TerrorVision (1986)
Written & Directed by Ted Nicolaou
Stanley...Gerrit Graham
Raquel...Mary Woronov
Sherman...Chad Allen
Grampa...Bert Remsen
Suzy...Diane Franklin
When Stanley Putterman installed the "Do It Yourself 100" satellite system, he thought he would be opening up a whole new world of television entertainment: Samurai films from Z Channel, pornography on Channel 69 (natch!), and maybe even a Noodle music video or two on that new-fangled MTV. What he didn't expect is that his satellite would literally open up a whole new world, or at least a portal to one, through which a killer monster would escape. Trapped in the Putterman's palatial estate, the monster (a refugee from the planet Pluton's Mutant Creature Disposal Unit, of course) preys on the family members like he was a good ol' boy and it was duck season.
Young son Sherman is the only one who truly knows what's going on, but his parents quickly lock him in the bomb shelter so they can have a little kinky fun with a swinger couple they met through the classifieds. Sherman is forced to go all Toy Soldier to save himself--and what few family members might also make it out alive.
The characters here are deliciously wacky, from the swinger parents (Stanley comes off like a Sex Panther cologne-soaked version of Steve Martin/Dan Akroyd's Wild and Crazy Guys), to the survivalist grandfather (who preaches the benefits of eating lizard tails, a self-regenerating food source; pretty ingenious, actually), and the Cyndi Lauper-esque teenager daughter Suzy. The nameless alien monster is pretty shoddy, but you can't help but respect the effort. He looks like a Muppetized lump of slimy scar tissue, and has the rather bizarre ability to manipulate the heads of his victims like puppets--using only his disgusting tongue! The bedroom puppetshow that he puts on with implications of grandfatherly incest greatly disturbed me as a child, and it still makes me grimace.
The cheapness of the production, the ridiculousness of the storyline, and the abundant overacting works against TerrorVision as a serious product of the genre; but it all works in favor of it as a fantastically fun bad movie. There has got to be a cult audience for a film of this magnitude...and fuck the nay-sayers, I'm proud to count myself among them.
1986
Rated R
83 Minutes
Color
English
United States
"Made you cry like a butthole!"
--J/Metro
