There once was a man named Vic Savage. You're probably thinking "So?" Well, he knew an
Exploitation Filmmaker named Allan Silliphant (who would later direct
The Stewardesses, the most profitable 3D movie with respect to budget of all time) that was related to Stirling "
In the Heat of the Night" Silliphant. Vic bought a story from Allan, pretended he bought a story from Stirling, and pulled together some investors - supposedly by promising cameo roles. He took the money, made... a "movie,"
and disappeared with most of the investors' money.The story is about an UFO that releases a giant caterpillar-like monster who begins eating random people. It turns out that
the monsters (there's a second one inside the ship) are actually robots sent to analyze human beings for aliens. Although the monsters are destroyed by the end, the spaceship still beams its collected data into space...
This "movie" would later be remembered as being particularly bad even for
Mystery Science Theater 3000. For tropes and specifics relating to the
MST3K version, please check the
episode recap page.
This film provides examples of:
- Cameo: most memorably obese investor #5 as Jimmy's grandpa.
- Car Fu: The second monster is defeated by ramming it with a truck! Armies of the world, take note. When guns are useless, grab a Ford!
- Clothing Damage: A blink-and-you-miss-it moment. When the monster attacks the dance party, a woman tries to escape, only for a guy to come after her and pull her away tearing her dress top off.
- Corpsing: Dr. Bradford is laughing like crazy as the monster attempts to eat him.
- Dull Surprise
- Dying Like Animals: Mike: "Only after the monster dies do people think of running."
- Fauxlosophic Narration
- Fanservice: The various shots of wiggling female legs disappearing down the monster's gullet. May also count as Fetish Fuel for some.
- Fan Disservice: And for others, it's ruined by the fact that, well, they're getting eaten (and it doesn't apply to the male victims).
- Infant Immortality: Averted with Bobby. Played straight with the actual baby.
- Kill 'em All: This film has very few survivors.
- Monster Misogyny: One of the most blatant examples.
- The Narrator: Who seems to only talk when the characters should be. The plan was originally to dub it over, similar to Manos, but they decided to use a Narrator instead.
- Pregnancy Tropes: Averted. There's just suddenly a baby.
- Shaggy Dog Story
- Science Is Bad: Dr. Bradford is clearly wrong for taking any kind of non-military action. Not that the military are any better.
- Swallowed Whole: How just about everyone gets it, though the men go down fast while the women go down struggling, wriggling, and screaming all the way.
- Too Dumb to Live: Almost all of the victims tend to stand in place and scream rather than flee the easily outrunable creature. Except the ones in cars. They just kind of sit there and scream.
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