Starring Pia Zadora, Craig Sheffer, Tom Nolan, and Alison LaPlaca
Directed by James Fargo
Music and Lyrics by various
For Halloween week, we leap into cult horror and sci-fi with two truly unique rock musicals. This began life as a spoof of B horror, science fiction, and Beach Party-style teen musicals from the 1960's. Though the producers mostly sought singers rather than actors, they did get two actors for the lead roles and an actual New Wave rock band to play the music-obsessed aliens of the title. How well does this mess of weird drive-in cliches come off today? Let's begin in space with the arrival of the aliens' guitar-shaped spaceship and find out...
The Story: Beings from another planet (RHEMA) search the reaches of outer space for the source of rock music. After considering other planets, they finally land on Earth with their robot companion 1329 (Peter Cullen). Speelburgh is a pretty typical southern industrial town in Georgia...too typical for bored teenager Dee Dee (Zadora). Dee Dee would give anything to sing with her boyfriend Frankie (Sheffer) and his band (Jimmy and the Mustangs), but he thinks the band is fine without a singer.
Lead alien Absiid (Nolan) falls for Dee Dee and asks her to be the lead singer at the high school's Cotillion Dance. Frankie is jealous, but Dee Dee is smitten, until she realizes why love is so foreign to Absid. Meanwhile, there's also two escapees from the local mental hospital (Michael Berryman and Wallace Merck) roaming around with a chainsaw, the Sheriff (Ruth Gordon) determined to figure out just what's going on here, and a huge tentacled monster emerging from the polluted lake...
The Song and Dance: "Weird" does not begin to do this movie justice. This is off-the-charts Looney-Tunes bizarre. If you're a fan of the synthesizer-laden "New Wave" dance music from this era, you might actually get a kick out of it. Zadora was more known at the time for being famous and her marriages than for actually appearing in anything, so it was kind of interesting to see her here. Nolan came off best as the alien trying to figure out just what this "love" thing is; Gordon has her moments as the tough Sheriff who wants to know what these invaders are up to.
This may be the most 1984 musical in existence. It reeks of "MTV in the mid-80's," with the ladies running around in baggy shirts, tight jeans, and poofy polka-dot sundresses and the guys either in tight shirts and leather, 50's-inspired pompadours and jeans and jackets. If the aliens hadn't thrown stuff around at the malt shop, they wouldn't have looked all that out of place in their tight metallic and studded jumpsuits. There's a few funny gags, and I love how some cliches are subverted, especially when Dee Dee's best friend Diane (La Placa) ends up befriending the chainsaw-wielding nut instead of getting killed by him.
The Numbers: We begin with "Openhearted" over the credits as we get our first glimpses of the aliens' guitar-shaped ship. "When the Rain Begins to Fall" was originally filmed as a music video...and it looks it. Zadora and Jermaine Jackson enact a Romeo and Juliet story on a warring planet that has nothing to do with the rest of the movie. "21st Century" describes how the aliens feel about their home and their roaming as they check the monitors on their ship.
"New Orleans" gives us a glimpse of how the kids in Speelburgh defy the rules not to swim in the heavily polluted Lake Eerie. Dee Dee flirts and wiggles for Frankie as she sings about "Real Love," even as the tentacled monster invades the party. All of the kids really go wild for the Pack singing "Try To See It My Way" and "Justine" at the malt shop. Dee Dee sings in the bathroom about how "You Bring Out the Lover In Me," with the ladies in the stalls managing to dance along. "Combine Man" really gets New Wave as the aliens put Absid back together after he literally loses his head over Dee Dee and get him around the Sheriff.
Absid dreams of a cosmically romantic relationship with Dee Dee in "Little Bit of Heaven." He claims "She Doesn't Mean a Thing to Me," even as he insists on his friends helping him find ways to impress her. "Come On" and "Troublemaker" provide the background for the introduction of the murders as they attack the deputy sheriff and others. "Let's Dance Tonight" is the big number at the Cotillion. Dee Dee finally gets her wish to sing with a band, much to the frustration of her jealous boyfriend. "Get Out and Dance" is the aliens' response. Frankie reveals his jealousy and how it's the "Nature of the Beast" in overwrought and badly written "I am" number. The aliens do their best to remove the remaining obstacles to Frankie and Dee Dee's romance in an encore of "When the Rain Begins to Fall."
What I Don't Like: Hooooo boy. This is 80's cheese of the ripest and most ridiculous sort. For one thing, none of these people are remotely teenagers. (Pia Zadora was 30 during shooting.) The movie looks as cheap as it is, with a rubber tentacle spitting bubbles and cardboard sets. The music isn't terribly memorable, either, especially if you're not into New Wave. Frankie is such a sexist jerk, you can understand why sweet-if-dim Dee Dee rushes to the arms of an alien. The genre-mash-up gives it a real tone problem. It veers from near-horror to comedy to musical, sometimes within the space of seconds. The musical numbers tend to either get cut off or, as with the opening at the polluted lake and the Cotillion, go on for way too long.
The Big Finale: If you're a fan of 80's music or cinema or like your movies on the cheesy or "so bad they're fascinating" side, this is worth checking out for the sheer camp value alone.
Home Media: It was only on DVD in Germany, but the Blu-Ray is widely available, and it's easy to find on streaming. (Tubi currently has it for free with commercials.)
No comments:
Post a Comment