The Eye Creatures (1965)
Sweet Zombie Jesus, this is quite possibly the most boring movie I have ever seen. And that's saying a lot, because Pam makes me watch a lot of bad movies. It's the cinematic equivalent to Western Kansas on a muggy August day, endlessly bland and sleep coma-inducing 99% of the time, and only slightly, fleetingly interesting for the other 1%. Actually, at least in Western Kansas you might see an overturned semi or maybe a tornado every couple of hundred miles, in The Eye Creatures you get nothing but drywall paste drying slowly...so slowly, as your brain gradually shuts down and you drift into REM sleep... And it doesn't have to be this way, really. The premise, plot, and theme are stolen like a TV in a race riot from virtually every 1950s genre b-movie, 1957's Invasion of the Saucer Men in particular, and the seeds of a much more entertaining film are indeed here. You have a willing and able hero and his airhead girlfriend in a polyester dress, you have the dumbass local cops and the meddling US Gubbmint, and you have a UFO and a landing brigade of horrifying alien killers. Surely you can make a somewhat thrilling movie out of those parts, right? Seriously, how hard can it be to have the UFO land in a blaze of lasers and photon torpedoes, the aliens burst out and fry some cows and melt some tanks, the law and the Gubbmint to stand around ineffectually drawing up maps and expending missiles uselessly, and the hero to save the day in the third act by parachuting into the aliens' hive with a flamethrower before closing it out by caveman-clubbing his lovestruck gal and flicking a wink at the camera? Not that hard, ask Michael Bay. But The Eye Creatures is a failure on all counts, from molasses pacing, to the disinterested and clearly unpaid cast, to the hubcab and spraypaint UFO, to the continual doses of amphetamines I had to inject directly into my chest cavity to keep me awake past the opening credits.
Pam, you have anything to add before you begin your first part of the review? Am I being too harsh?
Let me think about this, Nate...No, you're being completely accurate. Our readers may remember in the review for Plan 9 from Outer Space, we both agreed that there were worse movies out there. Well, this is one of them. Okay, I'll be fair, in one way it's better than Plan 9: the sets don't wobble. The Eye Creatures was made by Larry Buchanan, a man who rejoiced in the title of "schlockmeister" given to him for the sort of movies he made. His IMDb biography shows that early in his career he showed some promise as a director, but somewhere along the line, he obviously decided to set his sights very low. He specialized in cranking out low-budget movies for low-rent theaters. His movies are universally terrible, but he knew his market. The movies he made never failed to break even or make money, and he had a long career in the movie business. In addition to directing, he also produced, wrote, and edited some of his movies, and even did some acting (he was a contract player for Fox in the 1940s).
Larry Buchanan, he just looks like a schlocky b-movie director.
The opening tries to work up a little suspense, as we see a man with a briefcase handcuffed to his wrist walking down a hall. You know, I've heard of this being done, but I've never seen it in real life, and is it even a good idea? Isn't it just advertising that there's something very important in this briefcase? You might as well be saying, "Go ahead, hit me over the head, drag me into a dark alley, and cut through the handcuff. Whatever's in this case is totally worth it." Are the people who do this assuming that most petty thieves who roam the streets won't be carrying hacksaws? But what about the bad guys who are looking for what the person is carrying...Oh, well, much as I'd like to debate the utility of this means of carrying around valuable objects, I sense Nate glaring at me, so I'd better get back to the movie.
Be warned that my print is pretty fuzzy, even though it's the "special edition", so the screen caps are spotty at best.
Anyway, we can assume that whatever's in the briefcase is terribly important. The man carrying it is confronted by a guard that seemingly is in the Air Force, but the only way you know is because he's wearing light-blue shirt and pants, with no insignia other than sergeant's chevrons on his sleeves, and what looks like a blue construction hard hat. Oh, this is really cheesy. Even Ed Wood was able to spring for authentic-looking pilots' uniforms and police uniforms. How much could it cost to rent an Air Force uniform for a day?
I'm really hoping grandpa here isn't the last line of perimeter security.
The man with the briefcase is greeted by an older man wearing the same kind of plain light blue pants and shirt. He has no chevrons on his sleeves, so I guess he's also in the Air Force and an officer, or possibly a repairman here to fix the air conditioner, for all you can tell by looking at him. He acts like an officer, anyway, as he opens the briefcase, removes a small film reel and a (very thin) file of papers concerning "Project Visitor," and says that civilization itself may depend on this file! What, oh what could be in it?
Hey, remember when we didn't have eFax?
The officer requests Lieutenant Robertson from Security Sector Three to come to his office immediately, and the lieutenant promptly does so. He, too, is wearing insignia-less blue pants and shirt, but he does have a dark-blue overseas cap to lend a little more credibility to his status as an Air Force officer. The officer informs the lieutenant that he must not take notes but must remember everything, so this information must be hot stuff indeed. The officer goes on to say that it has been determined that Sector Three is the most probable place for the next contact, so those of us who have watched a lot of alien-invasion movies can pretty much figure out what's going on. And sure enough, the lieutenant is shown a film of standard design flying saucer approaching the Earth. Well, not quite standard, this one's a double-decker saucer with some lights.
The UFO, over what looks like a set from a Godzilla movie.
The film was prepared by "our UFO division," so it appears that this is not the first time flying saucers have been spotted from Earth. For reasons unknown, the voice on the film says that it is presumed to be unfriendly. It closes by saying that absolutely none of this information is to be released to the general public. And here we have the same basic background as in Plan 9, that flying saucers are all around us, the Government knows, but is keeping the information from us. Also as in Plan 9, there's no explanation given about why none of the professional and amateur astronomers keeping track of the night sky have ever caught a glimpse of these saucers. The lieutenant, now primed with this new knowledge, is ordered back to Sector Three and told to have the "infrared scanners" manned 24 hours a day.
This 8mm film holds the key to our future as a species.
In contrast to the solemnity of this scene, we next see a couple of Air Force enlisted men who are supposed to be using the infrared scanners to look for flying saucers, but instead (yuk, yuk) decide to use the scanners to spy on couples at the local Makeout Point. These scanners are really great, by the way, but sadly the technology must have been lost sometime between 1965 and now, because not only can they focus in within inches of whatever object the operators want to see, they can even pick up sound! Of course, the scanner's task is made easier by the fact that all the couples, and there are many of them, appear to have gone parking in broad daylight. I assume that this scene must have been intended to be shot day-for-night, but something went wrong. Did they forget the filter? Or was the conversion supposed to have been made post-production? There are many other scenes in this movie where the conversion of day to night was never made, which doesn't do much for the suspense.
I know the Gubbmint is suppressing this technology.
The enlisted men are having a wonderful time, but their fun is spoiled when the Lieutenant pops in and reminds them that looking for flying saucers is a matter of national security. However, he doesn't seem to be taking the situation as seriously as you would think he should, based on the scene with the officer, and the three men yuk it up some more over the amorous couples. All three of the men are played by actors who look much too old to be so mesmerized by some teenagers kissing. Their dialogue must have been written by somebody who thought he was writing for McHale's Navy, although he's nowhere near good enough to get a job doing that.
Blondie does not like to be watched.
The writer must have run out of funny things to say about the Air Force, and we switch to a bar called the White Rock Terrace. We see dancing couples and meet a couple of penny-ante con men, Mike and Carl, who will play a role in the developing events. Carl, the one with the floppy hair, tries a lame pickup line on the gum-chewing waitress and strikes out. Mike, the one with greased-down hair, says that's typical of how dead this town is and wants to go home. Carl, however, feels that "this town is a cinch for a quick buck" and wants to set up some sort of "pitch" at the fairgrounds. Mike continues to grouse and finally goes home, but Carl decides to go out and see what, or rather who, he can pick up.
Carl has used car salesman hair.
Carl might not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, because he chooses the Lover's Lane as the place he's going to prowl. Surely all the girls there are already paired off? Is he hoping one will walk out on her boyfriend and let him step in? However, Carl is in for a more exciting evening than he thought, because after he gets there, he sees a flying saucer overhead. Girls fade into insignificance next to this, and he speeds off to get a closer look. He gets close enough to get a good look, then he jumps in his car and heads home.
Hey, is that legendary b-movie director John Waters?
Back at the White Rock Terrace, somebody who looks like Don Knotts on a bad day has spotted the saucer, and he runs inside to tell his friends. They dismiss it, and one of them, Stan Kenyon, goes off to meet his girlfriend. The Lieutenant happens to be there and overhears them, and he tells them emphatically that there's no such thing as a flying saucer, nosirree! Stan Kenyon is the movie's leading man and is played by John Ashley, the only real actor in the cast. Like Larry Buchanan, his early career showed promised but petered out. He acted in some beach blanket movies and ended up as a producer of, and star in, Filipino exploitation movies, which is pathetic. He's good-looking in a generic unmemorable way. His girlfriend, Susan, is a pretty brunette who has one of the most amazing hairdos I've ever seen. I have no idea how she made her hair do that, and I wouldn't be surprised if the backward-slanting beehive isn't actually false hair she pinned on. Actually, when you look at it closely, it doesn't seem to be quite the same color as the rest of her hair.
Susan and Stan share some saliva. Stan is clearly middle-aged, though he's supposed to be a "teenager".
Stan and Susan have gone parking at the Lover's Lane in Stan's convertible, and things are warming up. Stan adds the final touch by producing an engagement ring, which Susan eagerly accepts. In the meantime, Carl has burst in on Mike, who is asleep and not happy about being woken up. Carl's response to seeing a flying saucer is to make plans to put it on exhibition at the fairgrounds, confirming my deduction that he's an idiot. Mike will have none of this and goes back to sleep. At Lover's Lane, Stan and Susan have decided to head home, presumably to tell their parents the happy news. Disaster strikes on the narrow dirt road back to town, as they hit -- something. I'll let Nate continue with this wonderful movie now. Anybody want to guess what it is they hit?
I'm really hoping it's a landmine, because I already hate these two idiots.
Thanks, Pam. No, really, thanks a lot, really, I mean it. Thanks. So this scene opens with our happy couple driving along in Stan's classy pink Thunderbird in the dark with the lights off when they hit something. They get out to check on it and are shocked (somewhat) to see that it's a dead alien! A conveniently timed lightning flash reveals that it's an Eye Creature (that name is never spoken in dialogue, but it's in the title), and Stan's intimate knowledge of alien biology tells him that it's dead. No explanation is ever give as to why this alien was standing in the road to begin with, you'd think intergalactic space invaders could figure out how to stay on the sidewalk, but it does help move the plot along. The Eye Creatures are humanoids who are all having some serious allergic reactions to bee stings or something, plus they have these frozen-open gaping maws filled with what appears to be Humpback whale baleen. I'm actually making them sound better than they really look.
AAAAHHH!!!
Stan is pretty calm about discovering an alien life form (and killing it) but Susan is predictably hysterical, squealing like a little girl and demanding to be hugged right that instant. The more I see Susan and her huge, monolithic hair, the more she looks like Jersey Shore's Snooki Polizzi. I'm firmly in the "deport her to Congo" camp when it concerns the excruciatingly annoying Snooki, and after listening to Susan's grating, squeaky voice and watching her manipulate the too-nice Stan with the take-back promise of free boobs, I'm hard pressed not to buy her a plane ticket, too.
Stan isn't Guido enough for Snooki.
So the collision caused the Eye Creature's right hand to disconnect at the wrist (huh?). We see that while the body is dead, the hand is still alive, crawling along in the dirt like Thing from The Addams Family, if Thing needed a manicure and some Gold Bond lotion. As to why only the hand is alive, we can only guess about the aliens' physiology, perhaps they keep their brain and heart self-contained in their right hand, or perhaps they are built like Transformers and can detach parts at will to attack enemies. Or perhaps the film's producers realized that it was easier to show a hand than a foot or a schlong, and a foot isn't really that scary and the studio would freak at a schlong.
It's alive!
The hand must have diamond-sharp fingernails because we see it sneakily crawl over to a tire and pop it. Stan doesn't have a spare tire, so they have to hoof it from here. By the way, in this scene, I've solved a minor mystery about this movie. Numerous online reviews of The Eye Creatures note how the location is never said, just a reference to "central America". Well, thanks to the slow-mo creep button, I can tell you our action is taking place in Texas. I know, I'm awesome, you don't have to tell me.
Only in Texas.
So Stan and Snooki start walking down the road in the "dark" (the day-for-night filming technique comes and goes in this movie). They reach Old Man Bailey's house, which Snooki tells us with baited breath is haunted (yawn). The old widower is not home, and Stan, showing a bit of the motorcycle hooligan character that I'm sure the script originally called for, just barges right in. After the as-needed storm knocks out the lights, we get a couple of lame jump-scare moments to give the actress playing Snooki a chance to practice her high notes. In a moment that would make my sweet southern belle mother proud, Snooki complains that "Opening strange doors isn't the thing for a good, clean-living American girl to do."
Great olde timey rotary phone.
Old Man Bailey returns now to catch the kids in the act. Channeling Jed Clampett right down to the overalls and Kentucky ridgerunner hat, the wrinkly old moonshiner waves his shotgun around and rages about the continual violation of his civil rights by the local kids (and he has a point, especially here as he's the victim of an obvious crime). "It all smells of people, and people smells trouble.", he grumbles through tobacco-stained teeth, before kicking Stan and Snooki out into the night. We do learn here that Stan works at a gas station, which might explain why Snooki's father isn't so high on his future son-in-law's long-term financial viability, but doesn't explain why Stan didn't have a spare tire in his car (you'd think a car guy would know better).
Jesus Christ, is that George Lucas!?!
Now remember that Stan abandoned his car in the middle of the road and just walked away (nice, arrogant Texans). Who should drive along now but Carl, the huckster conman. He gets out and checks out the dead alien and dollar signs start flashing in his eyes. He tries to take the body, but it's "stuck under the car", which seems unlikely, so he drives off in a frantic hurry to find a landline phone. Seriously, can you just not get any cell reception out here? Must be on Verizon.
Note the wedding band, it switches hands later on.
Of course, as previously established, the only telephone in a thousand mile radius is at Old Man Bailey's house. As the old codger is currently out in the woods hunting "smootchers", Carl also just walks right in (Bailey really should consider investing in some locks) and uses the phone to call his buddy Mike back at the hotel. In a weird Odd Couple moment, the fey Mike does his best persnickety Tony Randall impression while wearing a red-striped sleeping dress (sweet), refusing to believe Carl's wild stories about aliens and freezers and fortunes to be made. Carl will have to do this scam on his own.
I'm waiting for the retro craze to return.
Flush with the thrill of the American capitalistic experience and the heady rush that comes from realizing his lifelong dream of being a carnival barker, Carl goes back to the dirt road to collect the dead alien. In the woods nearby are a squad of Eye Creatures, seemingly content to mill around in the East Texas pine forests when they really should be marching on the White House to destructo-zap them some LBJ. Sensing that Carl the unemployed grifter is an easy target, they gang up on him and maul him to death. Of course, Carl is clearly a willing victim here, as he makes little or no effort to flee the sloth-like Eye Creatures, who move about as fast as my grandma playing Wii Bowling. And yes, some of the stunt guys are visibly wearing just the half-completed head pieces over their regular clothes, but Joel and the 'bots already made them feel bad enough about themselves so I won't pile on.
Attack!
I don't know when it was exactly that Hollywood decided that all bug-eyed aliens had to move so damn slow, but it's something you see in virtually every movie featuring aliens since the 1940s. Now, obviously, there's a speed limit for our movie's suits, as painted-clay-over-plywood is not the sturdiest of structures, but it still defies logic that Carl, a healthy 6-foot young man, couldn't get some separation from the aliens in a foot race. I know I'm missing a better example, but do we have to go deep into the late '70s with Alien and rise of CGI to get visitors from another world who could outrun a toddler?
Better picture from the repainted suit's cameo appearance in 1966's Ghost in the Invisible Bikini.
Anyway, by now the vaunted US Military has arrived on the scene in a convoy of heavy tanks and field artillery backed up by a squadron of nuclear bombe...no? Just three incompetent fools in a jeep with a shortwave radio to stave off the alien invasion of America's heartland? I guess everyone else is in Vietnam? Worried about keeping this under wraps to keep the public from going crazy, the commander radios the Pentagon directly to call in a team of CIA commandos to...no? He calls the Texas National Guard and asks for a bunch Weekend Warrior engineers to come out and try to open the UFO's door? Really?
Why is this movie so dark?
Stan and Snooki are still walking along some deer path in the dark (distances in this movie vary greatly depending on how long the preceding scene lasts). While Snooki's junior high prom dress looks fantastic on her, those four-inch heels just aren't cutting it for a nocturnal stroll through the woods. Snooki's default emotional status seems to be "whiney and codependent", brightly on display here as she can't seem to go five feet without clutching helplessly to Stan's scrawny arm and moping about how she's tired and stressed. Stan has got to be having second thoughts about that wedding by now.
Divorce is in their future.
They reach their car, long ago abandoned, only to spy another Eye Creature banging on the front fender with a crowbar (huh?). They traveled a bzillion miles across the cosmos to vandalize some white guy's Ford on a Saturday night? Are they from the planet Compton? Zing! But it's ok, because the police are on their way and Stan is confident that they will "take care of them" (but they don't, predictably arriving too late to stop a property crime, probably had to get some donuts).
Cthulhu don't bang on no fenders, that's for sure.
By the time Stan and Snooki arrive back on scene, the police have arrived and the coroner has taken away "a body". The "kids" are interrogated by the most unprofessional police detective ever, who accuses them of running down a man with their car while out joyriding and listening to that infernal rock and roll (the coroner blames it all on those "bad books being written these days", which is just awesome). Confused, Stan can only blither on about monsters and space ships and such, but they cops aren't buying.
They agree that pink elephants are better...
Stan is given a breathalyzer test because the cops are sure he's drunk (blowing up a balloon attached to a tube or something). If I may tangent, I did not realize they had blow tests back in 1965, though Google tells me that early models were in use as early as 1954, but the standard balloon blow model didn't really see common police department usage until the later 1960s or early '70s. So, oddly, this is pretty high-tech for 1965 and its appearance in this crappy movie is unique (Stan doesn't even know what it is). Of course, Snooki doesn't have to pass the test, because she's a chick, and nor do either of them have to produce IDs to prove that the gray-haired WWII-veteran Stan isn't out here in the woods with what certainly looks like an underage teen girl (what was the age of consent in Texas in 1965?). Anyway, I'm bored, so now back to Pam (who doesn't have Snooki Polizzi hair) for the third part of this review.
Blowing clean.
You bet your life I don't have Snooki Polizzi hair. I hate to think what all the hairspray she must use is doing to the ozone layer. Not to mention the time she must waste every day, making it look like that. Cynthia Hull, the actress who plays Snooki, was too unimportant for IMDb to have a date of birth for her, so I don't know if she was over the age of consent in 1965. But since this is Texas, the age of consent was probably about 12, so more than likely she's legal.
A few years later Cynthia Hull was hanging with the Monkees, where she cleaned up real nice.
Stan and Snooki are hauled off to the police station, although the police haven't even looked at Stan's Breathalyzer results. The couple continues to talk about the alien creature they saw, and the police continue to disbelieve them. It seems the police have decided to charge Stan with driving with his lights off and killing a man...You know, I've learned to accept lapses in logic in bad science fiction movies, but I have to say here, "Are you kidding? There's no way, NO WAY, the police could not have noticed that the corpse was most definitely not human!" This just destroyed the last feeble bit of respect I had for this movie. Was Larry Buchanan trying in the crudest way possible to pander to the usual teenage feeling that the adults are persecuting them and will never treat them fairly? Or did he think his audience was so stupid they wouldn't even notice? Now if it were to turn out that the aliens had the power to hypnotize humans into seeing the aliens as humans, or that the policemen know that aliens have landed and are collaborating with them, this would be a different story and might make for a decent movie. I don't think anybody will be surprised to learn, though, that no explanation is ever given for the police acting as though they found a human being lying dead in the road. Dumb, dumb, DUMB.
Not so much a "police station" as a "middle school guidance counselor's office filmed on a Saturday".
Snooki informs the police officer that her father is the City Attorney, but even this doesn't bother him. It turns out he has no reason to worry, because when Snooki's father does turn up, he doesn't believe them either. They are being taken to make a formal identification of the body, when the action shifts back to the Army personnel at the flying saucer.
Dad is not happy.
The Commander must believe it's best to get directly to the point, for he has decided the best way to get the aliens to come out of the saucer is to use a bullhorn and order them to come out. Unsurprisingly there is no response (and why did he assume they would understand English?), and the Commander authorizes a soldier to fire his rifle at the saucer. This doesn't work either, and the Commander is stumped.
Love the birth control glasses.
Meanwhile, back at the funeral home. Yes, it seems the police took the body to the local funeral home, which seemed odd at first until I realized that in a small town in Texas in 1965, the police probably didn't have any facilities for storing bodies. The body is brought in and the sheet pulled off, and - okay, I owe Larry Buchanan an apology. The body here, and presumably it's the same one the police picked up, is that of a human being. It's Carl, as a matter of fact. This suggests that the aliens picked up the alien body and put Carl's body in its place, which shows quite a bit of presence of mind for creatures on a totally unfamiliar planet, but I guess it's not impossible. After all, if they're able to build spaceships, they must have some brains.
AAAHH!!! What's that on her head!?! Oh...
Now, back at the spaceship somebody in camouflage coveralls is using a cutting torch to cut through the metal. He's horrified to see the flame spread over the spaceship, and it takes only seconds for the entire saucer to blow up. Notice that the man is cutting in daylight, but it's night when the saucer blows up. The police hear the sound of the explosion and go out to investigate, leaving Stan and Snooki sitting in the police station discussing the night's happenings. Stan deduces that the aliens killed Carl and planted his body under Stan's car to frame him. The creature we saw pounding on the car was doing this to put a dent in Stan's fender! Maybe I'll take back my apology to Larry Buchanan, because I can't understand why the aliens would feel the need to shift the blame onto someone else. Why couldn't they just have abandoned Carl's body in the woods? Also, they must be pretty simple-minded to think humans could mistake injuries from being mauled to death for injuries caused by being hit by a car, but then again, maybe they think we're really stupid. I would think, too, that the beating the car took would cause a lot more damage, and in different places on the car, than just hitting someone with the car. I guess we have to give the aliens a pass on that, though, because they probably don't know what will damage a car.
He is not following OSHA procedures.
It takes a little while, but Stan and Snooki finally realize that they're alone in a room with no police observing them, and that there's a door leading outside, which turns out to be unlocked, and they decide it's up to them to go back to the scene of the accident and figure out what really happened. They even help themselves to a police car. I won't take the time to say anything about the level of police efficiency we see at work here, because frankly I'm getting a little tired of this movie.
There is no Reed County in Texas, btw.
We now go back to the two enlisted would-be funny guys, who are still at their scanner. They've been given their orders, but it's been a long boring night and they can't resist the temptation to take a quick look at the couples on Lovers' Lane. They're in for a shock, though, because instead to two teenagers kissing, the face of an alien appears. These two brilliant examples of our military system assume that somehow they've tuned into a monster movie, despite being there to look for flying saucers which anybody might assume are likely to have peculiar-looking occupants. They do nothing.
Shouldn't they be looking for Rooskies?
Stan and Snooki have reached the scene of their previous close encounter with the alien. They get out of the car to investigate, Stan armed with a crowbar. We see the alien's hand still wiggling in the grass, so maybe Nate's theory is right and the aliens' hearts are in their right hands. Stan and Snooki don't see the hand, but after a futile ramble through the grass, they decide to look for their friends at Lovers' Lane and ask if any of them saw anything unusual. Just from what I've seen of the couples, I'd say no, they were too busy with other stuff, but I guess it can't hurt to ask. However, while they ride in the police car they stole, little do they know that the hand has sneaked in and it feeling its way up the back of the seat toward Snooki.
The hand/brain creeps!
Finally it reaches her, and her resulting screams make Stan stop the car. They pile out, and all poor wussy Snooki can do is sob hysterically, even though Stan points out that they finally have solid evidence of an alien presence. Inside of heading straight to the police, Stan decides that the smart thing to do is consult with Carl's roommate Mike, he of the striped sweater dress, which he is still wearing when they get there. They beg him to call the police to find out what happened to Carl. (There's a goof here as he dials the operator twice.) He doesn't seem too broken up when he learns about Carl's death, but he does agree to go back to the accident site with Stan and Snooki to see what they can see. Oh, and if you were wondering what the police did when they got to the site of the explosion, the answer is "nothing" -- the Lieutenant told the police officer a jet plane had crashed, the police officer believed it, and went away. I must point out that there seems to be much less damage than you'd expect from a plane crash, let alone a spaceship blowing up.
Mike is easily swayed.
The creatures have somehow finally located the missing hand. I wonder what they're going to do with it, since its previous owner is dead, but then again, maybe he was only stunned not dead. One of them languidly tries to break open a window, with less strength and speed than the average toddler could muster. Could they come from a planet whose gravity is much less than ours, which would explain why they always move so slowly? It can't be that they can't see well, they certainly have enough eyes. Then, with nothing accomplished, they slowly move away from the car. Just then, Stan, Snooki, and Mike drive up. What rotten luck that they just happened to miss the aliens! And thank goodness, it's Nate's turn again.
"This'll teach those whitey crackers to be comin' into our hood..."
Once again, so thankful for another chance to watch even a small segment of this wonderful movie. Thanks. So. Much. Our last act begins with Stan, Snooki and Mike going back out into the dark and creepy woods (seriously, this "night" has lasted about 37 hours already, must be a Texas thing). They reach the stolen police car they abandoned and get out to see if the alien hand is still trapped inside. It's dark (ha!), so Mike gets a camera from the car and takes a flash photo of the hand. Check that huge, boxy camera, looks like something from the Victorian era.
"Can you see our careers in there? I can't."
The bright light of the flash causes the hand to combust! Disappointed, they get back into the car to leave. I can't help but notice that all three of them cram into the front seat again, is there something wrong with the back seat? Or is it just that overly-clingy Snooki simply cannot bear to be more than 3 inches away from her emotional anchor Stan? Either way, it's pretty cramped up front, with a lot of awkward accidental thigh-rubbing to be sure. The car won't start, though they set it up before how the motor was bad.
Probably no seat belts either.
And why, oh my experienced b-movie watchers, do you all suppose the car won't start now? That's right, because the Eye Creatures choose this very moment to swarm the car. Well, "swarm" might connote speed of some degree, more like "shamble gingerly and slowly" into a semi-circle around the car. Don't these alien invaders have any sort of weaponry, I mean other than crowbars? How exactly were they planning on taking over the world when their sole advantage seems to be the ability to see behind them and know what you're doing behind their back? Heck, my ex-wife had that going for her.
Raah!
Illogically still rooted to the front seat when the car won't start, the three humans freak out (Snooki especially, stop to breath, girl). Stan, being the brains of the operation, uses that handy spotlight on the driver's side door to start blasting the aliens with streams of deadly photons. The whole concept of biological creatures exploding upon contact with simple rays of light is just retarded in so many ways. But I really can't blame Larry Buchanan, the director of The Eye Creatures, because he stole this bit line-for-line from 1957's Invasion of the Saucer Men. I can, however, give the idiots from that older movie credit for coming up with the absolute cheapest way to film a climactic final battle between humanity and the alien hordes, and I can only hope they spent the savings better than Buchanan did (one assumes most of the budget went to Snooki's hairstylist). The only way you could have done this cheaper is to say that the aliens' weakness is country music (yes, I'm looking at you, Mars Attacks!).
Spotlight!
Rather quickly the car's battery dies, the spotlight dims, and they are screwed again. Super gas station guy lets his pretty girlfriend drive around in a wreck of a car without at least checking the battery once in a while? Nice. And her dad is a richyrich attorney and he can't pony up for decent set of wheels for his only daughter? Is he trying to teach her about the value of a dollar by letting her drive around in a deathtrap jalopy? Poor girl is getting the shaft from all the men in her life.
When I was in high school, the town's lawyer's daughter drove a goddamn DeLorean! Spoiled brat.
Mike has had enough and makes a run for it. As before, you'd think he'd be able to easily escape the glacier-slow monsters, but they catch him and knock him unconscious. The diversion, however, allows Stan and Snooki to escape (these aliens act more like mindless, easily-distracted zombies than spacefaring ETs). They run a bit and then Snooki has to stop and rest because she has the muscle mass of a malnourished Chihuahua. And, you know, they were back in town for quite a while, you'd think she would have stopped somewhere and changed into some sensible shoes.
"Do you have any hairspray?"
They go back to Old Man Bailey's house and call the police to give themselves up, convinced still that the police can fix everything. The cops, however, can't be bothered with them anymore as they've determined that Carl was drunk at the time they hit him so no-harm-no-foul. Neither are they too concerned about Stan stealing a police car (Snooki's father "took care of it"). Sterling police work, there. This entire scene was pointless, and unnecessary other than padding out the movie's running time another five minutes. There are several sub-plots that could be cut out, actually, most notably all the crap with the USAF and the Gubbmint, that does nothing to move the plot along. Give me a pair of scissors and some Scotch tape and I could edit this movie down to 35 minutes and maybe, just maybe, come up with something more entertaining.
Nightshift sucks.
So they go get "the gang up on the hill", as they've realized by now that the adults are too square to help them, man. The half dozen or so cars full of nekking teenagers agree to follow them back to where Mike was taken away, just because teenagers are pretty dumbass like that. Stan keeps saying he's "young" and a "kid", but, come on, look at him, he's 40-years old and dresses like the guy who does my taxes. Hollywood has a long (and current) history of casting middle-aged men as teenagers, but this has to be one of the worst examples of this ever (excluding Luke Perry, of course).
Half the cast of Glee is pushing 30, no joke.
Stan leads everyone to a clearing where he "knows" the aliens are heading and has them surround it and wait his signal to turn their headlights on. The aliens dutifully lumber into the trap single-file and are exploded in puffs of white smoke. Mike is saved, the kids slap their knees, rock and roll is king, and all is well in the sleepy hills of East Texas again. Stan and Snooki can go back to slobbering on each other now, the night's still young. The end.
Is it over yet?
Bonemesideways, that was the stupidest movie in all of recorded history. Every single character in this film reacted to every single situation in the dumbest and most illogical way possible, making simple choices vastly more complicated and seemingly trying to put themselves in danger at every turn. And if there were ever an alien race more wimpy and incompetent than the Eye Creatures I can't think of one. Even the Cone Heads had a decent invasion plan. Pam, thank you so very much for picking this one for us to watch, I cannot express my appreciation and gratitude enough. Really. Any closing thoughts, dear?
You're right about the stupidity, Nate, but what really ruined the movie for me was the unfunny humor that we saw way too much of. Granted that the plot was something that's been done over and over and over, but if Larry Buchanan wanted to make an alien invasion movie, the least he could have done was take it seriously. The aliens aren't funny (weak and listless, but not funny), so why throw in all the lame humor? This movie doesn't work on any level, and you probably shouldn't waste your time watching it. Yeah, I picked a good one, didn't I?
The End.
Written in March 2011 by Nathan Decker and Pam Burda.
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that's between you and the vengeful wrath of your personal god...