For no apparent reason, TV stations in Southern California run the crud films during the Christmas season. KTLA made it a tradition of running "S.C. Conquers..." sometime in the 1970s - or before - and Tom Patten (bit player of a thousand films, including the original "Miracle on 34th Street" and "Spies Like Us") once dragged Pia Zadora into the studio to discuss her role as a Martian tot in "S.C." I think he was better off introducing old "Popeye" cartoons on Saturday mornings in that goofy fake wood-panelled den, running that blinding projector into the camera...
But on to "Attack of the the Eye Creatures!" It was during the holiday season that a friend loaned me his MST3K copy of Buchanan's opus. What can I say? The mangled Air Force captain (resembling Walt Disney) who shows a film clip of "Chipwich"-like UFO buzzing a surveillance satellite which looks nothing like the UFO featured in the rest of the film...the already-overmentioned sleazy USAF sergeants watching "smoochers" on an oscilloscope [!]...the "silent language of balding men" scene...the flashbulb deaths of the monsters...the leading lady's hair...the old man who has an insatiable urge to shoot "smoochers" at all costs...Buchanan knew what he was doing, unlike Hal Warren. He wanted to make a drive-in film, and make one fast. He knew that most people would be making out, not eyeing the screen for such defects as monsters in black tights, etc. It was a great holiday film because it didn't harp on the cheer we are supposed to display around the Winter Solstace; it created this cheer through the bungled nature of the film and the endless wisecracks of a human and his robot-puppet friends.
But on to "Attack of the the Eye Creatures!" It was during the holiday season that a friend loaned me his MST3K copy of Buchanan's opus. What can I say? The mangled Air Force captain (resembling Walt Disney) who shows a film clip of "Chipwich"-like UFO buzzing a surveillance satellite which looks nothing like the UFO featured in the rest of the film...the already-overmentioned sleazy USAF sergeants watching "smoochers" on an oscilloscope [!]...the "silent language of balding men" scene...the flashbulb deaths of the monsters...the leading lady's hair...the old man who has an insatiable urge to shoot "smoochers" at all costs...Buchanan knew what he was doing, unlike Hal Warren. He wanted to make a drive-in film, and make one fast. He knew that most people would be making out, not eyeing the screen for such defects as monsters in black tights, etc. It was a great holiday film because it didn't harp on the cheer we are supposed to display around the Winter Solstace; it created this cheer through the bungled nature of the film and the endless wisecracks of a human and his robot-puppet friends.
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