TerrorVision (Ted Nicolaou, 1986)

The fact that this super-terrific attempt at icky-based tomfoolery takes place in only four rooms of a kooky suburban home (five rooms, if you include the "pleasure dome," and why wouldn't you include it?), didn't seem to minimize its galactic impact. A mucilaginous remedy for everything sapless and uninteresting in this drab world, TerrorVision hit my face like a rainbow-coloured laser blast. A featherbrained enterprise that knows exactly what decade it's being made in and isn't ashamed to demonstrate that knowledge over and over again. All you need to do is take one look at the breadth of funky fashions and down-to-earth prosthetic techniques that populate this flick, and you'll quickly realize that it means business. The beautifully poetic film, written and directed by Ted Nicolaou, like the similar Remote Control, plays with the connection that exists between 1980s new wave culture and 1950s science fiction. However, instead of an alien videotape taking over the world, the aliens here use cable television as their means of planetary self-assertion. Sending up the '80s zeitgeist, the film also mocks the male psyche when it comes to the acquisition of newfangled gadgets. You see, without a major hot war to fight, thousands of men who would normally be killed in armed combat have been relegated to the arena of the mindless consumer. These docile individuals purchase inessential goods and services, while their warlike parents and increasingly violent offspring ridicule their pacifistic lifestyle at every turn.

Which, in this film's case, is a lifestyle that includes wallowing in the bourgeoning five hundred channel universe. One of the earliest signs of the disintegration of the family unit, this abundance of TV choice erodes at their collectiveness. Mommy wants to watch aerobics, teenage Suzy digs MTV, and Grampa (Bert Remsen) and little Sherman want war and monsters. And Dad, well, he's too captivated by the gizmo itself to have any taste to call his own. Made-up and overly reaching theories aside, TerrorVision is ultimately about a disgusting creature from outer space who escapes from a sanitation dump on the planet of Pluton and ends up being zapped into the satellite dish of the Putterman family.

The film pretty much stays inside Putterman residence, brief visits to the set of Medusa's Midnight Horrorthon, an Elvira-esque movie program, allow the audience to stretch our cinematic legs. But the Putterman home is adorned with such a strange assortment of erotic art, that you almost forget the film takes place in one location. Revolting, yet inventive monster effects are also employed to create to the slimy thing at the centre of this silly stew. And I must say, I liked the way the otherworldly creature oozed, and their green iridescent sludge really tickled my fancy.

Now, any movie that features a leggier than usual Mary Woronov (Eating Raoul) exercising in a skintight leotard, the always hilarious Gerrit Graham (Phantom of the Paradise) using the word "tomato" as a supplemental expletive, and moron extraordinaire Jon Gries wearing a W.A.S.P. t-shirt all within the first five minutes is bound to be topnotch. Add a Valley Girl-accented, pink, green, orange, blonde, and blue-haired Diane Franklin (The Last American Virgin) to the zany mix, and were talking about a freaking masterpiece up in here.

Sporting a new wave look so extreme, that the cast of Liquid Sky would no doubt feel drab in her presence, Diane plays the culturally relevant Suzy Putterman, music video junkie and junior-grade fashion icon. And while she is off screen during the film's perilous middle section, Miss Franklin explodes so righteously when she is onscreen, that her absence barely registers. I mean, even though Suzy's younger brother (Chad Allen) is the first to come face-to-face with the space monster, it's Diane's playful spirit that makes their brief friendship with the space monster such an unexpected joy to watch.

Teaching the space monster about the wonders of food and music, Diane, and to lesser extent, Jon Gries (who plays her her boyfriend, O.D.) shine comedically as they instruct the beast on how to eat snacks. Diane even says "yum" twice in quick succession to signify something that is tasty.

Speaking of phraseology, I love how she would liberally pepper her sentences with words like, "barf," "dork," and "awesome." Sure, the third is rarely used to denote anything that is actually awesome anymore. But back in 1986, if you called something "awesome," or in extreme cases, "totally awesome," it usually meant something was genuinely awesome. For example, The Fibonaccis' song, "TerrorVision," which opens and closes the film, is not only awesome, it's (you guessed it) totally awesome.

video uploaded by Trash Trailers

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