The Eye Creatures

I just saw this greasy little movie over the weekend (thank you very much "Off Beat Cinema") and I was surprised to see that IMDb has the budget listed for this movie as being $16.000, I was guessing somewhere south of about $10.000, or even $5000. What the hell did they spend the other six grand on? The lead actor's hair gel? Maybe they should have invested in a spell-checker for the title.

A pair of alleged "teenagers" (who appear to be in their mid 20s, and seem like they're just reading their lines from cue cards) discover some sort of tennis shoe-wearing alien invasion while driving around in the dark/ broad daylight/ dark again one night(?), and the police don't believe them. Maybe if they would have told the cameraman to FOCUS the camera the police would believe them then? and the writers (Paul Fairman, Bob Gurney Jr., and Al Martin) might not have taken their names off of the credits?

IMDb lists this as being 80 minutes, but the version I saw was considerably shorter, probably only 65 or 70 minutes. But it was still a long 65 or 70 minutes.

Almost funny in a "so bad it's good" kind of way. Almost, but not quite.

I confess I love 50's & 60's B flicks. But I think in some ways the ones from the 60's were way more out there in both concept and sheer silliness. Take this movie. The monsters look like bad Halloween costumes falling apart. The goofs are too much to list. It looks like it was filmed in someone's back yard. It seems more effort was used to make the actress' hair stand a foot in the air than the entire monster costume budget. ( I love 60's hair by the way.)But it's funny in a super campy, cutsy way. Unlike most vintage B-flicks which can be boring through out much of the duration. Eye creatures has sort of a Ed Wood-esque level of entertainment. I highly recommend it to someone who loves old campy horror movies. But not to someone who doesn't know how to laugh at a movie such as this one.

By the way this is one of my all time favorite MST300 episodes.

Two teenagers meet up with scary aliens and when they escape, none of the adults in town believe them. So it's up to the teens to get together to save the Earth--just like in other 50s and 60s sci-fi films like THE BLOB and EARTH VS. THE GIANT SPIDER.

In the last week, I've seen five of Larry Buchanan's films and I've seen a few others over the years. Sadly, while this is a terrible film, it's probably among the very best films he made! In the 1960s, he made almost a dozen remakes of older Roger Corman films and this is one of them. Originally INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN, this remake is amazingly bland and tame--mostly because it lacks the charm and great looking aliens from the original. The acting is generally surprisingly good for a Buchanan film--most of the actors seem semi-competent and DON'T read their lines from cue cards in a staccato voice. However, the "comic relief" soldiers are pretty dreadful. Plus, the aliens look cheap, the story too close to the original and too little reason exists not to just watch INVASION and be done with it--especially since INVASION is a real cult classic, whereas THE EYE CREATURES is just boring.

Y' know, this movie is really funny. Oh, it lies there with cheaply made productions like MANOS, MONSTER A GO GO, etc., but I really think it was meant to be crappy and funny. For example, I'm sure it's really easy to sneak out of a police station with the convenient side exit!! Oh, plus, the creatures themselves (YAWN) look like they were made in someone's garage with styrofoam and cans of spray paint. The particularly naked alien in a black clothing just tickled. So, for laffs and to see how "they just didn't care", watch this one.

First of all,this is a remake of Invasion of the Saucer Men,but this movie isn't near as good as that one.Why? Lousy script.Bad "special" effects and last,you can SEE that some of the Eye Creatures only have the headpiece on and that's it! Some are wearing black shirt and pants and tennis shoes.Plus,it goes from day to night and back again in one shot! The so-called "night" shots look as though they were filmed in the afternoon.And let's not forget the title either.The original title was The Eye Creatures,but I think when it was re-released,some idiot decided to add "Attack of the" on the front to make it "Attack of the the Eye Creatures"..I've seen this by way of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and believe me,that's the only way to view this.Not unless you like movies that move slowly..Bad? Yes.Fun to watch on a rainy night? Maybe.As bad as "Plan 9"??? You be the judge..Have fun!!