Teenagers from Outer Space
A brief summary before we continue. A spaceship full of 35 year-old "teenagers" lands on the planet Earth in search of a suitable environment to raise their planet's main source of food, gargons. Gargons, which suspiciously look a lot like the earth-dwelling crawdad, can grow to the size of a building in mere days...somehow. We learn that the gargons can't survive on earth. However, this doesn't stop the ufo's captain, Thor, from insisting to bring the gargons to earth despite the obvious loss of human life which would ensue (wait...I thought they couldn't survive on earth, why do you want to bring them here again?). The humanitarian of the group with the bizarre alien name of Derek runs away from his hell-bent cohorts and finds shelter in the home of an old man with a cute granddaughter, Betty. This being the 50's and all, grandpa has no problem with letting someone in a weird uniform and no explanation of their past stay with them free of charge.
The rest of the movie leads the viewer through a downward spiral of numerous chase scenes (it's more like, Thor asks grandpa where Derek and
Betty went, Thor goes to look for them, doesn't find them, then goes back to grandpa to ask again, and again, and again). Sometime during the 'chase'
scenes Derek promises Betty that he will never leave Earth. This promise is made true at the end of the movie when Derek gets inside of the ufo and
navigates all of the earth-bound-gargon-carrying ufo's to crash directly into his ship on Earth. What a hero!This movie, of course, had ray-guns. And what a spectacular piece of equipment this was! Apparently, the aliens had designed a gun which would remove the flesh from the victim's bones, leaving only the skeleton to ponder why it foolishly attempted to defy this superior race. And why are they so superior? Well, it's obvious isn't it? Look at how cold-hearted and obedient Thor is. Aren't all advanced races oblivious to other races? Back to the gun. Why not just make a gun that destroyed the bones also? Would that have been so difficult for the alien engineers, or did the prop crew just really want to use those plastic skeletons? And I thought the ray-gun removed all material around the bones, how are all the bones in the skeletons staying together in their proper place? Wouldn't they separate and crumble? Oh right, I forgot about the bone that runs through all of our bones connecting one to the other, never mind. And what is it about this gun that removes flesh from bones yet at the same time sets trees on fire? How does this happen? I must have missed their in depth and scientifically accurate explanation. But I can imagine how it would sound, "When we shoot a human, the gun recognizes that it is a human and therefore disintegrates the flesh. When we shoot a tree, the gun doesn't recognize it as a human so it sets it on fire." We learn more about this gun when Derek recovers a broken one from a fight with Thor. The ray-gun runs on electricity! Isn't that convenient when you're fighting a crawdad shadow in the mountains of southern California? Just plug in a downed power line, call up your local power plant and tell them to crank up the juice. Just tell them you're fighting a crawdad shadow and I'm sure he'll give you as much power as you need.
The gargons are what really did it for me. Did people not know back then what crawdad's looked like? Maybe they didn't, I'm not sure. What I
loved most about the gargons was their hideous, blood-curling scream. I read that this movie cost $20,000 to make. How much did they pay the guy to
make the gargon noises? If you'd like to imitate the gargon scream, simply collect a little bit of saliva in your throat, prepare to go falsetto, and
try to sound like a baby dinosaur coming out of an egg. I wonder if they filmed the scream on location during the shoot or if they went to the
recording studio to get it "just right". I was impressed, however, at the beautiful choreography done by those who were attacked by the
shadow-gargon.
The final scene wasn't thought out very well, surprise, surprise. With everyone important in the movie gathered together by the cave where the
aliens first landed, Derek jumps into the ufo and navigates all of the incoming ufo's (a couple hundred) into his own ship. Now, maybe there's a sense
of obedience in these aliens that I just don't understand (Derek aside), but did no aliens question this decision when they heard this unfamiliar voice
coming over the radio? Regardless, the ufo's crash right into Derek's spaceship. Let's see, hundreds of ufo's, little time to react, where should we
all hide? I know, in this small cave 30 feet from the ufo! What the heck?! So hundreds of spaceships crash 30 feet from you and because you hid 5
feet into a pathetic little cave, you're not harmed? I guess not. Well, that's the end of the story. But it wouldn't be complete without a
Mufasaesque floating Derek head in the sky smiling down on earth, and that's exactly what we get.
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