No Good Very Bad Movies Special: The one that was the worst movie on MST3K

 

Title: The Eye Creatures aka Attack of the Eye Creatures aka Attack of the the Eye Creatures

What Year?: 1965 (copyright)/ 1967 (US release)

Classification: Parody/ Anachronistic Outlier

Rating: Dear God WHY??!! (1/3)

 

In the course of my reviews, one thing I have regularly said from the beginning is that I do encounter movies I consider too bad to review. On that point, I have cited no less an authority than Frank Conniff, the self-described odd-job man of Mystery Science Theater 3000, who has recounted rejecting movies as unsuitable for the show’s purposes at a rate of 20 to 1. More recently, I have finally gone through the MST3K library to see what movies might be worth my time (see The Brain That Wouldn’t Die; also Space Mutiny). With this review, I’m condensing my research into one egregious offender that truly made me feel that even that crew had lowered their standards by acknowledging it. I present The Eye Creatures, a movie that on top of other flaws thought it could be funny.

Our story begins, after a tense exchange between surprisingly competent government men, with alleged teenagers making out at a lovers’ lane and several pervy elders wasting government time and resources spying on them. One particular pair of idiots are on their way to elope, only to run into a UFO that the authorities are well aware of but haven’t bothered to respond to. It turns out that the aliens are already on the loose, specifically tall, pale humanoids covered in lumps that are apparently supposed to be eyes with permanently open mouths. When one of the creatures gets run over by the idiots, the lawmen are somehow unable to find the body, though they do find a deceased drifter whose death is pinned on the kids. It’s up to the pair to break out of jail and stop the aliens, but the hardest part will be finding someone who actually cares!

The Eye Creatures was a science fiction/ comedy film directed by Larry Buchanan, as one of several films produced by AIP (see Futureworld, Meteor, etc.) for syndicated television. It was widely regarded as a remake of AIP’s 1957 film Invasion of the Saucermen, itself a parody of alien invasion films. The film was made in 1965 but not released until 1967. Its budget was variously estimated at $40,000 or under $25,000, either of which would be far lower than the $60,000 budget of Plan 9 From Outer Space in 1956. In some versions, the title was changed to Attack of the Eye Creatures, resulting in an error where “the” was shown twice. The film starred B-movie veteran John Ashley, then age 30, as the lead Stan, with Cynthia Hull, then about 18, as the love interest Susan. The music was credited to Les Baxter, a pioneer of the “exotica” genre, and film composer Ronald Stein. Ashley would describe the film as among “the all-time worst films ever made”, though he spoke well of Buchanan. The film was featured on season 4 of Mystery Science Theater 3000, in an episode apparently withdrawn from authorized distribution. The original film is available on multiple platforms.

For my experiences, my frame of reference is Mystery Science Theater, yet another pop culture phenomenon I was aware of but never into. At the time I started doing reviews for this blog, I had watched a few episodes, and found them just not my style. As I delved further into the show more recently, that feeling cemented, especially in terms of my standards and preferences for movies to review. Of the movies featured and in many cases made notorious by the show, the vast majority are the kind I would go easy on or simply ignore. The outliers that I found most worthy of attention were the relatively late films, especially from the 1960s. These definitely included the very worst ever featured on the show, like Manos Hand of Fate, The Creeping Terror and The Wild World Of Batwoman. But the present movie stood out to me very early as a very uniquely inept and offensive, and as usual, I’m going to spend a lot of time analyzing why.

Moving forward, one more background detail of note is the career of Larry Buchanan, nominated by 1000 Misspent Hours as “the worst professional director who ever lived”. It’s the “professional” part that indeed gets to a number of the core problems. The worst movies of the 1950s, per my usual refrain, were made by people who simply had no idea how to make a movie. This feels from the start like a different kind of animal entirely. The actors, for the most part, are people who can act. The shots are what you would expect from people who knew something about a camera beyond what it cost to get one. Above all, the writing and direction are clearly from by people who should know how to either do this right or let us in on the joke if they are trying to be “bad” on purpose. This is precisely where the movie pushes into the intolerable. The lead actor is simply too old, while his lady love is actively irritating. (And dear Logos, that hair…) The soundtrack, otherwise the one redeeming virtue, is comically exaggerated compared to what's on screen. Worst of all, both the plot and the alleged "jokes" repeatedly hinges on the authority figures being stupid, lazy and perverted. The most baffling offense against intelligence and taste then or now is a comment about movies presenting matrons off as youthful maidens, disregarding the fact that the pair on screen here are an actual teenager paired with a man old enough to be her teacher who looks old enough to play her father. (One more dishonorable mention goes to a “girl” who appears to be wearing a wedding ring...)

And that still leaves the elements that are actually inept. The obvious offenders are the aliens, which are incredibly bad even apart the prominently noted appearances of zippers, seams and shoes. The irritating part here is that the obviously bad suits distract from some promisingly creepy concepts, particularly the mobile severed hand (see… The Hand?). The real question here is whether there is a point where this should be considered part of the actual or attempted comedy. My answer is that these just don’t look like anything but guys in wonky suits, which is a peculiar flaw even among the most awful creature effects ever made. The gremlin in “Nightmare At 20,000 Feet” also had shoes showing, but he still looked like a gremlin. The alien in Dark Star was an actual beach ball complete with seams, but it still looked like an animal/ vegetable hybrid thingy.  The final insult here is that there are no more signs of distinguishable eyes than there were on the Alien rig. Meanwhile, the real star is the mindboggling “nighttime” lighting, all the more incongruous given the aliens’ posited weaknesses. What’s easily missed is that there are just enough shots that get things right to prove that the crew knew how to do it right. Once again, however, this just make the failures inexcusable, culminating in a finale where the “night” doesn’t look any darker than 6:30 on a winter morning.

That still leaves the “one scene”, and I’m going with the opening pre-credits sequence. It all begins with a guy carrying a briefcase chained to his wrist, who will remain by far the most actually professional presence in the entire movie. Even Crow and Tom Servo don’t deny the genuine tension as he passes through security in the standard top-secret facility. The unnamed G-man remains competent and assured as he opens the case, revealing a film inside. In a further “meta” moment, he sets up a projector, raising a certain vague hope that whatever he is taking so seriously is the same thing we’re going to see. Then, just in case you were feeling optimistic, you see the gimmicky lettering of the title, which if you have the MST3K cut will say, “Attack Of The The Eye Creatures”!

In closing, I come back to the challenge I set for myself, can this or indeed any other film truly be considered the “worst” of MST3K. In my opinion, with the further handicapping I would apply in my own reviews, I suppose I would call it a tie between this and Wild World of Batwoman, which were tellingly featured before and after major changes in the show itself. (Yes, they did much worse than Manos Hand of Fate.) However, this is where one will find fundamentally different kinds of “bad” in play. Batwoman (the one where Servo literally screams “END!!!”) still had enough outright weirdness and actually amusing moments that I can credit it with trying to be “so bad it’s good” on purpose. The present film is marginally more polished and quite a bit more conventional, but the net effect is like hearing a twisted dirty joke from a smarmy old gentleman with a smirk on his face. For the decisive personal hate factor, this is the one that “wins” by a landslide. While I am sure I will be dealing with MST3K again, for now, this review will be enough. Onward and upward, when possible.