There was a surprising amount, and some of it will be covered soon, including a few well-known options. But I had never heard of TerrorVision and wanted something light, cheesy, stupid, and easy to watch while scarfing down righteous pizza delight along with beer and gin.
To start, the film has a FANTASTIC theme soon that somehow combines a New Wave Elvira-type singer with B-52s camp and a weird melody sensibility out of maybe Devo or Gary Numan. CLICK HERE.
Crazy, right? Not to mention the insane psychedelic white noise that drifts throughout.
The acting is, appropriately, absolutely horrible. They all act at the level of community theater rejects ("Sorry, Bill, you just didn't quite make the cut for Man #47 this year. Come back next June."), which leads me to believe that either (a) everyone was drunk on the set, (b) no one took it even 1% seriously and so they were all having a blast, (c) cocaine was left in giant piles on a table in the middle of the set, or (d) every single one of those.
The movie's "plot," if you want to be nice and call it that, is simple. A doofus installing a satellite dish accidentally calls down murderous aliens from the outer spheres. The whole family is absolutely worshipful of television, which is how it should be (in the '80s or anytime). I love the absolutely insane and clearly ironic '80s culture touches - the neon magnificence of the daughter's faux-beehive, the yuppy blandness of the father and the Jazzercise housewife mother... etc.
And then there are subtle David Lynch-esque touches here and there, like when the parents casually introduce themselves to the punk boyfriend of their daughter as swingers. Surreal, and somewhat disturbing, yet weirdly appropriate. Or when the grandfather says to his young grandson, "Remember what I told you about the 30 ROUND MAGAZINE, BOY!??!?!" Wow, you get chills. Semi-seriously.
Not to mention the basic premise involves "training" the TV monster into a quasi-domestic "pet."
The whole movie is, in fact, a really surreal and sarcastic take on the Valley Girl culture and general '80s yuppy mentality. It's like a completely twisted neon-magnified vision of Family Ties... perhaps Family Ties meets Toxic Avenger. Which is meant as praise.
Somewhere along the lines, someone with a brain was attached to this script. And the trail is easy to follow, since the movie was written AND directed by the same guy - Ted Nicolaou. Hats off you, Ted, wherever you are, because this movie is FUN.
I looked up Mr. Nicolaou's IMDB resume and discovered.... I hadn't heard of a single movie of his except one, 1994's Dragonworld, although I can't remember for the life of me how I know it. I just do.
So this is a rare never-seen-it-before '80s horror film that is actually watchable and rewatchable due to strong satirical impulse combined with very bright sets and costumes (fantastic use of color everywhere) combined with hilarious and probably deliberate overacting combined with solid and gooey gore effects.
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