TeenagersfromOuterSpace

Teenagers from Outer Space (1959)

Aliens visit the Earth to see if our planet is compatible with the gargon, think super sized lobster that lives on dry ground. See the gargon is their primary source of food and they need a planet to host the might gargon herds, and Earth might just do the trick. But as soon as the aliens land they zap a family pet, which leads the youngest of them, Derek, to declare the planet insufficient because of the intelligent life (people not dogs). When he tries to force them off the planet with a ray gun they turn the tables on him. While the rest return for the gorgon herd they send one of the crew, Thor, to hunt Derek down. Before you know it Thor is running around reducing people to skeletons with his ray gun right and left. Can Derek save the planet? What of the aliens?

The 50s managed to produce some really awful sci-fi movies. Some of them are just terrible and boring like Tobor the Great and some of them are cheesy fun. Teenagers from Outer Space leans more towards the second. The story is silly but well paced and fun to watch. I mean an advanced race of aliens land kill a dog and set loose a giant lobster on the Earth! That is some exciting stuff. It is also pretty typical of the cheesy sci-fi movies from the 50s and managed to keep my attention. Teenagers from Outer Space is dumb, but never boring. Can’t ask for much more than that. I guess I could talk a bit about the cast and how wooden their performances are. But if you go into a movie like this worried about the acting chops of the performers then you have missed the point. Though the performance of David Love as the alien Derek is particularly wooden and worth pointing out because of how bad it is. This appears to be Mr. Love’s only acting gig, which isn’t at all surprising.

Lets talk about the technical bits for a moment. The space ship actually looks pretty cool and is a decent set for a low budget flick from the 50s. The ray guy is obviously a child’s toy (you can still see the name printed on the side in some scenes). They did have a cool effect for “firing” the gun by reflecting light into the camera that was pretty clever. But I was disappointed by the lack of the giant lobster on screen. They clearly didn’t have the budget for it, so all you ever see is the shadow of the beast. This is obviously nothing more than a spotlight on a regular sized lobster. Damn it I wanted a giant papier-mâché claw at least!

To be honest there are some of these 50s flicks that are so bad that most everyone will get a kick out of them. Something like Invasion of the Saucer men is a good example of this. Teenagers isn’t quite up to that level of silly. So unless you are a big nerd for these kinds of movies I doubt you will like it much. But if you are, like I am, then you might want to check this one out. The best part is that it is available from Mill Creek Entertainment on several of their budget DVD sets. For more information check them out at http://www.millcreekent.com/

2 ½ out of 4

reviewed by John Shatzer