Attack of the Eye Creatures

source: The Eye Creatures

source: The Eye Creatures

Too many people are over critical of low budget films. "The Eye Creatures" concerns the age old plot of a group of teenagers battling more aliens from space! The basic elements; a model spaceship, aliens (men in rubber bubble suits with eyes all over), government agents, angry drunk farmers, making out in Lovers Lane, teens in distress (who no one believes-of course), and a big showdown, make this cheap movie so entertaining! Sort of like Happy Days with monsters! It will never win an award, but it was never intended to anyway! This is Larry Buchanan's remake of "Invasion of The Saucermen." Also see Zontar Thing From Venus!

Two teenagers meet up with scary aliens and when they escape, none of the adults in town believe them. So it's up to the teens to get together to save the Earth--just like in other 50s and 60s sci-fi films like THE BLOB and EARTH VS. THE GIANT SPIDER. In the last week, I've seen five of Larry Buchanan's films and I've seen a few others over the years. Sadly, while this is a terrible film, it's probably among the very best films he made! In the 1960s, he made almost a dozen remakes of older Roger Corman films and this is one of them. Originally INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN, this remake is amazingly bland and tame--mostly because it lacks the charm and great looking aliens from the original. The acting is generally surprisingly good for a Buchanan film--most of the actors seem semi-competent and DON'T read their lines from cue cards in a staccato voice. However, the "comic relief" soldiers are pretty dreadful. Plus, the aliens look cheap, the story too close to the original and too little reason exists not to just watch INVASION and be done with it--especially since INVASION is a real cult classic, whereas THE EYE CREATURES is just boring.

A small group of lumpy, oozy guys in rubber costumes land on Earth and proceed to just kind of hang out in the woods for a while. The military knows they've landed, and they've got their spaceship surrounded. Too bad there's no one inside of it. The teeners know what's going on too, but no one believes them because they're just kids! When a greasy drifter winds up dead at the hands of an Eye Creature, local clean cut and slightly bad boy Stan Kenton is blamed for it. But he, the drifters roommate, Stan's girlfriend Susan and her tower of hair all know the truth - it was ALIENS!!! And they're determined to vanquish the slimy enemies themselves! This remake of "Invasion of the Saucer Men" is not only cheesy, greasy and depressing, it was also totally unnecessary, since little about the plot or even the script was altered. There's also the small fact that "Invasion of the Saucer Men" wasn't any great shakes either, so why bother remaking it to begin with? No one in this putrid mess can act, except for the guy who plays Stan and believe me, he cannot save this movie. There's so much to loathe in this film - Susan's gravity defying hair, the roommate and his striped sweater dress, the old guy with the shotgun and the horrible backwoods jargon, the incredibly foul and sweaty soldiers who spend the entire movie watching other people make out. The very film that this movie is printed on seems soaked in sweat and other less savory fluids. It's a bit like watching a cheaply made porno without any sex to make it interesting or entertaining. Oh, and don't forget the Eye Creatures themselves, whose running shoes and turtleneck sweaters can be spotted quite easily. They instill no sense of terror as they lumber about, vomiting up blackberry jam and exploding into puffs of smoke whenever a light is shined upon them. These guys look like Styrofoam packing material come to life...a lethargic, pointless life to be sure, but life nonetheless. The MST3K version of this film is great. The film itself sucks. The director is clearly a sadistic misanthrope who hates his audience. You have been warned.

I really hate this movie. There are no actors among the bunch. The film is slower than Siberian molasses, taken out of a freezer after 12 years, and saturated with cornstarch. I really hate this movie. It is so repetitive; we get it, no one believes them and the police think they're drunk! I really hate this movie. There is, of course, the title and the intensely loathsome oily guys. I really hate this movie. It was not scary in the least and the budget was just over $7 ($6.95 being burned for the Peter Graves voice-over). I really hate this movie. 1 star out of 10. And that's being generous. I really hate this movie. I really hate this movie.

Unlike what a previous reviewer said about this film being a ripoff of Roger Corman's films, it is not. AIP, who owned all the films Corman did during the 50s, decided they were going to remake these films as cheaply as possible ($30,000) and sell the to television. So, AIP hired Texas filmmaker Larry Buchanan and had him film Zontar the Thing from Venus,Curse of the Swamp Creature, In the Year 2889 ,Creature of Destruction ,and The Eye Creatures. These were all remakes of 50's AIP films. Yes, these films are all hastily made messes, and yes they are bad, but in an entertaining way. I for one miss by-the-seat-of-your-pants film-making, as well as miss the master, Larry Buchanan.

Depending on your tastes (or lack of), you will either love this film or hate it. I loved it. Sure, it's pretty cheesy but it was shot in 16mm in 1965. I loved the low-budget inventiveness of director Larry Buchanan. His day-for-night scenes are about on the same level as an average TV series made at the time. The monsters are hilarious and John Ashley and the rest of the cast are perfect. After seeing it the first time, I was hooked by the weirdness and the low-budget 60s charm. If you like this film, then you must see ZONTAR, THING FROM VENUS and IN THE YEAR 2889 made by the same director.

How I love cheap, crappy, cheesy, bad special effects, 1950/60's sci-fi films! They are always so bad that they are good and are fun to watch. BUT, this one is not in that category.....oh yes, it's cheap, crappy, cheesy and has bad special effects but it crosses over from being fun to being distasteful. Two things make this film so painful to watch.....the two soldiers that spy on the "lover's lane" couples and the two guys, one in a nightgown, who are out to make a quick buck. They all are such creeps. The soldiers are put in for comedy relief and fail miserably. The two hot-shots are so damn unattractive that you hate them on sight. The love interest "teenagers" are on the down side of 20 and their hair is the best thing that they have going for them. He has used 7 pounds of Brylcream to hold his pompadour in place and she is hiding her lunch in the wad of hair on the top of her head. What a hoot! Of course, the Eye Creatures, or should I say the The The Eye Creatures (since this is what the credits say), moving at a snail's pace are about as frightening as the Michelin Tire Man and they look like him too. Check out the tennis shoes and black slacks....I guess they didn't have enough zippered Eye Creature suits to go around. Even on MST3K, this film sucks. They did the best they could with it but it is just too far over the top, the characters are too slimy and all in all, it is just unpleasant. Unless you are into self-inflicted pain and suffering, avoid this one like the plague.

I happened to see the mst3k version of this flick, and at one point in the show,the bots and Joel come on with a skit called "they just didn't care",which showed off some of the many glaring errors of the director(of which there was a plethora,many of which even they failed to mention).but the most glaring error of all is the entire supposition of the plot.A group of aliens possessing interstellar travel come to a planet where the light of it's star is instantly fatal to them.But,they forget to bring any protective equipment,even something as simple as a space suit or sun screen.Also, their "flying saucer" was destroyed with a blowtorch.How did such stupid creatures manage to discover interstellar travel.Next to this idiotic idea the rest of the story is just anticlimax.Who cares that the acting is horrid,the effects deplorable,the plot sequence unfollowable,the comedy unlaughable,the costuming unbelievable,and the movie basically just unwatchable. But, like the bots on mst said they just didn't care. consequently,we don't care either. but if its any consolation,the mst3k version is pretty entertaining.