Loser stuntman shows up at a Beef Pie Festival to jump 40 oil cans and falls in love with the organizers daughter. When the stunt goes wrong he's sent away for 130 years. Breaking out of prison he heads back to his lady love, just in time for the next Festival and an alien invasion.
Quirky and one of a kind, this riff on the sort of films that started Peter Jackson on his road to the Oscars is a love it or hate it proposition. I damn near hate the film. No where near as good as anything Jackson ever turned out, its a game attempt at something different but falls as flat as road kill. Its odd and off beat for no real reason other than to be odd and off beat (all of the characters are "characters" and have little connection to reality). At times fitfully funny, often in a cruel way, this film just seems to just want to break taboos and be strange. There are numerous musical sequences, which while fine seem to go on too long. Worse I really didn't like anyone.
The real reason to see the film is the aliens. Mostly seen as floating blips with tentacles, these are lean mean killing machines. Heads fly, blood splatters and bad jokes are cracked (I liked the conversation about how one victims face was sucked off). These are wild and wanton beasties and are almost worth the price of a rental. Unfortunately they really don't show up until the last half hour, by which point you may have turned off the movie and put on a Golden Girls rerun.
I can't recommend this film to anyone except tolerant gore hounds and monster lovers who are advised to keep the remote handy for frequent fast forwarding. Everyone else is advised to rent a Peter Jackson film instead.
3 out of 10 for the monsters and a few cruel jokes that work
Quirky and one of a kind, this riff on the sort of films that started Peter Jackson on his road to the Oscars is a love it or hate it proposition. I damn near hate the film. No where near as good as anything Jackson ever turned out, its a game attempt at something different but falls as flat as road kill. Its odd and off beat for no real reason other than to be odd and off beat (all of the characters are "characters" and have little connection to reality). At times fitfully funny, often in a cruel way, this film just seems to just want to break taboos and be strange. There are numerous musical sequences, which while fine seem to go on too long. Worse I really didn't like anyone.
The real reason to see the film is the aliens. Mostly seen as floating blips with tentacles, these are lean mean killing machines. Heads fly, blood splatters and bad jokes are cracked (I liked the conversation about how one victims face was sucked off). These are wild and wanton beasties and are almost worth the price of a rental. Unfortunately they really don't show up until the last half hour, by which point you may have turned off the movie and put on a Golden Girls rerun.
I can't recommend this film to anyone except tolerant gore hounds and monster lovers who are advised to keep the remote handy for frequent fast forwarding. Everyone else is advised to rent a Peter Jackson film instead.
3 out of 10 for the monsters and a few cruel jokes that work