their best in my opinion.

       4 likes

  5. Neptune Man says:

    All this talking of The Blob (great movie) reminded me of something:
    Beware of the Blob!

    It creeps and leaps and glides and slides across the floor

    Right through? the door and all around the wall ,

    A splotch , a blotch ,

    Be careful of the Blob!

       0 likes

  6. Stressfactor says:

    @ Neptune Man…

    You don’t get the full effect without being able to hear the awesome instrumentation on that song…

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AK5jyVCdXwc

    Seriously, one of the ‘boppiest’ theme songs to a ‘creature feature’ movie ever.

       1 likes

  7. Neptune Man says:

    #106: With tunes like that, it’s a pleasure to be eaten by a voracious alien-blob.

       1 likes

  8. touches no one's life, then leaves says:

    #48: -I see only one bed in the room that the oily guy and the even oilier guy rent.

    Yes, and?

    If that’s all they could afford, that’s all they could afford. One of them slept on the floor or something.

    #95: The The Eye Creatures are, hands down, the WORST alien invaders on the show. They’re even more inept then The Neptune Men or The Martians.

    I’m not sure it’s fair to call the Eye Creatures inept when AFAIK the film never made it clear what they were trying to do in the first place. Okay, sure, getting wiped out by a bunch of smoochers isn’t going to look good on any planet’s record, but for all we know they accomplished their mission (whatever it was) before everybody died.

    Maybe it was going well until everybody died.

       3 likes

  9. Joseph Nebus says:

    @ Stressfactor:

    Boy, you look over the opening and you remember in how many ways The Creeping Terror is the halfwitted n-th generation photocopy of a real movie.

       0 likes

  10. pondoscp says:

    I’ve been rickrolling since I first heard that song when it came out. I think we all were!

    After doing some research, it turns out this is the same Larry Buchanan that made the cult classic “Beyond The Doors,” or as it’s called on imdb, “Down On Us,” about the secret government conspiracy to kill Jimi Hendrix and Jim Morrison. I’ve never been able to track down a copy of this movie, but I’ve always been intrigued by it since learning of it on Joe Bob Briggs show.

    Check out the clip here:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FgiyBHJ6t8E&feature=autoplay&list=PLC0D2DF69F8D19812&lf=plcp&playnext=2

    Always a trip to hear anyone talk about Larry Buchanan.

    On a side note, a fellow MSTIE told me about when she worked at a Borders here in Tucson, and Mr. Buchanan himself called looking for a copy of his own film, “Mars Needs Women”! I guess it was out of print at the time. She said he was a very nice and gracious fellow, who apparently did care after all. Larry died here in Tucson back in 2004. Thanks for the flicks, Mr. Buchanan!

       4 likes

  11. pondoscp says:

    Watching this one again, I can’t help but notice how the oily guy reminds me of the McPoyles from It’s Always Sunny!

       0 likes

  12. pondoscp says:

    @#40: Baba O’reilly is usually dropped in to any teenager flick: Teenage Wasteland, they’re all wasted (they’re all cavemen!)

    The giant handkerchief in the 3rd segment is KM because it stands for Karl Malden (the big nose instead of big eye). But it does make you wonder if Kevin just brought it from home…

    Attack Of The “I Don’t Think So” Creatures

    It does feel like it should have a short

    Rebel Set time!

       3 likes

  13. Opus says:

    Take a look at this guy… go ahead… take a good long look. You see, they just didn’t care!

       7 likes

  14. Cornjob says:

    Why does everyone in this movie look like a serial killer?

       8 likes

  15. Slartibartfast, maker of Fjords says:

    #79 Stressfactor: For most satires you can approach the subject matter one of two ways — you either satirize something by going in the *opposite* direction (for example, to satirize say Arnold Schwartzenagger style action movies you craft a movie where the hero, instead of being a muscular guy with military training, is a 130 pound computer nerd.)

    Or, you can team Arnold Schwartzenagger, with, say Arnold Stang. (Kudos to the first MSTie that names that movie).

    Now, I like this movie, although it tends to cure insomnia. But, I do not care for the “Eyes” sketch. If you have to say something is funny, it isn’t.

       0 likes

  16. Slartibartfast, maker of Fjords says:

    I like the new feature where we can edit or delete after the post. Good job Sampo and Erhardt.

       2 likes

  17. Neptune Man says:

    #115: To be fair, they made a parody of Rip Taylor style of comedy. They were making fun of what Taylor considered to be funny.

       2 likes

  18. Watch-out-for-Snakes says:

    Count me down as a fan of this episode, this was one of my original favorite “go to” episodes for awhile, back in the day (i.e. the late 90’s). The the movie is from another planet, one where films are ineptly made and filled with oily, unlikeable characters. YES, it’s awful. YES, the day-for-night switcheroo photography is dizzying. YES, the the Eye Creatures are awful awful invaders. YES, the greasy bed-sharing drifters and the leering creepy military guys vie for your disgust and hatred. (the military guys are ickier) And YES, it seemed as if THEY JUST DIDN’T CARE!

    YES, these are all reasons I LOVE this episode. This, is classic MST to me, taking a turd of a movie and polishing it up real nice with great riffs and great Hose Segments (Rip Taylor Trio!). Sure, the Earl Holliman sketch is WTF, but it’s infectious in a way. The closing segment (“take a good long look..”) is aces in my book, just an excellent look at the ineptitude of the entire production, it’s sort of like a film school course in what NOT to do. It puts this one over the top for me.

    So, in summation, I like it, a lot.

    RIFFS AND THINGS:

    Real quick, gotta mention, the film editor on this was S.F. Brownrigg, who got his start working in sound dept. on Buchanan films and then moved on to edit this and others, before moving on to make films of his own as sort of a low budget Texas film auteur, whose most famous film would be DON’T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT (1973). Schlocky stuff, maybe, but the guy obviously has more talent and personal style than Larry Buchanan ever had in anything he did.


    I like Frank’s face he makes when presenting the ‘Bless this Mess’ woodcarving. It’s a good fake-proud.

    Joel: “Saaay, nice area. . .”

    Servo: “Jeez, ‘Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer’ is not as sick as this.”

    Joel: “Man, it’s really hard to see the road. . . when it’s noon.”

    Servo: “Calgon, take me away!!”

    Servo: “Let’s go to the Tobe Hooper place.”
    Crow (reading the mailbox): “Hmmm….E. Gein..”
    Joel: “Let’s try the Last House on the Left.”

    There are a couple “SESSIONS PRESENTS!” callbacks to ‘TORMENTED!’

    Crow: “I got a booger on my finger and I can’t get it off.” —-Growing up, my younger sister was not a fan of this show, but this was one riff that got her laughing hard.

    Joel: “Don’t be alarmed if it’s suddenly 2 in the afternoon.”

    ……..
    ……
    ….
    ah,
    they just didn’t care…….

    ….
    but I do,
    this is the best episode of Season 4 since THE KILLER SHREWS (407), or at least it’s my favorite since then. This is a great one, a classic,

    EYE give it 5/5,

    NOW GET OFF MY PROPERTY, BLASTED SMOOCHERS!!

       9 likes

  19. schippers says:

    Whoah, a bot of a different color ATTACKS!

       3 likes

  20. Creepygirl says:

    I’ll just chime in and say I really like this one. 4 stars.

    I don’t watch it much because it’s so darn memorable. I’m afraid if I watch it too often I’ll burn myself out on it and never watch it again. This has happened to me with various movies and TV episodes on DVD. They are practically worthless to me now. (Damn You BACK TO THE FUTURE Box Set!) I don’t want this to ever happen with MST3K so maybe I’ll pull it out again in a few years.

       0 likes

  21. Anonymous says:

    “EARL HOLLIMAN!”

    I remember somebody in my family laughing at that sketch, so it must be funny.

    Oh man, this movie was a mess. The mistake on the title card shows this.
    I guess the director ‘just didnt care’.

    That came to mind when I thought about what Marvel Comics did to Spider-man. Because they put out the worst comic of all time then and after what they had already done to the character the previous year it was obvious they ‘just didn’t care’.

       0 likes

  22. dad1153 says:

    Man, I just saw “Attack of the Eye Creatures” for the first time. It definitely is to the Joel era of “MST3K” what “The Horror at Party Beach” was to the Mike era: the creature feature with horrible day-for-night continuity (worse than in an Ed Wood movie even) in which 30-something-actors-pretending-to-be-teens save the day from a mostly-clueless army and the filmmakers ‘just didn’t care.’ “Eye Creatures” has the all-time classic final segment (not the first or last time “MST3K” took a movie to task for awful continuity) that gives birth to that latter catchphrase. This experiment would be rough-going if the host segments weren’t such non-sequiturs (the strangely hilarious ‘Hail Earl Holliman’ sketch), which is welcomed because the film itself is truly wretched. From the Abbott & Costello-wannabe unfunny comic relief monitors (‘Lenny and Squiggy join the army’) that are in their own separate scenes/world (like the woman scientist in the 2nd half of the “Riding with Death” ‘movie’) to the silly-and-misplaced music cues, “Eye Creatures” is perfect fodder for Joel and the bots. They can savage the thing to death (‘When Neil Simon writes a horror movie’) and, in the end, walk away proud they put an honest day’s work. Without J&TB’s quips though this flick would be borderline unwatchable.

    FOUR STARS for “Attack of the Eye Creatures.” Favorite Riff: ‘He’s Charles Nelson Reilly’s understudy. :smirk:

       2 likes

  23. dakotaboy says:

    What was the deal with the makeout scene at the end? Did I miss something?

       0 likes

  24. Insect Man #47 says:

    #104 already quite nicely covered this, but let me put my .02 worth in as well. The original “Invasion of the Saucer Men” is a nice little movie and was intentionally silly. AIP used their stock teen flick actors, like Steve Terrell and Gloria Castillo, and it really worked, especially with Frank Gorshin thrown in. “Eye Creatures” failed because it tried to be funny with the perverts with the spy cameras, and the lame brained drifters, and failed miserably. It was also shot in 16mm, which just doesn’t work for a big screen movie. I do love Servo’s tribute to Sinatra though…….

       5 likes

  25. EricJ says:

    happy:
    Invasion of the Saucer Men is ONE HUNDRED TIMES better than this

    I first saw the original Saucer Men with an all-night theater audience, and I heartily concur. IotSM was deliberately playing itself for 50’s drive-in tongue-in-cheek, while Eye Creatures only…..disturbingly……thought it was.

    pondoscp:
    On a side note, a fellow MSTIE told me about when she worked at a Borders here in Tucson, and Mr. Buchanan himself called looking for a copy of his own film, “Mars Needs Women”! I guess it was out of print at the time. She said he was a very nice and gracious fellow, who apparently did care after all. Larry died here in Tucson back in 2004. Thanks for the flicks, Mr. Buchanan!

    When Mars Needs Women showed up on Netflix, I went in with the properly low-camp mood, thinking, like most everyone else, it was going to be as wild and low-kitschy as its title–
    NO. The movie goes forward on grim determination, with Tommy Kirk and Yvonne Craig playing the title premise with complete earnestness, and it’s safe to say there’s more humor in Eye Creatures, with the “military satire” of Phil Silvers’ aide and the two oily peeps, than there is in ninety minutes of Kirk and Craig.
    Maybe it’s not so much that Larry Buchanan didn’t care, it’s that he cared a lot about the wrong things he shouldn’t have.

       0 likes

  26. Sitting Duck says:

    For those of you who don’t think too highly of Confederacy of Dunces, take solace in the fact that getting a Nobel will doom it to ultimate obscurity and irrelevance. Also remember all the excellent books of greater longevity that the Nobel Committee wouldn’t touch with a ten meter cattle prod.

    Regarding I’m With Stupid T-shirts, it would be great if the Catchphrases Cafepress shop would do some in that style. A riff that would work for that comes from the Posture Pals short which goes, “He’s a loser and the kids let him know it.”

    Does anyone else hate the new look of The Annotated MST? I can see what was being attempted to make the site more visually interesting. However, the lack of contrast between the text and the background make it nearly impossible to read.

       1 likes

  27. EricJ says:

    (And to amend, after the Edit timed out: )

    Keith in WI:
    The big problem with attempting to place Buchanan’s film in that same light is that there are too many elements from the original film that are missing and when it is executed in such a bumbling fashion there is no way to hold this up as anything but a steaming pile of celluloid, if you catch my drift.One of the major plot points is that the aliens inject their victims with alcohol via hypodermic needles that emerge from the tips of the fingers.This is why slimy drifter #1 bites the dust and is later determined to have died of acute alcohol poisoning.I always felt that this was originally used to poke fun at the notion of specialized alien weapons.How are they going to kill us?Ray guns? Robot army? No, demon alcohol.For a kid watching the show on late night TV I didn’t find it very unusual, but as an adult, it seems silly in a way that might even be considered satirical.But when you leave this out, it destroys any of the possible satire that might have originally been intended.

    In the original Saucer Men, the whole teen-goofy premise is “The older-generation authority won’t believe us because we’re TEENS!” There’s some of that in Eye Creatures, with the sheriff’s office, and rounding up the Inspiration Point gang to save the earth by defeating the light-sensitive aliens with their car headlights, but again, here, it’s played with grim determination.

    That the aliens attack with alcohol, and the sherriff keeps smelling alcohol whenever our hero tries to warn about the invasion, is the main tongue-in-cheek plot frustration of the original, here, it’s just another throwaway line that doesn’t seem to go anywhere. Just like the headlight roundup, which again, has some sort of confusion about whether the oblivious couple still necking in the backseat was supposed to be “comedy”, and just sort of ends up as “Um, okay.”

       0 likes

  28. Bruce Boxliker says:

    Larry might not have cared, but I do! I love this episode!

    The riffing is fantastic, and all the host segments are great! I still really don’t know who Earl Holliman is (can’t even generate enough interest to IMDB him), but they go about that bit with such enthusiasm that I can’t resist laughing. The Rip Taylor Trio is by far my favorite, primarily because I’m one of those disturbed people who actually LIKES puns (the worse the better!).

    As for the (attempted & utterly failed) humor in the movie itself, the riffing on this still works since the (again, utterly failed) humor is oily, gross, & just plain wrong, whereas Catalina Caper’s humor is fun & whimsical (at the very least it doesn’t make me want to vomit and/or divorce myself from the rest of humanity).

    Was the last movie that they pointed out the flaws like this Cave Dwellers?

    I still wonder what the The Eye Creatures were up to. Seems like the only person they ‘killed’ was a drifter (and likely sexual predator), and he apparently just died from fright. Maybe they were migrating here after their world became unlivable. That would explain whey they weren’t worried about their spaceship blowing up. Then these meddling kids come along & commit genocide….

    Maybe they should have landed in… EYEdaho!! Get it?! Cause they’ve got so many eyes!!

       6 likes

  29. Recycle.bin says:

    I saw this episode before actually coming onto this website, so here’s my thoughts:

    * And we have a consecutive episode where the slate card and the titles of the movie don’t match. (IIRC, 417 had ‘Crash of the Moons’ on its slate card)

    * This is the second October 1992 episode, according to the slate card.

    * Joel and Mike usually wore white/gray T-shirts under their jumpsuits. However, Joel is wearing a red T-shirt this week.

    * If I get this right, AotTEC is a reissue print of a crappy film that was a remake of a cheesy but ‘nice’ 50s drive-in film. I wonder why they even wanted to reissue this…

    * The opening half-hour is my favorite part of the episode. I tend to favor films with cringeworthy people in them and this film has no shortage of them.

    “Could you tell me how to get to…. first base?”

    * I’m not really a ‘smiling’ type. However, this riff managed to make me laugh out loud:

    (After scene with two sleazy guys in bar, camera suddenly cuts to lightning):
    Servo: (as God) I resent that. I can’t believe I made those two guys.

    * How are the the eye creatures even supposed to look? Were they supposed to look like anything other than the lovechild of a child’s vomit and Muno from Yo Gabba Gabba?

    * The host segments are funny, but I can’t say much about them.

    * The least appealing part of the episode has to be the ‘Earl Hollman’ sketch. (I’m Indian, you see.)

    * Overall, I like the episode a lot, but I wouldn’t really recommend it for a starter. (I jumped right into the well-known deep end for my starter.)

       2 likes

  30. touches no one's life, then leaves says:

    >>>How are the the eye creatures even supposed to look?

    At a guess: ALIEN. They were supposed to look who had “evolved” under entirely different circumstances than humans. They were supposed to look like nothing that exists or could exist on Earth.

    Frankly, I think this film did a better job on that than the film that it was a remake of. Ooh, look, the Saucer Men have two eyes, two ears, a nose, and a mouth, gee, how’d the filmmakers come up with THAT?

    ;-)

       4 likes

  31. Sampo says:

    Bruce Boxliker: Maybe they should have landed in… EYEdaho!! Get it?! Cause they’ve got so many eyes!!

    IT’S FUNNY!!!!

       6 likes

  32. JeremyR says:

    Invasion of the Saucer Men is actually a pretty decent movie. The humor in it is still there, but it’s not so mean or crass.

       2 likes

  33. thequietman says:

    I’d never seen this episode before tonight and having finally seen it, it’s just… Wow….

    This was AIP that put this out? That has to explain the presence of John Ashley (Frankie Avalon’s right hand man/nemesis in the Beach Party films) and the low-rent version of Annette Funicello (who was very cute in a Selena Gomez sort of way) as his girlfriend.

    This almost plays like a D-grade beach party picture, with the drifters attempts at comic relief (where’s Harvey Lembeck when you need him?) and the “come on, let’s get ’em teen gang!” finale.

    I do hope this gets a DVD release because this is indeed a seminal episode among the truly ‘bad’ movies they did.

       1 likes

  34. littleaimishboy says:

    Big eyed beans from Venus!

       1 likes

  35. Ro-man says:

    Yeah, I saw Saucer Men a few months back. Not a bad flick; this one definitely pales in comparison.

    Am I the the only one who thought that the the one guy, Mike, looked a lot like Billy Graham? I think there were some missed riff opportunities there. But maybe it was just me. Or maybe you just can’t go there. I mean, he WAS wearing a dress…

    “They Just Didn’t Care” is one of the the all time classic host segments for me. Absolutely LOVE IT! :laugh:

       1 likes

  36. Johnny's nonchalance says:

    The impersonation of the Peter Lorre looking guy cracks me up every time.

    “How dare you negate me!”
    “I admire him.”
    “Oh, the lights!”

       3 likes

  37. dakotaboy says:

    Sampo: IT’S FUNNY!!!!

    It STINKS!

       3 likes

  38. Ro-man says:

    touches no one’s life, then leaves:
    >>>How are the the eye creatures even supposed to look?

    At a guess: ALIEN. They were supposed to look who had “evolved” under entirely different circumstances than humans…

    Frankly, I think this film did a better job on that than the film that it was a remake of. Ooh, look, the Saucer Men have two eyes, two ears, a nose, and a mouth, gee, how’d the filmmakers come up with THAT?

    Well, them being Eye Creatures and all, it certainly makes sense with the the premise that bright lights would kill them. Ok, maybe not exploding and vaporizing, but still… ;-)

    Still, while stereotypically 50’s “space alien”, the the big-noggined, big-evil-eyed, poison-fingernailed little guys from Saucer Men were definitely more menacing — never mind that it was played for laughs.
    On the other hand, though certainly odd-looking (at least the the one fully costumed dude), apparently the the Eye Creatures, what, touch/paw one to death?

       2 likes

  39. Doug Glassman says:

    My favorite riff is “It’s an anacoluthon!” Every once in a while MST3K helps with your SAT vocabulary drills.

       4 likes

  40. Ro-man says:

    Doug Glassman: anacoluthon

    Nice. I had never — I had to look that one up.

       4 likes

  41. touches no one's life, then leaves says:

    >>>On the other hand, though certainly odd-looking (at least the the one fully costumed dude), apparently the the Eye Creatures, what, touch/paw one to death?

    Well, if they’re from an environment totally unlike Earth’s, then, while they might have the technology to allow themselves to survive in Earth’s atmosphere (sure, we can’t see their containment suits or whatever they’re using but “Any sufficiently advanced technology…” and all, y’know), if any of THEIR atmosphere somehow escaped their containment system, it would, well, for lack of a better phrase, “make sense” that contact with said atmosphere would be instantly fatal to humans. An effect kind of like that appeared in Stephen King’s “From a Buick 8.”

    Then again, maybe atmosphere is irrelevant to the question; maybe their touch is inherently corrosive to other life-forms because, well, how could they have “evolved” with all those eyes without some sort of protective coating to minimize injuries to said eyes? “Poke eye, get burned” is a pretty basic way for “evolution” to teach their planet’s predators to NOT poke them in the eyes. That’s even simpler.

    Do I think that it for a moment occurred to Larry Buchanan and company that there should be some “explanation” for why the aliens could kill humans with a touch? Of course not. But, hey, intentional or not, it’s THERE, might as well run with it. ;-)

       1 likes

  42. touches no one's life, then leaves says:

    So, was the “Attack of the the Eye Creatures” reference already on Wikipedia’s “anacoluthon” entry or did someone around here add it within the past day or two? ;-)

       1 likes

  43. Ray Dunakin says:

    You know, all those teens really needed to do was slice a few onions.

       3 likes

  44. touches no one's life, then leaves says:

    #127: In the original Saucer Men, the whole teen-goofy premise is “The older-generation authority won’t believe us because we’re TEENS!”

    And thus the groundwork of “Codename: Kids Next Door” was laid…

    #121: That came to mind when I thought about what Marvel Comics did to Spider-man. Because they put out the worst comic of all time then

    I wonder if that particular “Anonymous” commentator is still around, because if ever I saw a description that needed narrowing-down…

    #114: Why does everyone in this movie look like a serial killer?

    Because if serial killers look just like everybody else, logic dictates that everybody else looks just like a serial killer.

       3 likes

  45. zxcvv says:

    @144
    Maybe that was when he made the deal with the devil so they could reset everything?

       0 likes

  46. Cornjob says:

    I guess the guys have more of a serial killer “vibe” than “look”. I was just watching the three guys talking at a table in the diner scene and all three looked prime candidates for living in dangerous loner model homes.

    As for Spider Man, they poster might have been referring to the infamous clone saga. A story line that started off pretty good, but it went off the rails, and then went off the map. Worse it seemed to end several times only to restart again and again like a masked killer in a slasher movie.

    The clone saga lost Spider Man a lot of readers. Myself included. Then about a week after the damn story line finally did end for the last time, Dolly the sheep was in the news, and Marvel Comics readers everywhere screamed, “Dear God, not more clones”.

       0 likes

  47. touches no one's life, then leaves says:

    As some here already know, “Futurama” character Morbo’s look is based on the Saucer Men. Maybe he has a dopey cousin whose look is based on the The Eye Creatures. Or maybe not.

       1 likes

  48. bad wolf says:

    I finally watched this on Youtube last week having not seen it since the original run, and while i did not like the movie then or now, it was weird to me how well i remembered the host segments. Very strong work by J&TB, very (for me) forgettable movie.

       0 likes

  49. touches no one's life, then leaves says:

    Speaking of Spider-Man (as some of us were), Would You Believe It, 1965, the year in which this film was released (or in which it *escaped*, one or the other), was also the year Peter Parker graduated from high school (in Amazing Spider-Man #28, September 1965). Odd but true.

    Just think (or don’t, it’s up to you, I can’t make all of your decisions for you), Phil Silvers and company, trying to keep a lid on UFO reports, were sort of the Cigarette-Smoking Man’s Consortium of their day. Sort of. Mulder and Scully might have had an easier time of it back then.

       1 likes

  50. zxcvv says:

    Yo cornjob, you ever read The Life of Reilly? It’s a book’s worth of behind the scenes of the whole thing, really cool stuff.

       0 likes

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