T Movies

Teenagers From Outer Space

At one famous point in Teenagers from Outer Space (well, famous to watchers of MST3K at any rate), one character tells another that "The high court may well sentence you to TORTURE!" Presumably that torture consists of watching movies like this one, in which simpering good-guy aliens cozy up to the local inhabitants of planets like Earth when what they should be doing is preparing those inhabitants for invasion, as their more law-abiding alien companions try to remind them. The whole point of the invasion is to colonize Earth as a farming planet for the aliens' main food source, the gargons (giant lobsters). Uh, guys? Isn't it a little dangerous to breed food animals that can eat you too?

The plot is pretty slow and the effects are bargain basement (witness the great alien plan to bury the spaceship underground, thus saving costs on flying saucer props), but it's one of the goofy greats that every genre film buff should see at least once.

Tentacles

Low-budget Italian Jaws rip-off has a cast that must be seen to be believed. John Huston and Shelley Winters are in the thick of it, except for the fact that they never come in contact with the monster at all. Huston's a reporter investigating the shady offshore-drilling business dealings of one Mr. Whitehead (Henry Fonda, who literally phones in his performance), which may be enraging the octopus and causing its killing spree. Winters is a nattering mother with two kids who looks suspiciously like Octopus Chow. By the end of the film we're rooting for two pre-Willy killer whales to chomp the octopus to bits. Unfortunately, it looks like two hand-puppet orcas destroy a real octopus for the movie's final scenes, which seems like a pretty senseless waste of a good octopus.

Reviews: Stomp Tokyo,

Terror in the Midnight Sun

Europe tries to do American style sci-fi. An alien ship crashes in Lapland, and scientists sent to investigate find a giant alien ape roaming around. Many scenes will remind viewers of It Came From Outer Space. This movie was also was re-edited into the hilariously inept Invasion of the Animal People.

Terror of Mechagodzilla

Ishiro Honda returns to the Godzilla director's chair after a five year absence (he was dabbling in Zone Fighter and Ultraman episodes), bringing with him some of the class and professionalism that was missing from the series during its long, slow decline. Unfortunately, not even Honda's return could keep this film from being irrepressibly silly, nor from being the last installment in the original run of Godzilla films.

Silver-jumpsuited aliens take control of a new monster, Titanosaurus, as well as the newly-rebuilt Mechagodzilla, by installing monster control mechanisms inside a dying young human woman. If you can help us make any sense out of that, we'd be very grateful. But then, what would you expect from aliens who wear the goofiest helmets you've seen this side of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet?

Godzilla arrives to kick monster ass and take monster names, and to the film's credit, it relies very little on stock footage and actually delivers on the goods. Helping things along considerably is the fact that venerable composer Akira Ifukabe returned one last time to provide the big G with his stompin' tunes. As the swan song for the original Godzilla, Terror of Mechagodzilla is a worthy time-waster.

Reviews: Stomp Tokyo.

Them!

Maybe it's the short-but-ominous title. Maybe it's the catatonic little girl who goes nuts from the trauma of her encounter with Them. Or maybe it's that creepy chirping sound you can hear when They approach. Whatever it is, Them! seems to be responsible for more than its fair share of childhood nightmares and fuzzy b-movie memories.

Certainly, it is a film worthy of being remembered -- the script is tight, the cast more than capable, and the science behind the story is, if not perfect, at least aware of the basic life cycle and behaviors of ants in general. Gordon Douglas (In Like Flint, Slaughter's Big Rip-Off) was the man at the helm for this picture, in which giant ants invade a small New Mexico desert town and eventually make their way to the Los Angeles sewers where the Army must weigh the safety of the local populace against the safety of the world. (For a similar -- but not nearly as competent -- look at the same material, see The Beginning of the End. Let's just say the outcome is different.)

Likable actors James Arness, Joan Weldon, James Whitmore, and Edmund Gwenn battle the ants with all seriousness, something that probably couldn't be done in today's hyper-self-aware Hollywood. Watch for Olin Howlin (one of the old drunks who may or may not have seen the ants in L.A.), who had an unfortunate encounter with The Blob a few years later.

Reviews: Attack of the 50 Foot DVD!

Thunder of Gigantic Serpent

A “lost” giant monster movie, Thunder of Gigantic Serpent has never been released in either its native Hong Kong or the U.S. (its intended market), though it did get spotty video distribution in Europe as Terror Serpent. The movie was made by Joseph Lai, a producer infamous for his cut-n-paste movies created out of one or more existing movies, though most of Thunder of Gigantic Serpent appears to be an original production.

Most of the movie has to do with a little girl named Ting Ting and her intelligent pet snake Mozler. She finds a box that contains “the formula,” a process that can make animals grow in size. The box was lost during some gangsters’ attempt to steal it from the scientists who created it. Ting Ting keeps Mozler in the box, and soon he’s 20 feet long. Ting Ting’s giant snake (paging Dr. Freud!) doesn’t go unnoticed by the gangsters, so they kidnap her to find the formula. Mozler grows to Godzilla-size and destroys a bridge, attacks a city, and wraps itself around a building before the military kills it.

Being a Joseph Lai film, there is an added subplot featuring Caucasian actors that tries to frame the action by explaining that a terrorist mastermind is ultimately behind the theft of “the formula.” The monster action is all amusingly inept.

Time Bandits

A young boy takes a tour of the universe with six dwarfs who used to work for the Creator. Terry Gilliam's movie is strange and often disturbing, yet always compelling to watch. David Warner plays Ultimate Evil, which should surprise no one. Monster action is provided by a giant with very unusual head wear.