Teenagers from Outer Space

Tom Graeff's entire film career consisted of this one film and work editing another. He shot it for $5000, performed much of the work himself, and gave his boyfriend David Love (Charles Robert Kaltenthaler) the lead role. Graeff was 28 and Love 23 when the film was shot. Graeff died 12 years later after an apparent mental breakdown; no one seems to know what happened to Love. Amazingly, Warners paid $25,000 for distribution rights for this clunker at a time when teen audiences were eating up sci-fi movies. More bizarre details about the film, including props and locations used, are at the Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt website.

I saw this film as a little kid and was absolutely terrified. I was really, really afraid of skeletons. You see, it was skeletons under my bed, not monsters. If any part of me dangled off the bed, they could grab me with those bony fingers and pull me under... anyway, this film holds a special place in my heart because I was SO frightened! They even killed a little dog, boo hoo. Of course, as an adult, this movie is quite laughable. But if you are a fan of campy, corny old sci-fi, you have it by the bucket here!!

I first saw this film when I was only 7 and even then I knew there was something . . .well . . .different about it. For one thing those are the oldest looking teenagers I ever saw; then again all those JD movies offered actors who looked too old even for college in the roles of "kids" so we can't hold that fact against this film. The reason the aliens have come to our world is also atypical of 1950's films. They don't want to conquer the Earth, they don't want to re-populate a war devastated world. They are hungry and in need of a square meal and Earth is the perfect spot to breed the creatures they use as food! They call the creatures Gargans but they look a lot like lobsters. Of course since this is a science fiction picture, the atmosphere of Earth causes the Gargans to grow so large a single one could keep a Red Lobster in business for months! the effects budget was so low we never see the actual giant monster, just an empty travelling matte!

Most memorable are the ray guns used by the bad aliens . . .er . . .the intergalactic juvenile delinquents. As the original trailer said "They blast the flesh off humans!" and quite a few people get zapped into skeletons. There is one good alien, a sensitive fellow named Derek (David Love) who stands alone against his own people when he suggests they go raise their favourite meal on some other planet. Derek is unaware that he is the son of the leader of the planet, a fact which is not exploited nearly as much as it should be in this film.

The cast includes Harvey B. Dunn, best remembered as the police inspector in BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. Harvey was a professional clown and performed at parties with his trick bird (the bird appears in BRIDE also). Yes it's an offbeat film but worth a look. Get ready for a tearjerker ending that is telegraphed well in advance.

First off, I would like to say that have actually seen the actual film in its original form, not from watching an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000. So my comments are entirely based on my watching the film without the benefit of Rod, Servo and the rest of those imbeciles whose names I have forgotten.

The first thing that amazed me about this film is not that its makers managed to get this film released, the fact that they managed to sell a film so cheap looking to major studio like Warner Brothers. I would love to known what sales pitch they used to sell it to WB executives. This film by the way, turned up a support feature for the second Godzilla movie, GIGANTIS,THE FIRE MONSTER, which Warner Brothers also distributed.

The acting in the film is amateurish and dialog delivery is stilted. The actors delivery of the lines is reminiscent of the stilted dubbed dialog heard in those cheap Italian made spectacles that were just about to flood the American market when this film came out. The films plot is loaded with more holes than swiss cheese. Perhaps the most ludicrous element of the film is the Gargon, which is nothing more than a macro enlarged lobster (or is it a crayfish?). On the plus side I was surprised that director Tom Graef used more camera set ups and camera movement than is usually found in a lowbudget picture of this nature. This makes TEENAGERS FROM OUTERSPACE not as dreary as other very low budget films from the same period like THE ASTOUNDING SHE MONSTER.

What is it about this no-budget film that gets my interest? Sure it was produced for a mere $3,000 and the effects are laughable, but there is something that's actually engrossing about its storyline: Aliens come to Earth for the purpose of breeding their man-eating lobsters called Gargons. Derek, the young,idealistic black sheep, with James Dean pretentions, disapproves of his comrades lack of compassion towards the fate of the earth people, and goes AWOL to warn the unsuspecting citizens of our world.

Derek ends up in a suburban utopia, where everyone is sincerely kind and caring of one another (this must be an alien planet). He rents a room and falls in love with the local teen queen (who is surprisingly as UN-prima-donna as they come). Unknown to the hapless pair, one of Derek's cronies, Thor, is hot on his trail, blasting everyone in sight with his focusing disintegrater (which turns the victim into a skeleton). The aliens plan to return soon with a full shipment of gargons, and our heroes only have a short time to thwart their trecherous plans.

Ridiculous? Sure. Engrosssing? Definitely. In some ways the plot is reminiscent of TERMINATOR (I wonder if Cameron saw this in his younger years). As little more than a home movie, it's not really that bad. You could tell that filmmaker Graeff (who plays Joe the reporter under the name of Tom Lockyear) compensated for an inadequate budget, with heart, imagination and soul, and has produced a picture that has some surprising moments of brilliance. It would have been curious to have seen how this production would have turned out if Graeff had had a decent budget. This film doesn't lack creative inspiration or intelligence (you can rank it above Ed Wood or Larry Buchanan), but simply money. When it comes to the mega-budget likes of INDEPENDENCE DAY or GODZILLA - money isn't everything!

The performances here are pretty poor, but I came to really care about the characters. Figure that. The film also takes on a certain hallucinatory quality that actually makes it memorable.

This also has the significance of being one of the first independently produced films to be released by a major studio, long before Indies became a tired trend (I'm not much of a Sundance freak). Graeff originally entitled this THE GARGON TERROR and managed to sell it to Warner Brothers (no small feat, believe me). The studio, in turn, changed its title to the more drive-in exploitative TEENAGERS FROM OUTER SPACE. One could tell, if they drop their prejudices and pay close attention, that Graeff was sincerely trying to produce a worthy effort. The man deserves to be congratulated for his attitude, even if the results fall short, due to lack of funds. He was desperately trying promote a stronger understanding between the adults and the kids, hoping for a less troubled world. How can one be faulted for that?

Naturally, MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 had a field day lampooning it, but I sometimes wonder what its producers and fans criteria really is? Is it all just superficial budget and effects with no regard for content? Sounds pretty shallow to me.

I won't recommend this to most, but if you put aside high-tech, you may want to trip back to a different era for curiousity sake if nothing else.