Cast:
Ian Sera, Nina Ferrer, Susanna Bequer, Sara Palmer
Director:
Juan Piquer Simón
Genre:
Sci-Fi, Horror
The
next movie on our list is a French-Spanish collaboration called Los
Nuevos Extraterrestres, which I believe means The New Extra
Terrestrial or The New Extra Testicle, (it’s one or other).
If
it’s The New Extra Terrestrial, then I’m sure you’ll agree this
sounds a little bit familiar. When I then tell you that this
movie is the story of a young boy and his small alien pal, then I
think the penny may finally start to drop. That’s right, it
sounds exactly like that 80’s cult classic, Mac and Me, (1988),
which has also appeared on our bad movies list, (see blog here).
It
also sounds a little bit like ET – The Extra Terrestrial and that
is no coincidence. The story goes that this movie was in
development but that the studio wanted to cash in on the success of
ET. This meant that some changes were made to the story, but
more about that later.
The
only copy of the movie we could find was in Spanish and the only
English version was the MST3K version. So I enrolled in a
Spanish evening class hoping to get a sound foundation of the
language so I could get the gist of the movie.
Only
joking, we took the easy option.
Firstly,
a brief review of the MST3K version; it’s a Joel episode, which
normally I’m not so keen on because I preferred Mike episodes, but
this one is actually incredibly funny. In fact it’s one of
the funniest MST3Ks I’ve seen in a while and I encourage you to
check it out.
Anyway,
onto the movie and as I previously said, the studio changed the
original storyline to make it more family friendly. So did this
have an adverse effect? It was time to find out…..
The
movie begins with the worst hunters since Elmer Fudd trying to poach
deer. One of the hunters stumbles upon a cave which contains
many glowing large red eggs. He decides to make the world’s
biggest omelette and starts smashing them to bits. He is just
about to add sliced mushrooms when something stops him and promptly
kills him.
Nearby,
a band that produce some of the blandest music possible are on a
camping holiday. They are led by Rick, (Ian Sera), his
girlfriend Sharon, (Nina Ferrer), producer Brian, (Emilio Linder), Kathy,
(Sarah Palmer), Tracy, (Maria Albert) and Roberta, (a little gag for you G’N’R’
fans ).
There is also hanger on, Lara, (Susanna Bequer), who Rick is secretly trying
to cop of with. Lara is so excited about sneaking around with
Rick that she runs through the woods, encounters an alien and then
throws herself off a cliff.
Meanwhile
Tommy, (Oscar Martin), has also found the cave which now has one
remaining glowing red egg. Tommy fancies eggy soldiers and so
steals the egg, unaware that Mummy alien is snoozing nearby.
Tommy
takes the egg back to his mum’s, (Concha Cuetos) and Uncle Bill’s,
(Manuel Pereiro), house nearby where it hatches, (the egg, not the
house). Tommy is amazed as the creature inside grows overnight
and in the morning is as tall as Tommy! The alien looks like
ALF with a trumpet sellotaped to his face and so Tommy calls him
Trumpy, (and also he farts like a good ‘un!). Tommy and
Trumpy become good friends and Trumpy keeps Tommy amused by moving
objects around his bedroom using only the power of Telekinesis whilst
some funny music plays at double speed in the background.
Meanwhile,
Rick and the band turn up at Tommy’s house with Laura who is in a
bad way. Laura is put into a spare room by Tommy’s mum who cares
for her. Laura returns the favour by promptly dying and
developing black dots on her forehead.
Sensing
something isn’t right, Rick, Brian, and Uncle Bill, set out to
investigate the area and call for help. They bump into mummy
alien who is very cross and has killed another hunter also leaving a
series of black dots on his head, (which shocked me. I
completely forgot these guys were still in the movie). She then
descends onto Tommy’s house to find Trumpy and to tell him off for
not coming home for tea.
Tommy,
peeping through this telescope, has seen most of the action and
realises the others may also want to get to Trumpy before he turns
into a big cuddly psychopathic killer…….
Can Tommy save
Trumpy? What do the black dots mean? Is the 3rd
hunter still in the movie?
Watch The New
Extra-Terrestrials to find out!
If I had to sum
up this movie in one word, it is confused. For example, let’s
start with the actual title of the movie. I know it was
originally called Los Nuevos Extraterrestres, but in English I have
seen it called The New Extra Terrestrial, Extra Terrestrial Visitors
and in the case of MST3K, The Pod People. No wonder we couldn’t
find a copy of the blooming thing as no-one seems to know what it’s
called!
Then there’s
the opening sequence, which is very confusing. It does involve
a hunter finding an egg, but I must admit the alien does look very
different….. This is because the opening sequence is lifted
directly from another movie called Galaxy Invader, (1985). How
the hell they got away with stealing scenes from another movie is
beyond me. More puzzling is how on earth Galaxy Invader did not
make it into our top 100 bad movies!
The first 20
minutes of the movie are incredibly confusing as they seem to be 3
different movies. A movie about some hunters going poaching,
a movie about a crap music group camping and a movie about a young
boy who lives in a cabin in the middle of some woods.
Eventually when Tommy visits the cave that the hunter had done
previously it starts to connect, but until then I really thought 3
movies were spliced into one, each more crap than the last.
I would
normally rate the acting but as Wes has alluded to already, going
this far into the list you can just assume from here in that it’s
bad. Madonna bad! This movie is not helped by the dubbing
however, which leads to more confusion. The actor is angry; the
voice is flat and unemotional. The actor is sad; the voice is
flat and unemotional. The actor is flat and unemotional, the
voice starts shouting. I sort of wished I had taken that
Spanish class after all just to clear up the confusion!
But the biggest
and single most confusing thing about the movie is, well, erm, the
movie! As I said, the studio changed the
original storyline to make it more family friendly. Did this
have an adverse effect? You bet it did!
Originally,
The Pod People was supposed to be about some aliens that go on a
killing spree. As the hunter instigated the fight by smashing
the eggs, this could have been interesting as the alien seeks
revenge. Do we side with the alien? Do we side with the
humans? Do we cheer as the killing moves onto the ‘music’
group?
Either
way, it would have been a low budget horror, job done.
Then
they were forced to include a storyline in which the killer alien and
a young boy become good friends. That’s just a bit odd to say
the least. What are we supposed to do? Cheer Trumpy as he
performs his cute little stop animation tricks and then slaughters
his best pal? Cheer Tommy as he manages to keep Trumpy safe so
he can kill again and again? Hope killer and child are
happy together forever?
What on earth were they thinking? If the alien
was a human and was Hannibal Lector, would we be expected to swallow
this storyline? What if Trumpy was Freddy Kruger or Jason?
You could dress Leatherface in all the cute attire you could find,
but I would still not be hoping the new pals stay together at the end
of the movie!
The
end result is this confused mess of a movie shamelessly trying to
cash in on the success of ET. Avoid the original movie at all
costs, but do check out the MST3K version which is definitely one of
the best I have ever seen.
MacCloud!
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