Weirdhouse Cinema: Extra Terrestrial Visitors

thousand fans as pod People. Strangely, that title has nothing to do with the contents of the movie and makes it sound like it's a rip off of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, when in fact it's a rip off

of ET but with much grizzlier elements. Yeah, it's. My rough understanding of this film is that it may have originally started as your as Your Basic Error, Creature in the Woods sort of fair, but this is the year after e T Cute aliens being befriended by children is big business, and so this gets folded into the plot.

So it's one of these films that much like much like the film Gremlin's, it's totally inconsistent, like it one second it's doing cute stuff and the next second it is in horror mode and at the end of the by the end of the film, your your loft wondering like who is this for? Like they are parts of this film that I would show my child. There are other parts that I would not show them. There are there plenty of human characters I would not expose them to in this Well, I would say even the cute

stuff in this movie is grotesque. Uh. The scenes with Tommy, the child and his alien friend, like playing around and doing telekinesis parties in in uh, in the in the bedroom and making like the toys dance on the ceiling and stuff. Uh. Something about that is its own kind of horror, even though I don't think that part is intended to be scary. Oh, I thought it was delightful. Tommy is is absolute goodness and sweetness, and so is Trumpy Trump. He is the name that Tommy gives UH

to the childlike alien who comes into his life. So in a way, this movie is going to be in the tradition of you know, all the movies where a child to be friends a benevolent, fantastical being. Think about the movie that was the direct inspiration for at least half of this spielberg ZT came out the year before UM.

But on the other hand, I think you can think of this as part of a sub genre of It's not exactly correct in this movie because the horror is being done by just other aliens that look identical to the one he's befriended, but it's part of the sub genre of child to be friends a deadly monster movies like UM. I think one of the core prototypes here is the original UH ninety one Frankenstein, the Universal monster movie, where there is a pivot all seen highlighting the creatures

moral innocence as well as his destructive power. After the creature escapes Frankenstein's lab, he wanders the countryside where he encounters a child and the creature, being innocent and childlike himself, they play games together and they throw flowers in a lake until the creature accidentally kills the child while in the midst of a game because he doesn't understand cause and effect and he doesn't understand his own strength, and it's that's sort of what makes Frankenstein more of a

grotesque tragedy than a movie about a sadistic evil monster. UM. I don't know if that's exactly the case in Pod almost called it Pod people extraterrestrial visitors. It's I'm not sure if this movie was trying to say anything about like the moral complexity of the beings in the relationship to humans. The child at the in the movie does often say they just want to be our friends. Uh. Yet we do see the aliens totally unprovoked to just attacking humans. I don't well, I don't I don't know

if they're completely unprovoked. Now to come back to Frankenstein, and I think Frankenstein is a great comparison here because the other aspect of Frankenstein, and this is president in the novel too, is that Frankenstein and Frankenstein's monster rather uh. And you can call him Frankenstein. It's it's fine, we checked. Uh, he's cool with it. The monster encounters a humanity that is hostile to him, and that foster's hostility that fosters this this grudge against both his creator uh and uh

and the creator's fellow human beings. Uh. And so in this film we we kind of see the same duality like this. We also see that Frankenstein, you know, with the with the child encountering the child or encountering the blind man. Because we have these two aliens, and they both have they have different experiences with the humans they encounter. The first alien encounters poachers and hunters and and vile band members and so forth. Like the first his first

encounters with humans are all murderous. Meanwhile, the second, younger alien, his first encounter is Tommy, and Tommy like hatches him from an egg. Tommy is nice to him and feeds him and and they venture off into a world of whimsy with each other. Uh where the the other one, the murderous alien, has none of that. Oh, I think

I see what you're saying. So like, even though the other alien does like just randomly attacked like innocent people, like in a bathroom or in an RV, it is because the other alien had previously encountered dangerous humans, right, Yeah, Like at that point he's like, this is what humans are, and if I see one that, I have no other choice but to kill them before they hurt me. Like he's walking around with a he has like a crossbow bolt in his um in his chest most of the

time because he's also been wounded by the humans. Uh So, yeah, this was the for me the most interesting thing about this film watching it for the first time without any riffs, without you know, the added layer of of overt humor provided by ms T three K, because I've seen this film multiple times before via that ms T three K episode, which is one of my favorites. It's a classic MST episode. But I've never really given the film a chance to succeed and fail on its own merits, and it does.

It does both. Now, I do want to come back to the title UH in the of this film, because this is it's it's interesting that it has had. It has so many titles. So it was a French Spanish co production, and so it was released in its respective

countries with of course French and Spanish names. Um. I believe the Spanish is what Los novos extras arrest says, which is the new extraterrestrials, and then uh, and then the French and French is not my certainly not my my happy spot for pronunciation, but I believe it is Clason monsters. So it's um. That's terrible, I know, but but I love what it means, the hatching of monsters. I think the hatching of monsters might be the best title for this film because they do come from eggs.

One egg is snuggled by a child in his bed and the other egg is is the other egg bashed open by a poacher. I'm not sure multiple eggs are bashed open by poachers. We and we have poachers who are seeking eggs in the forest. So the egg trope goes pretty deep in this um. But but yeah, this has had a ton of titles that we mentioned pod people. You can look up all sorts of crazy posters and

vhs box art for this thing. And like I found one that just says a visitor and there's a weird illustration of Tommy and there's the shadow of something standing in a doorway, presumably the alien visitor, which looks nothing like anything in the film. Now, the shadow kind of looks like the silhouette of the Diiver, you know, it's like a it's like a kind of robo alien humanoid shape with with claws. And there's another one I found

and I love this one. Uh this is a black box video release and this must be like this must be like the US or Canadian I don't know, I didn't I didn't look this up, but it has this wonderful, charming, childlike illustration of Tommy and Trumpy, and it just says E t V and gold swirling letters. That's extraterrestrial visitors. But for the cool kids E t V. It's like T two. Yeah, you know, I love it, Like, how

did they think they could get away with that? Let's just call it E t V. Let's just cut straight to it. The kids don't care. This is G two baby. But Trump is very cute on this. I would say in general, we're talking about ET Trumpy. Trumpy is far cuter than ET. E t is just a flesh bag with big eyes and a glowing finger. But meanwhile, Trumpy is this delightful mix. He's like all the better aspects of alf combined with snuffle up. I guess in a

more bipedal form. What is the Star Wars character that Trump looks like from the most icely cantina that has a long ard vark snout? Oh yeah, I forget his name, but yes he does look like and especially at one point in the film when Tommy puts a coat on him with a hood garin dan Is that right? If you say so, I guess he also looks a little bit but like Max Rebo, the blue piano player from Java's barge, of course Trump he has hair. Yes, okay, so according to is this Wikipedia or some kind of

Star Wars wiki? Um, this creature with the goggles, the hood and the long snout is called garen Dan, also called long Snoot. Says he it was a kubas. I think that is an alien species. Uh. And he is considered to be the greatest spy in the most zely spaceport there. I mean you barely notice him, you know, you have to look up his name. That's the mark of a good spy. But but a big difference is

that Trump is furry, whereas garen Dan is not. You don't want to carry all that fur with you on tattoo Lean though perhaps the first yeah yeah, um what so? One of the human characters describes the aliens is looking like a cross between I think they're saying a pig and a bear, though it kind of sounds like a pig and a pair either way. I'm not sure. I don't really see the pig part. Yeah yeah, the the snout doesn't look very pig like. It's more it's more

snuffle up agus. That's what I think, yeah, I wonder if that line was written before the creature design was finalized. Maybe so, all right, at this point we would would normally give you a little taste of the trailer. But I looked around for a while and I could not find any trailers for this film in any language. I was looking up the various releases. I was thinking, well, okay,

I can't find that the English trailer. Maybe there wasn't one or it's been lost, but surely I can find the English or the original one that that they used in Spain. But I was not able to find anything. So I thought we might just have some audio from the film. Hopefully we'll get some of the charming synth music and are as well, what are you Tommy? Hey? Come back down, Tommy? What are you doing? What was all that noise? Tommy? Did you hear me? Tommy? Quickly?

I didn't? There? All right, And a note on availability for this film. Sadly, this is not one where you can find it. Seemed to be able to find a better uh cut of the film, or at least like better film quality. I ended up streaming at via Prime and I know there are some ure's some other streams available out there again. If you look around in the for the original Spanish and French titles for the film, you can find I believe you can find it in those languages. But in terms of finding like any kind

of restored footage, we're not there yet. So I don't know if this is a film where this is as good as the video quality is ever going to get, or if at some point we'll get something a little easier to watch, because yeah, it's it's kind of kind of brutal at times. It's a film that already has a lot of fog machines and perhaps some day for nights effects going on and things get really muddy looking.

The woods in this movie often look like the foggy forest that that that Graham Chapman gets lost in and uh where where they find the knights who say knee and Monty probably found on the Holy Grail? Remember that sequence? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, this film makes like makes great use of the fog machine. So yeah, So sadly we're still waiting on I guess a proper like restored cut of this film. I hope we get there. I hope that it's out there somewhere,

just waiting for someone to discover. But I think for now, as far as I know, we don't really have a superior example of video quality to steer you towards. I know it came out on DVD, but I have no reason to suspect that that has better video quality than what's available elsewhere. All Right, let's talk about the human beings that made this film. So we have we've we've

mentioned the director of this film before. He's come up because, especially when we've talked about Spanish films, Uh, inevitably, some of the people involved in Spanish productions also worked on some of his films. This is one, Piquare Simone. He was the director, the writer, and he also did visual

effects on this film. He lived nineteen thirty five through eleven, Spanish b movie director who became I'm gonna say he became legendary for such films as Slugs the movie, which is a film that I distinctly remember seeing a trailer for when I was a child, and it made me afraid to use a toilet. Um, it may be anxious about sitting on a toilet. That's how how terrifying the trailer was. Because there's a scene where you see slugs crawling on a toilet. Oh there's a toilet attack in it,

or just just slugs on a toilet. I can't remember. I think you know, we we we've talked about the trailer for Slugs the movie at some point for for trailer talk back in the day, but I don't think I could quite bring myself to watch it in full. Is that one of the movies kind of like the the late seventies remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which is fantastic, where the hero is a member of the local health inspection department? Is it is that? So? Okay?

I have a vague memory of something like that could be wrong. Uh. Simon's other film of note is Pieces. This is a film we've almost watched on Weird House before. It's been been almost cued up in the past. It is a chainsaw movie with a lot of other extra strange, uh things added to it. But it has a really fun cast. It's like, it seems kind of like if Texas Chainsaw Massacre was not rural and Texan but was about like an apartment building. Yeah, like an apartment building

the in Madrid or something. Yeah, it's kind of odd, so we may come back to that one. Simone also directed the nineteen nine underwater sci fi film The Rift that one has Ray Wise and r Lee Ermie in it. He also did nineteen seventy nine Supersonic Man that has Cameron Mitchell in it, aided Mystery on Monster Island that has Terence Stamp and Peter Cushing in it. And he also did Cathulhu Mansion. Oh, I'd love to see what jan Piccare Simon does with Terence Stamp. General's odd. Yeah,

I'm I'm curious. So there's also another writer credited on this um Joaquin Grao. Who's credited is Jack Gray on the US version, a writer who worked He just worked with Simone on a couple of his other films, So I couldn't find out much about this individual. But let's get into the cast a bit here. So really the most of these cast members were people I was not

familiar with. But there's one that has come up on the show before, and that is the character Bert, one of the hunters, one of the poachers in the film, played by Frank Braun who lived through two thousand and twelve. Not really a major character in this film, but a regular player in Simone's films, and he also turns up in a ton of Spanish be movies of the day, including Return of the Blind Dead, which we previously covered on the show. He in this movie looks like a

cross between Sam the Eagle and Leslie Nielsen. He has a kind of uh, silver silver haired authority. Uh, and yet he's just playing kind of a scummy poacher. Yeah. I think he. I think he played a lot of heavies in his time. He shows up spaghetti westerns and horror movies. He has those really piercing eyes, often white hair, and and also seemed to be able to grow a lot of impressive facial hair. So if you look up just images of Frank Brauna in different movies, yeah, he's

He's a little chameleon like. He can play any kind of suspicious, sort of handsome dude with really piercing evil eyes. Um, it's it looks like he made a career out of that. Wait, who was he in Return of the Blind Dead? Was he a was he like one of the corrupt politicians or something? He was memory serves he was the corrupt politicians Hinchman who you think is decent for a while and not as bad as the politician, but eventually reveals himself to be a predatory villain as well. And then

he's you know killed by the dead. Alright. Other other humans in this film we have we have the character Rick, who's the frontman of a horrible band. Uh. This is played by Ian Sarah Dates, unknown Spanish actor known mostly for this film for pieces for Mystery on Monster Island, so you know, he was a regular player for us him oan, but he's recently directed and produced it looks like um and yeah and this. He plays Rick, a perfectionist lead singer of a terrible band that makes everyone

around him miserable. They're really it's like they're setting him up to be the villain of the movie. He's like the jerk who you know will finally get his come up and from the monster in the end. But no, it seems like in the end the movie you you realize that he is sort of the hero of the movie. Uh. It's very weird. But he doesn't really do much that's heroic. Like, he doesn't really have an arc, he doesn't have a redemption story. He doesn't realize that he was a jerk.

He just kind of by not he stops actively being terrible, but he doesn't really do anything all that good. I guess he's a little heroic, but for movie hero heroism, it's very mild. Oh no, I'm not saying he does anything qualitatively heroic. I'm saying he fills the hero slot in the movie, like he is the the young guy who comes in at the end, but you know, and like shoots the monster and off. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah.

In that regard, you could say he's definitely filling the space that should be occupied by a more heroic figure. But no, yeah, complete jerk of a character, essentially no redeeming qualities. The only thing that changes really at the end is he just sort of like stops having lines and yeah, I guess there, you know. Yeah, let's see another human of note in this. There's Nina Ferrer playing Sharon,

a member of the band and Rick's girlfriend. Dates unknown Spanish actor who appeared in a handful of films, and this might be the best well known, at least outside of Spain as far as I can tell. Then there's also Susannah Biker who plays Laura, a fan of the band. Laura is also a mild spoiler. She will be one of the early vict ms in the film. Um, but kind of a victim of both humans, more of the victim of the humans right as opposed to the aliens.

At any rate, Well, it's confusing because I thought that her death is caused by humans, but then she gets the little like uh the Big Dipper inscribed on her forehead, which suggests she was killed by the aliens. So I don't know, all right, we'll have to suss that up at any rate. Beaker here Spanish actor, mostly active and

still active on television. For instance, she's currently in a show called Now and Then, which is apparently on Apple TV Plus, and she's had a She had a small role in Hostile Too as an Italian translator, and she is, according to her online acting profile, fluent in English, Italian

and French. Oh, speaking of do do you have any idea whether the actors who appear on screen also provide the voices in the audio dub I wondered if there was any difference there, because I think I think most are all of this movie does not of live sound. The dialogue is dubbed in right, So my understanding I could be wrong in this is that again, it was a French Spanish co production, and I think lines were recorded for both the French version and a Spanish version,

but I don't know if both of those. If we're talking about two different takes in two different languages, I don't know if we're talking about one is the live taken the other is the dub or, as is sometimes the case with films of this caliber, if both were dubbed and they just and they didn't do sound, I

don't know. Alright. We mentioned Tommy already, Tommy the heart and soul of this film, the sweetness of this film, This this film's hope for humanity, Um played by Oscar Martin born two, a French child actor who I think would have been like ten or eleven at the time of filming, which coincidentally is the age of my son.

So I think that's why this film had more of an effect on me watching it, uh this time as as opposed to the past, because like, here's this, here's this, this child that is you know that it still has all of this innocence in him, and he's you know, he's in cute animals and caring for animals and nature, and he has his goodness in him and you know, there's a lot of that that reminds me of my

own son. And there's also this, you know, in this fear of them growing ever older, getting closer and closer to that world, of of of teenaged nous and an adulthood, and all of the complexities of all of that. Uh So, I think all of this made me think a little bit deeper about this film and read more into this film than I did in the past. Okay, this is explaining a lot. Yeah, I suspect your son would make better decisions than Tommy does. Well, I don't know. We'll

see what is tom Well, we'll get into it. I'm trying to remember what Tommy's worst decisions are. Uh well, I don't know, now that I think about it, I mean, maybe Tommy. It's hard to blame Tommy too much. I think of him is essentially uh kind of un each ing an alien horror on everyone, But he doesn't. It's not so much his fault. Yeah. Yeah, I would say he increases the amount of entanglement between the people and the aliens, but maybe that was inevitable. Yeah. Martin here

playing Tommy is good though, and I enjoy him. I feel like he's a good he does a good job as a child actor in this and in the English dub. We I don't know for certain, but we kind of have that same thing going on that we had with the House by the Cemetery, where I think we we might have an adult woman dubbing the voice for Tommy, which adds to the sort of weirdness of the whole situation. Yep, yep, yep. What was what was the kid in the House by

the Cemetery? Was that Bob? Bob? Yes, at least this time in a proper child's name, right, Tommy, that sounds like a child a child's name, Bob, that's a grown up's name, right, alright. A couple of other actors of no, there's their numerous actor There are really too many human characters in this because the band and has just multiple members and hangers on, uh, some of which have no

real impact on the plot. But Tommy, as we learned, Tommy lives with his mom, whose name is Molly, played by Concha Quatos born four Spanish actor who worked mostly in TV and was also in Slugs. And then we

have and then Tommy's uncle Bill lives with them. Uncle Bill is played by Manuel uh Pereiro, who was born in a Cuban born Spanish actor I believe, who has a fairly diverse filmography, having appeared in movies that also featured the likes of John Finch, Steve Guttenberg, Alan Arkin, Leonard Nimoy, Julian Sands, Paul McGann, and Paul Nashy of course Paul Nashi. Um I, oh man, I'm gonna get tripped up a lot when we're talking about the plot because this is uncle Bill. But I was definitely just

thinking of him as grandpa. So he is grandpa to me. Yeah, and he's oh he he's awful. He's just a grumpy man who distrust everyone, hates animals. Um yeah, really hates Carl Line s c Yeah. Oh yeah, so it was we'll discuss um Bill. Uncle Bill is is not a likable character, all right. And finally, the music, the music is definitely I think one of the best attributes of the film. The music here was done by Libra Pastor. Pastor worked on a handful of Simone films, including pieces

Spanish organ player and composer. He was apparently a member of the band Los Roberts and the soundtrack was released on vinyl in Spain, so some of these films will end up talking about We're like, oh, what if they ever put this out on vinyl, wouldn't that be cool? This is one where it came out on vinyl originally. I don't think anybody's put it back out on vinyl. I don't know that it's available anywhere officially, like as

a digital as a digital version. I don't think it ever came out on like cassette or CD, but it came out on vinyl. And the cover is pretty great because it has this wonderful illustration of Tommy looking up into the sky and there's like a halo of light behind him. Los Nuevos Extra terrest Race. So comb your local used record store if you find a copy right in. This has got to be worth a fortune at least

two certain very specific individuals. But anyway, the music in this uh is pretty fun to the score anyway, lots of scent, very atmospheric at times, also very goofy and carnival esque at times. Um I remember in the MS T three K episode they distinctly made I think they made a music from the Hearts of space joke. In there because it does have have that kind of feel at times. Uh, did this person that will also write the pop song that is the that is diegetic music

within the movie. It is the band the song the band sings in the studio. I do not know about that. I don't think that awful track which is which was known as idiot Control out um on among MST three k fans. I don't think that's on the on the score album here, and I did know that iron on IMDb there's another individual credited as well for music, and so perhaps that individual had something to do with the

creation of that track. I'm not sure. I think outside the context of ms T, the song is actually called Burning Rubber Tires, which is a really wonderfully attractive name. But I would say this is actually it makes for one of the all time great ms T skits. You know, you watch MST and like a lot of times, the skits aren't the aren't the best part. But the skit in the pod People episode where they sing a parody of this song is it's got to be Top three ever on the show, Oh yeah, yeah, Joel does a

spoof of it and it's dis tremendous definitely. This is a situation where watching it unriffed, I still had the echo of a number of the riffs in my mind as I was watching a steady issue goes or Fly and over Trout. Yeah, yeah, except the weird thing is I thought some of the lines they sang in their version that we're just that I assumed we're just straight parody, are literally the lines in the real song. Like I think all I want to feel is the wind in

my eyes, which is hilarious. Is actually the lyric I think it is? Yeah, that's that just sounds insane, Like if I'm feeling the wind in my eyes, I probably need some goggles. Yeah, that's going to dislogic contact lens. Okay, you ready to talk about the plot. Let's get into the plot, all right. We get how many movies have we watched recently? I feel like this is a really common opening motif. We open on a starfield, we're just looking at space. It's got to be, like, I don't know,

at least four out of the last seven movies we've done. Yeah, yeah, it's and I feel like this one especially is kind of an example of how not to do it logically. I feel like, if you want an a logical example of how to do it, look at something like John Carpenter's The Thing right where we have Starfield object entering Earth's atmosphere, and then we pretty much cut two stuff on Earth. We don't go back to space. We were never just stuck in space without any hint of action

going on. But there's something I do like about this opening. Actually that's a little more stylish than I think most of the film is, which is the base beat Star. There is like there's kind of a pulse a beat in the soundtrack that is synchronized to the flaring of a star in the middle of the of the void and uh. And then of course we see after that there's a big explosion and I guess that's supposed to

be a supernova or something. I don't know. But then there's like a hunk of something flying through space towards the camera. And I gotta say, from what I recall, this is completely different from the opening that I remember from Uh, from the version of the movie that's used in the Mystery Science Theater episode, which I recall was grainy slow mo footage from a totally unrelated movie. Yeah, the film Ventures International version that's where we got the

title Pod People. That was based out of Atlanta by the way back in the seventies. But the version they put out on I assume a VHS that they used footage from Don Dollars five film Galaxy Invader. In the opening Don Dollar of course is the guy did Night Beast. Yeah, I've seen Galaxy Invader. Galaxy Invader and Night Beast, Uh have some things in common. Both of them are about a an alien that crash lands somewhere in like rural

Maryland and then runs around scaring people. Yeah. Yeah, we really need to do one of his films at some point. They're all basically all the the alien films anyway, and he has like what three or four of them. They're all essentially the same plot. They have different and different alien or different aliens in them, but they're they're always enjoyable. One thing I remember about Night Beast is the the titular Beast has a really cool, like, uh like shiny suit.

It almost looks like a like a suit, like a cool like sy Or from the seventies would wear, like in a disco band or something. Oh yeah, yeah, he does have a shiny suit don't. But okay, that's the opening of what a Wait? Which one? Which name are we even using to call it? Extraterrestrial visitors? And then we we go down to Earth and we're looking at the woods of Fog and Bog. We're in Fog and Bog territory. The atmosphere again, it kind of reminds me

of those misty woods with the knights who say knee. Uh. It's very atmospheric in fact, like you could imagine some of these uh, these environmental shots being kind of cool in a better movie like the The atmosphere is not bad, it just doesn't segue into very compelling action instead of what we get is like three poachers kind of bumbling about, arguing with each other, and it's like are we here? Are you sure? Are you sure you're sure? And I

think they're trying to steal eagle eggs or something. Yeah, they're like fumbling around for a ladder. They're they're scaling a tree and they have what they claim to be like three grand earth of eggs that they've still like three thousand dollars worth of eggs they're going to sell in the black market. I was wondering if they might be fabergees. I don't know what are the What is the market for eagle eggs? Do people want to cook them and make eagle omelets or people trying to hatch eagles?

What's the deal? I don't know. But the bottom line is the very least. When we meet these three poachers, they have no respect for nature. All they see is profit and they're going to break their break the rules. They're gonna break all rules of of of law and man and alien to get what they want. They're bad dudes. And then we zoom out again. It's like, I'm tired

of Earth. Let's go back to space. So we just see like auroras of weird energy and space and we see the Earth from orbit and all kinds of stuff going on, and then we come back and then they're like, Okay, you saw that. Now let's go back to Earth. Um here's a kid in bed and he gets up out of bed to scold his cat. He's talking about like, naughty kitty. I don't remember why the kitty is naughty. I guess just where it's not supposed to be. I

think it got up to move around. Okay. He's like, all right, I gonna take the kitten back to bed. Uh yeah, this is this is our introduction to Tommy, a child of absolute goodness who loves animals and nature, whose room is home to roughly a hundred different species that he's caring for there. And they're not only his charge, they are his friends. Oh, he's just, He's just childhood innocence. He is biophilia incarnate. He's just, he's just utter sweetness.

In an example of what humanity could be on this world or in the universe at large. Only likable human in the in the picture, beautiful, wide eyed in a sense and curiosity. I start contrast to the to the grumbling evil of the poachers. And then but let's go, let's go check him with the poachers again. So something crashes to earth. The poachers I think they're hanging out of the campfire, but they're like, well, let's go investigate. And one of them stumbles into the crash site and

it is a cave of glowing red fog. That's kind of weird. But he goes inside. In the cave is full of eggs. I don't know why, but for some reason, he's like, I gotta bash all these eggs. I gotta smash him. So he gets a stick and or is it a stick or a hammer, He's just start bashing

all the eggs for no reason. Yeah. Yeah, it's awful because he just he happens about this holy grotto of extraterrestrial eggs, and his immediate reaction is just to start smashing them all, just like, must destroy all of these eggs, and you're like, no, don't do it, and he just keeps doing it. But oh no, there is something in the cave of glowing fog that does not like the egg bashing endeavor. We get a p o V of some kind of creature that comes out from around a

corner and attacks and kills the poacher. Dude. Yeah, this is creature number one, which I guess weird to think of as an adult creature or a mature creature of this species that it was maybe already aboard this ship or this or whatever or this piece of its planet, whatever the details. Maybe he can learning this thing that has craft with eggs on it um, but it's kind of,

I guess, kind of an egg guardian. It does. I don't think it's supposed to be the mother because we later get some testimony from from Trumpy creature number two in which he's asked where you're where its mother is and he like points to the stars or points at a constellation on a map or something. So it's just another creature of mature individual from this species. It may be Trumpy's brother or sister, but it is not his parent. But we're getting ahead of ourselves because we haven't met

trump A yet. Trump still so egg because not all of the eggs are smashed. It it will turn out later, right, most of them are smashed. So then we follow the poachers some more. And I'm confused about what they're doing at this point because at first they were stealing eagle eggs, but then it shows them like aiming rifles at deer, so or the they just also happened to be hunting

deer at the same time they are poaching eggs. It's confusing because at first I thought, oh, I guess they're gonna shoot deer because they at one point they're like the white haired one, the Frank Brauna character. He's like, well, we gotta get out of here. This feels weird. There's something weird in the forest. Let's let's move. But then they seem to stop to consider shooting some deer, so maybe they're not in that big of a hurry. And then they stopped to camp, and so I think they're

not in a huge hurry after all. And then there are all these scenes where Brauna is using the rifle to just look at things and look at people doing things. So he's like aiming his high powered hunting rifle, I just random people in the forest. It's like the cop in Plan nine for Matter Space who just points his gun at people whenever he's talking to them. Yeah, but let's let's go back to the house, so we check

in with Tommy. He is we find more, Uh, we found out more about his his innate curiosity because he is examining a centipede under a microscope and he's looking at all the little legs and the overlapping plates and the body segments in the parts, and you can tell how much he just loves learning about the natural world. But oh, the fact that he's looking at a at a creature under a microscope. This leads to conflict with the guy I was thinking of his grandpapa. This is

uncle Bill. Uncle Bill apparently does not like the book learning it is witchcraft. Yeah, that's right. Uh, it's mentioned it's a centipede, and and Tommy gives the what is supposedly the scientific classification for the species, and Uncle Bill just hates this. He's like, no, it's a centipede to me, we call that a centipede. And it's just heated over it heated. This man is awful and and even Mom is not much help. She's like, well, it's dirty. It's

like it shouldn't be in here. Like there's just like Tommy has all this sweetness and innocence and curiosity, and it's just like Uncle Bill's just just pounding it into the dirt as to to the best of his ability. There is far more bacteria on Uncle Bill than there

is on the centipede. Come on. Yeah, Plus, you should be so lucky as to have this beautiful predator in your house hunting other packs, especially if it were a house centipede, which you know is spread with humanity around the world and are especially known for praying and all sorts of things you don't want in your house, like uh like like like bedbugs, for example, or cockroaches, So like you want a house centipede around, Okay, Finally we get to the band or the what do you call that?

I guess when I think of a band, I think of people who play instruments. This is a a singing group, a group of singers. Oh yeah, none of them are actually playing an instrument, right, there's just they're just singing over a prerecorded track. Um, so we see them recording in the studio. They're flying over trout and by this point we've essentially established the three movie formula. I know Mystery Science Theater also, uh thought about the movie this way,

but it makes a lot of sense. You've got movie A, which is the Poacher's movie B, which is the The Child with Pets, and then movie CEE, which is the singing group. Yeah, this toxic bunch of band members and their various hangers on and producers. They're just they're just awful, like this whole scene, like they're doing this terrible number, and Rick is just a perfectionist, an abusive perfectionist about the whole thing. Or he's like, it's awful, it stinks.

We're taking it from the top. Like you get the impression that he's one of these guys who's like, we're gonna do five hundred takes of this scene until we get it. We're gonna keep doing this track until we're exhausted, until we get it right. And of course they're not scaling Mount Everest here. We heard the song, we know

that it has absolutely garbage. Yeah, thinking of other people who do ridiculous excessive numbers of takes, I think of like Stanley Kubrick or something, and not that this makes that behavior acceptable, because I mean, even then, I think it could be considered wildly excessive, abusive to the cast and stuff. But at least with Kubrick, you end up with a good movie. Yeah, it's one thing if you're talking about someone who has also has a reputation for

high quality work. Like I want to say that that there are similar tales about Dr Dre being very um perfectionist when it comes to producing tracks and all um. But but at the end of the end of the day, do you have a Dr Dre produced track, do you have a Stanley Kuprick directed film? Now you have idiot control?

Now this is the wind in my eyes. Yeah. But okay, so they sing the song and then Rick, the lead singer, is is hideously abusive to all of the other singers, and then they're all going to pile into an r V and go up to the mountains for the weekend. Yeah. Perfect, ever getting along. Great, Let's let's take this to a

crowded camper and head out to a crowded gabin somewhere. Oh, and then there's conflict over the fact that so they're like open up the door to the r V. It's like, well, we all hate each other and we've been fighting, so let's let's go on and you know, spend the weekend in the woods. And they opened the door to the r V. And then here is like a lady who introduces herself as Laura. They say that she is the daughter of the ball loss of the record label. I think.

So it's like they've got to be nice to her because you know her her dad is deciding their musical fate. But immediately this causes problems between Rick the Jerk and his girlfriend Sharon, because it's for some reason immediately cleared that Rick and Laura this other lady are gonna, you know, they're gonna get together. And this other guy goes up, like the nice guy. I think his name is Brian. He goes up to the girlfriend Sharon, and he's like, don't worry about it. He says, this is a quote.

Making out with chicks is part of his act as an artist. Smooth, very smooth. Just every everyone in this group is awful or they're enabling of awfulness. It's yeah, it's it's but also it works. He says that, and she's like, yeah, you're right. That. Okay, you know, so let's go on a road trip with people we hate. And then there's a lot of driving scenes. We see them going up and down roads in the RV and

winding along while the music plays. More time is spent getting these characters to the countryside than getting that that space rock from its origin to the Earth. Meanwhile, we gotta check in with Tommy. And here's where things really start to cook, because Tommy runs off into the woods and he stumbles across the glowing red cave and he goes inside into the red fog and he sees a dead man with led lights on his forehead in the

pattern of the shape of the Big Dipper. And then Tommy's like, oh, this is a dead man with the Big Dipper on his head. Better steal one of these alien eggs now, I want to ask. This is a recurring motif where people in the movie who are killed by the aliens end up with the Big Dipper on their forehead in lights, and I'm wondering, number one, why does that happen? And number two, how does that happen? Yeah,

I have a lot of questions about this too. Later on Trump, he indicates that this is his home constellation, like this is where his mother is. So I guess Alien number one the non trump e is killing people or in some cases, perhaps finding dead people and writing the constellation on their forehead or making it appear with phosphorescent spores or something. Who knows what the zeno biological rationale is here, But I'm not sure why it would do this. Is it like it would be like us

riding earth on dead aliens that we killed? Yet um, I mean, I understand they want to go home, but you're not going to achieve that by just riding home on the forehead of of of your victims. So I'm not sure. I guess it's one of these things that don't overthink it. It looks kind of cool, it's kind of a neat effect. It just doesn't make a tremendous amount of sense. All right, I won't overthink it from now on. That's just what happens. Um so, so yeah,

Tommy grabs one of these eggs. He He's like, well, I'm gonna take this back home. Maybe it's religious. Maybe it's like like like we're thinking it's something bad. But as we as we later like these these these aliens, they just want to be our friends. Maybe this is like last rites for them. Huh yeah. Well, so here's a thing we're thinking about. An alien from the direction of the constellation of the Big Dipper would not see like it itself, would not look up into the sky

and see the Big Dipper as the Big Dipper. That is a feature of our perspective from Earth. So if it were doing this in some ritual way, it would have to be sort of for our benefit or in an earth directed sense, you know what I mean, Like that wouldn't be a native piece of imagery for them. M yeah, well in that case, it doesn't make any sense. Sorry, Trump, I can't help you. But anyway, So Tommy takes the boy home and we're gonna have some some good times

with the egg. He sneaks the egg into his bedroom. Um he uh, you know, he talks to his animals. I think his mom's like, Tommy, what were you out? You know, what were you doing at there? And Tommy lies, he says kitty was me owing. I thought he was hungry. But then after mom goes away, Tommy tells all of his other animals you just wait and see. You're gonna have a new friend soon. And then the kid goes to sleep hugging the egg. So it's so sweet. Now back to the kids, Uh, the kid, not the kids,

I mean the I don't know. The people in the r V. The singers, Uh, they're up to no good. They're they're just again just being nasty. Like the the record Executive's daughter Laura. She goes up to Rick, the jerk in the woods and she's like kiss me Rick, and he's like, well okay, and then then she immediately uh. In the next scene, they're like sitting around a campfire and she's taunting Rick's girlfriend like, tell her what we did in the woods. Rick and I don't know why.

They're just like absolutely unnecessarily cruel to each other in a way that doesn't even make sense as like normal types of cruelty. It's it just it's weird. Yeah, it just left feeling like these are all this horrible people and I don't care if an alien kills them in the woods. But this leads to uh, this leads to Sharon like throwing water in Laura's face or something, and then Laura runs away and then what did you think

happened here? What I thought happened was she like saw the poachers and then got scared and fell off the edge of a cliff. But not only saw the poachers, but one of the poachers, the non Frank Brauna poacher, and and and the non egg Smasher one who's dead of course. Uh yeah, the non Frank Brauna attempts to grab her and like a ductor or assault her or something. So he runs away from from him, and then she runs off the side of a cliff and and falls. Uhm,

it seems like quite a distance. She falls enough to where she's not completely unconscious at least. Yeah, And so they eventually the r V people come and find her, and they take her back to the r V and they try to I don't know, what does this medical scene. Yeah, they they're like, okay, she at least has a severe concussion so let's tuck her into bed and pour liquor down her throat. So they get a bottle of Jack Daniels or something, and they're treating it like it's a

potion of greater healing or something. But so they eventually they're gonna they're gonna show up at the house, right, So they arrive at the house of Tommy's family asking to use a phone. You know, our friend is hurt. We need to call for help. Um, uh and uh. And how does the family react? Uncle Bill doesn't take kindly to strangers. Of course. Yeah, he grabs a gun. That's his first reaction to the strangers at his door pleading for help. Um. And his attitude does not improve

much at all. When he finds out that they're in trouble. He's just like, all right, I guess we let him know. Yeah, yeah, But the phones, of course are out, they say because of the storm. But I don't think we've seen a storm. It's just I guess all that fog, that just hideous fog bank that's rolled in. Its just destroying phone lines and everything else. Here's a metal band name Storm of Fog. There you go. I like it. Also, the road is blocked, so they can't leave, so they're just stuck here at

the house. And they realized they're gonna have to spend the night and tomorrow they'll go find a radio in the rangers cabin and then use that to call for help. So this place must be very secluded. I noticed that they didn't make much use of it. But they had a bar in this film, in the in this environment, in this cabin that reminded me a lot of the bar in The Devil Girl from Mars. Yes, really well stocked, lots of brown liquors. Yeah, multiple shelves, like just that's

an extensive liquor collection. But I don't know, we don't really see people sitting around enjoying it. I guess they just didn't have time with all that's happening here. Meanwhile, the poachers are out camping in the woods, and if they're having a hard time, I thought they were going to be getting out of there, but they're just hanging around for some reason. I don't understand what the poachers

are doing. Yeah, they at first they acted like they realized something was wrong and they need to get the heck out of Dodge. But then they're not there's no real rush. Later on, you're like, all right, well, I guess we're walking out of here. They seem concerned about the fact that their truck is gone, but they don't really do anything about it. They accept that they're the really bad poacher says well, couldn't we steal those kids camper? And he's like, like, you idiot, you can't do that.

You've are already doing enough crimes here. We don't need more crimes. Yeah, it's the bearded one that wants to take the RV. The other guys, the frank brownna is more like they'll get us into more trouble. Yeah, we're just here to poach eggs. We're not here to kidnap. We're not here to steal vehicles. And the bearded guys like, well, we could do all those things. We have time, let's

do those things. But so they're camping out in the woods and they oh, they encounter an alien and I think this is the first time we actually get a look at what the alien body forms are like in this movie. So the alien is like, uh because sort of a furry uh squat Chewbacca style body, but much shorter, and then the head has like a pointy a pecks on top and then long ard vark snout and then

pointy elf ears. I thought this scene was rather effective because when we see the creature here, and we granted we have some context as well, we've seen presumably we've seen it kill already, but you know, it looks a little bit cute. There's some cuteness here. It's not just completely monstrous, but there's an uncanny nous to it as well. And then also the lighting is very dark. Are the human characters here are being uh, you know, very cautious

around it? Uh? And then another thing that I really like about the extraterrestrials in this film is the eyes they created for them are very expressive, Like they're very glassy, like living looking eyes that I think give them a lot of character. But to keep up with your theory that the alien only turns murderous because it is repeatedly exposed to aggression from humans early on. So it walks up to the campfire, I don't know what its original

plan is, but they start shooting it with the crossbow. Yeah, they're kind of like the bearded guy. He kind of he's like, hey, come on in, he's trying to small talk the alien. He's offering a big grotesque piece of meat that they've been cooking over the fire. Um, you know, just already kind of an unsettling display. But then Frank Brownna tries to net it. They fire a crossbow bolt at it, and the bolt hits it in the hits the alien in the chest. So yeah, these are not

good ambassadors who have a humanity here. Meanwhile, back at the house, Oh, that eggs hatchen uh pops open. There's a little kind of greasy, slimy little alien in there, and so cute. So it's not cute yet, it's already cute. It's already cute. It's simmy little like like fetal elephant creature. And uh yeah, I don't know. I thought it was cute. Okay, I won't argue with you. Um. He starts feeding the alien food. It's eating a lot. It really enjoys vacuuming

up milk with its snout. He names it trumpy. I assume that's because it has a long snout and so that is like a trumpet. I don't think that's ever made explicit, but that's what I guess. Yeah, I don't know. It could also originate in one of the two original languages for the film. I don't know. Maybe it makes even more sense in French or or or in Spanish. I don't know. But the kids like, oh, we're gonna play now that you're getting bigger. Do you know what

playing is Trumpy? And Trumpy does not know, but Trump Peop will find out. So this is the world that Trumpy has is introduced to. This is the human world that he's introduced to, A world of of of copious amounts of food. A lot of it is breakfast, cereals, toys, play, um, friendship,

all the things that were denied to extraterrestrial one. But remember now this is all taking place in the same house where the RV singers are staying overnight, and apparently Laura, the record executive's daughter who fell off the cliff, she dies overnight and they come and see her and they see something as horrible about her face. We already know what it is. It's going to be the you know, the big dipper with the lights um. But I guess overnight,

also Trumpy becomes much bigger. He grows from like the size of a little toy on the on the shelf to basically the same size as Tommy. Uh. And we see that this great scene that is hilarious in the Mystery Science Theater version where Trumpy is just surveying the buffet of Tommy's pets, panting over the rabbits and the hamsters and the cat and all that stuff. Yeah, they make some great riffs in the in that episode about

him considering eating all these animals. But but in this in the original film, uh, he does not eat any of the animals. And I kind of get the sense that these are vegetarians, that they don't eat meat, which makes the earlier offering of the grotesque meat by the bearded poacher even more fitting. You know, He's like, like, come here, organism. Would you like some more organism? But in this scene we also discover via interactions with a

toy robot that trump E has telekinesis. Oh yes, like not not even just a little bit like not just a little bit of carry White, but like full power Carrie White, like full almost godlike telekinetic powers. Well ET does too. I think this is an ET touch from ET. Yeah, does E t like bring the whole room to life? It's been so long since I've seen ET. I think so, yeah, I think there's a scene where Et does basically the same thing Trump. He does, like makes all the you know,

the toys fly around and stuff. I feel like Trump he probably does it better. I feel like I'm if I were to watch ET again, I would side with the Trumpy um cut because Trump basically uses a Simon game to cut a synth track like this Carnival scynth track that starts playing like Trump. He does this by manipulating the Simon software. I did not expect your take on this movie to be so anti Et. I mean, he's fine, you can't hate Et. But but I also I don't. I've also I've seen Et like once in

my life. I've seen pod people or extraterrestrial visitors multiple multiple times. What else does Trump e eat? So I'm trying to think do they ever feed him meat? We see him suck up a bunch of milk. We see Tommy bring him oh, a big old thing of Planters peanuts and you can see the label. So, I mean, Planners surely they paid for that place, you know they did? This is the the Reese's treatment, right, And they do a special effect where you know Trump, He's snout is

like a vacuum cleaner, and it's sucking up all the peanuts. Uh. When we in this scene, we get some really good looks at Trump's eyes. Noticed Trumpy has a vertical slit pupils. Oh nice, Yeah, again these are lovely eyes. Um, whoever did this this costume? I feel like they they kind of knocked it out of the park. I like it. But Trump, he learns puzzles and games. He telekinetically solves

a puzzle, uh, and manipulates a simon says thing. Uh, there's a there's a bonding scene where Tommy is drawing, and he draws this hideous picture and says, that's my mommy. Do you have a mommy? Yeah? His picture of his mom looks like a Rick Flair Pez dispenser yep. Uh. It also it looks absolutely nothing like his mommy, Like it's not even close, not even the same hair color. But anyway, this is the Trumpy. You can do magic

things here. Uh. The scene and and Trump he turns the child's bedroom into a living nightmare of carnival music, flickering lights, dancing toys, terrorizing the pets. Uh. He sticks to the ceiling like Baron Harcon and it's great. Yeah. And also his eyes glow like stars. It's it's it's pretty great. Now is this the scene where Trump he says where his mommy is and points out the constellation? I think so, because I think he shows in the

picture Tommy's picture of his own mommy. He says, where's your mommy, and He's like, he points, and Tommy's like, oh, your mommy, You mean the trees. Your Mommy's in the trees and He's like, no. Trumpy points that a map of the constellations and causes one of the constellations the one of the dippers took low. Yeah, now exactly like an et. Also, there's a whole thing of Tommy trying to hide Trumpy from his family, like hiding him in

the closet and stuff. Obviously this is more difficult. Well, while Trump he is playing DJ in the bedroom, but there's the distraction of of a of a dead woman downstairs, so I guess that probably helps cover things up. They're not as concerned about what new animal Tommy has a snuck into the house. But at one point and maybe later but uh, mom gets short with Tommy and She's like, like, oh, more animals, they're all going out tomorrow. Yeah, that sounds

kind of kind of harsh, mom. You know, he loves these animals even come on, that's an empty threat. Uh. But meanwhile, speaking of grizzly murders, Grandpa and one of the r V kids they go off looking for the ranger station. I think this is the guy Brian who earlier was like, Hey, you know, don't worry about Rick making out with other girls. That's just part of his act. Brian and Uh and Uncle Billy. They go to the

ranger station. Uncle Bill just walks around pointing his gun at everything, and they find one of the poachers inside, but he is dead and he's got a big dipper in lights on his forehead, just like everybody else. And then one of the aliens attacks them. It seemingly kills the RV dude, and Grandpa escapes. Now here's a question

I wonder about um. Are we are we as the audience supposed to be wondering if this is Trumpy doing the killing since in the scene right before this Trump he sneaks off and disappears, or are we supposed to assume that this is a different alien that just looks identical to Trumpy. I think we discover it is a different alien, but I don't know if that's intentionally supposed to be an open question or not. Yeah, I'm not sure on this because it it seems like, on one hand,

the killing started before Trump he hatched. So if we're just looking at the timeline of events, we we can't pin all the murders on Trumpy. There has to be a A has to be another A, a primary alien out there, extradrestrial one. So I don't I have a hard time understanding how we the viewer are supposed to think Trump he might be doing this. But also it's hard to reflect on this because I it's been so long since I had a fresh viewing of this, Like it seems like I've always known that Trump he was

innocent and incapable of murder. He is blameless. Did you notice the Ranger cabin in the woods here has framed portraits of Ronald Reagan on the wall. Yeah? Yeah, that that made me laugh. I feel like there was after I saw it. I have a vague recollection of there being a riff about the Gipper or something in the Nst three episode, but it is an odd inclusion because this again is Spain. It's supposed to be Spain, and it's filmed in Spain. I don't know why Ronald Reagan's

on the wall. Uh. So we see the alien kill another one of the band members. This is the singer Tracy. He just he kills her in the r V. And oh, this time, Tommy happens to be looking through the telescope at the down at the r V outside I guess to witness this, and because the aliens look the same, he thinks Trumpy is the killer. Oh no, there there

is a rift between them. Now. Now, this is definitely the point at which, yeah, it's hard to imagine that this particular murder was itself on that that it was provoked in anyway, This seems to be an unprovoked killing by exterrestrial one. Yeah, Tracy, what do you think Tracy attacked the alien? No? I mean, Tracy is just Jesus chilling. Yeah. Anyway, the rest of the survivors are all hold up in the cabin um. Oh except Tommy for some reason, like he runs off into the into the bog and fog

to to find Trumpy. And here there is a really weird scene where there's a standoff between uncle Bill and Rick, the jerk lead singer, where uncle Bill's like, have you ever used a gun before? And Rick says, I don't need a gun to defend myself, and then uncle Bill says, yeah, you probably pay others to defend you. And then Rick aims the rifle at at Grandpa here at Uncle Bill

and then shoots in his direction without hitting him. He like shoots a glass beside him on the bar, and then everybody's like, why are you shooting at uncle Bill? And he goes, I don't like anyone bugging me. Yeah, this is the act of of a rational character that we're supposed to right for now, Tommy comes back to so he ran off into the woods. Then he comes back and he finds Trumpy in his bedroom and playful happy music is chiming. But then there begins this mad

exchange between Tommy's a voice again. This is dubbed by like an adult woman, I think, and and trump. He's various like head nods and headshake to communicate. Uh so the kid is saying Trumpy, no, stay there, stay away. Why did you kill that girl? Why did you kill that girl? Why did you do that. Now I can't be your friend anymore. Naughty Trumpy, very naughty. Now they'll kill you. But but Trumpy, I think, is able to

explain himself with head nods somehow. He's like no, no, wasn't me, shaking his head, and then the kids like was it someone else? Did another one do this? And Trumpy nods. He's protesting his innocence, and so eventually I think Tommy is convinced that Trump he is innocent, and for some reason he dresses Trumpy up like a jahwa like. He puts a coat with a hood on over him. I'm not sure what the purpose of that is. I

guess to sneak him out of the house. But there are no other children anywhere in the vicinity in the film at all, so I don't I don't know exactly what time he was hoping to pull off with this. This is just my friend, the bipedal ardvark who wears a raincoat. Yeah, so we get another random alien attack. The r Trumpy species alien attacks one of the RV ladies in the bathroom. We get a mirror scare where she wipes the fog off of the bathroom mirror and

it's standing behind her and then it attacks. Uh. There are more scenes of Tommy and Trumpy arguing to Tommy saying that you have to hide or they'll kill you. And eventually this all comes to a head when uh, when the mother and Sharon I think see Trumpy. They're like the kids trying to sneak him through the house and they're like, there, it's that monster. And Tommy tries to explain. He says, no, it wants to be our friend. He's good, he's good. Um, they all want to be

our friends, but we won't let them. And of course the mother doesn't believe that, so so Tommy and Trump he really have no choice. They flee into the woods. And here in the woods, you think the other alien is about to sneak up on Tommy and and give him what for, but Trumpy intervenes. Yeah, we finally have extraterrestrial one and extra terrestrial to a k a. Trumpy meeting up in the woods. Now, eventually there's a big showdown Uncle Bill and Rick that they shoot the other alien,

the non trumpet alien. Grandpa is killed in this scuffle, but Rick blasts the alien to death and then it like turbo berries its own body telekinetically. Yeah, we have another self burying monster, kind of like the some of the creatures in Crawl. It's a great effect. I like it. I'd like to see more of it in my monster films. And there's a tearful goodbye between Tommy and Trumpy. You know, it's like they'll never accept you, Trumpy, we cannot be together.

And the humans all walk off together and Trumpy is left behind in the woods and finally he wanders away into the mist. You never know if he gets back to his home planet or not, or or what happens to him. He just wanders away, and then roll credits and Rick survives. Yeah, that's that's the weird choice. Perhaps the product of this film probably changed its direction and priorities at some point in production. They're like, oh, we

forgot to do anything with Rick. That's all right, But I have to say that this the ending to this film. It got me. I I teared up a bit, you know, because the aliens, it turns out, you know, they are good, and in fact it's not just a matter where okay, Trump is good, but the other one is purely evil. Like we have that moment where Trumpy is able to communicate with its its fellow alien, and and this seems to maybe even convince him of some of this stuff like, no, okay,

a lot of these humans are bad, but Tommy's cool. Um, they have this moment, so the aliens are good. Tommy's good. Humanity itself is just hostile and violent and mean spirited. And Tommy and Trumpy are just too good for the world, and and so, but but but what happens. Tommy has to push Trumpy away, has to send him off into the woods where, you know, either he does find a way back to his home plan or he just lives in the woods as like a wild being, like a sasquatch,

for the rest of his life. And we're left wondering, like, can Tommy retain his sweetness and goodness as he continues on in this world? Uh? Is he? Or is he saying goodbye not only to his friend Trump. Is he not only pushing Trumpy away from him, but is he pushing away his own innocence and his own hope for a sweeter world? And I think that's that's that's all going through my head here as I was I was

tearing up watching this. Uh, this, this poor extraterrestrial being left in the foggy woods and then walking off into the wilderness. The gospel of Trumpy. Yeah, and we also we have some some very potent synth music playing over all this, so that that also helped. So, like like I said, I'm I'm no, I'm reading a lot into this film. And also this film is you know, it's coming in the wake of ET, It's patterning itself off of existing media, and in doing so, it's retaining some

of the inherent messages in those in those pictures. But I don't know. Also maybe Simone here, you know, he was he was trying to to to get this message across. Maybe he was trying to say something about about the world and about childhood innocence. I don't know. Like I feel like that the film does have a heart, you know,

there's still there's still some heart there. And what heart is there is genuine I wonder what, you know, what kind of new themes and possibilities emerge from a sort of a patch over job like this, Because I can't remember if we already said this, I at least read about this movie. I think you may have alluded to this that it was originally intended to be just more of a heartless kind of like alien slasher movies, just more like night Beast or something. It's just about an

alien that runs around killing people. And then e T came out and they were like, oh, we gotta make this a sweet story about the bond between a child and an alien and a child's love and um friendship from the hearts of space and and trying to smash those two things together makes for such a weird product, but maybe also having some elements that would not have been achieved had it just been an attempt to create

an et rip off from the beginning. Yeah, that's a great question because he kind of reminds me again of Gremlins, where the original Gremlins movie, by being totally inconsistent, seems to have a core message of hey, kids, monsters exist and there's no Santa Claus, you know, which which clearly was nobody's key intention. But I think that's probably what comes comes. This is kind of thing that emerges when priorities shift and the tone changes, and the tone is

inconsistent throughout a picture. Every day I feel closer to doing Gremlins too. Oh yeah, I think it's it's a grand idea. I think we should we should make it be our Christmas episode this year. Having done e t V, we have to do G two. No stopping it all right, Well that is extra Terrestrial Visitors or visitors or e v P, or of course, um, the Hatching of Monsters. I think the Hatching of Monsters is really good because

it also because we have different types of monsters. We have the alien monster and we have the human monsters. I think it's a good title. I wish they I kind of wish it's stuck with that across translations. UM. As always, we'd love to hear from anyone out there if you have particular thoughts and memories insight about this picture. You know, perhaps you you know, like us, grew up watching the MSG three K episode, perhaps you have prior

experience with pod people or than or extraterrestrial visitors. Uh, definitely right in and let us know. And hey, if you do find a superior copy of the film out there that we're not aware of, let us know. I'm hoping that if it doesn't exist now, at some point in the future, that will be the next big one, because there there are a lot of worse films that get get the restoration treatment. Uh and uh and And

I'm not not saying that that's bad. It's probably just a case of nobody's found superior footage from extraterrestrial visitors yet, but I hope they do. Maybe it's self buried itself in the in this Spanish forest somewhere it wants to be found. All right, until next time? Weird How Cinema publishes every Friday and the Stuff to Blow your Own podcast feed were primarily a science podcast with core episodes on Monday. No no core episodes on Tuesdays and Thursday.

Sorry mondays, that's a listener mail Wednesday that's artifact, were Monster Factor short form episode, and on the weekends we do a rerun. Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Seth Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other, to suggest a topic for the future, or just to say hello, you can email us at contact at Stuff to Blow your Mind dot com. Stuff to Blow Your Mind It's production of I Heart Radio.

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