L'éclosion des monstres

Oh, how I love this, the movie that introduced me to the work of Juan Piquer Simon, one of the best "bad" directors ever. It was also the very first episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 I ever saw, way back when, so it will always have a special place in my heart. Although this version of his movie was run through the Film Ventures International ringer (a company that takes movies and re-edits them, adding new music & credits), Simon's style shines through. There's also the usual Juan Piquer Simon stable of actors, including Ian Sera (Kendle in "Pieces") and Frank Brana (the guy who says "You don't have the authority to declare Happy Birthday!" in "Slugs").

The movie is about some poachers who encounter some strange eggs in the woods- no wait, it's about a rockin' rock-n-roll band who are going on a camping trip- no, wait, it's about an animal-loving red-haired kid named Tommy who lives with his unpleasant aunt and uncle deep in the woods. Eventually all these tales converge when Trumpy, a lovable fuzzy alien with an odd shaped head and phallic snout, hatches out of one the aforementioned strange eggs.

Tommy takes in Trumpy and teaches him the joys of jigsaw puzzles and eating peanuts (which Trumpy sucks through his snout, which should be charming but is ultimately a creepy image). Unfortunately, another alien who looks exactly like Trumpy is on a killing spree, and a case of mistaken identity could land Trumpy on the business end of alcoholic Uncle Joe's shotgun!

This is a pleasantly dumb movie, full of dumb characters and dumber dialog ("Oh yeah? Well, you're a jerk!" says Brana to his bearded sidekick). Trumpy is cool, especially when he does "magic things" like stand on the ceiling, make Tommy's laundry fly through the air, and turn an old Simon game into a slammin' beat box (Mix Master Trumpy's jams would later be pilfered by Moby, The Beastie Boys, and others). Also putting in an appearance is a picture of Ronald Reagan, which completely fooled me into thinking this was an American movie.

The MST3K episode featuring this masterpiece is available on video from Rhino, and no fan of absurd cinema should be without it!

Get right to the movie review by skipping the first paragraph

After watching a movie like this I lose faith in humanity but after watching MST3K bad mouth movies like this I regain a little faith in humanity. This is one of the worst movies ever. This is really the second time I have watched MST3K and fully understood it. I watched it with my dad as far back as the Minneapolis year!!! But I never really understood, I mean I understood it some what but not all of the jokes. The first movie I rented was the Movie Version with "This Island Earth" which isn't really bad so I thought MST3K was an damn funny show, now I know it is one of the damn funniest shows ever! This is one of their best episodes I just know it, every time someone screams for help they go through a bunch of names always ending with: McCloud!

This movie is the worst movie I have ever seen (although I want to see 'Manos' Hands of Fate). There are three different plots, PLOT A is about a little boy and his family in the wood, PLOT B is about some singers (who sing for 7 minutes then cut back to boy then sing for another 7), finally PLOT C involve some poachers. Eventually the singers go to the little boys house and you think finally it all comes together, not really the family leave the little boys plot and hang with the singers. Anyway the director must have been the son of the inventor of the fog machine because every scene outside is foggy, not an exaggeration either. Then it switches from winter to summer a few times outside also. The little boy finds an egg and tries to hatch it and becomes friends with it and calls the creature 'Trumpy'. he feed it milk and with the magic of choppy editing the thing grows from a kitten's size to the kids size.

The second plot has the singers getting in a fight and one of them going into the forest and getting killed by Trumpy's fellow creature so they take her to a house and then they decide to go to the rangers house and tell them stuff I guess.

I'll stop here in case you are waiting to watch this movie, but the best part is when Trumpy does magic things which the guys rip to shreds.

Hi all, it's two years later and I want to say that this review is a bit out dated. First, I openly admit I focused too much on Joel and the bots. I was new to MST3K, and just wanted to talk as much as possible about them. Second, I have seen Monster a-Go Go, and that is far worse than Pod People. BTW, I didn't know you can't talk in caps anymore.

They say that no good deed goes unpunished. This movie - or should I say "this swill" - shows that to be 100% true. Spielberg made "E.T." and someone made "Los nuevos extraterrestres" (called "Pod People" in the United States) in response. The movie has a boy befriending an alien who looks sort of like an anteater, and some weird things result. WHY CAN'T ALIENS KIDNAP THE PEOPLE WHO MAKE THESE KINDS OF MOVIES?! There are plenty of good stories out there and they have to go and make this?!

That said, the movie was not a complete waste. Quite the opposite: "MST3K" once showed it. As you might imagine, Joel, Servo and Crow have lots of fun with it.

A small group of dimwitted poachers stumble upon a cache of strange looking eggs stashed in a cave. One of them gets killed by an unseen creature. Then, a young boy with a weird girly voice and a menagerie in his bedroom discovers one of the over-sized eggs and takes it home to hatch it. Meanwhile, the worlds worst rock band decides to go camping in the same woods. When the sluttiest girl in the group runs afoul of both poachers and unseen creatures and takes a plunge off of a cliff, the unmusical losers take refuge in the house of Molly and her - husband? brother? who knows? - and her young son, the same boy who has just hatched an alien creature called Trumpy out of the egg he found in the woods. Trumpy looks like a cross between a plucked turkey and a vacuum cleaner, and does a lot of dippy things like levitating toys and allowing the cat to play with his nose. When people start turning up dead with strange glowy marks upon their foreheads, it seems to be the work of Trumpy. But soon the truth becomes apparent: there is another creature on the loose in the woods, killing anyone who crosses his path.

This is a very stupid film. Even with the assistance of Joel and the bots, this is still a very painful viewing experience. None of the actors can act and none of the characters are likable at all. All of the girls are either sluts, bitches or doormats and all the men are jerks. The plot is nonexistent, the script seems to have been written by an imbecile...it just roundly sucks. Avoid it, unless it's the MST version. Or unless you're a complete masochist.

Yeah. "The Pod People" is a movie that is so extremely bad, you'll OK the TV and yell out at the top of your lungs, "It stinks!!!!!!" I've compared this movie with other kid versus alien family movies from the 1980s such as "E.T. The Extra-terrestrial" and the lovable "Mac and Me," and what do both of those movies have that "The Pod People" is missing from sight? A good, well thought out story, innovation, happiness, and not being able to get depression within a single viewing, of course! So do not, I repeat, do not watch "The Pod People" without Joel and the Bots of "Mystery Science Theater 3000," because after watching the MST3K version, I couldn't imagine what this movie would be like without the funny commentary!