Director: W. Lee Wilder

Starring: Peter Graves, James Seay, Steve Pendleton, Frank Gerstle

DOUG – Where do you come from?
DENEB TALA – From a planet yet unknown to you.
DOUG – You know my name. You speak English.
DENEB TALA – We speak every language.

If the title has you curious as to what this one’s about let me end your suspense – it’s about killers from space. And it’s shite.

A young Peter Graves (decades before his role as the white-haired Captain Oveur in Airplane!) plays Doctor Doug Martin, a scientist working for the US military.

After a spot of nuclear testing out in the desert, Doug is sent out in a plane to record data from the environment for research and testing purposes.

Sadly, Doug is about as skilled at flying as I am at giving birth and as such his plane plummets to the ground. Mysteriously though, his body is nowhere to be found.

Days later, to the astonishment of his colleagues, a dazed Doug stumbles back to the base. Seemingly fighting fit, the only cause of concern is a mysterious scar on Doug’s chest.

Curious as to why Doug has no memories of the crash or its aftermath, the military decides to keep Doug grounded for a while so they can observe him.

Pissed off that more nuclear tests are going on without him, an angry Doug breaks into the base’s safe, steals some top secret info and heads back into the desert with it, where he’s promptly caught and apprehended.

What’s going on? Killers from bastarding space, that’s what going on. Specifically, alien ones.

You see, it turns out that when Doug’s plane crashed his body was recovered by a group of aliens at a base of operations inside hidden caverns underneath the desert.

The aliens operated on Doug to save his life (hence the scar) but only because they needed something from him.

They plan to take over the world with giant mutant animals (of course), and they’ve been storing all the atomic energy created in the tests above ground in order to do so.

They also hypnotised Doug to make him their mole at the military base, hence the stealing of documents. But now Doug is free, no longer hypnotised, and having a bastard of a time trying to convince his colleagues that there are aliens with a load of atomic power living underground.

I do love a cheesy sci-fi flick but Killers From Space is just bad in every way. Scenes abruptly end mid-sentence, the performances are ropey (Graves aside) and the ending – in which Doug kills the off-screen aliens by cutting the nation’s power for ten seconds in an attempt to stop them containing the atomic power they’re storing – is one of the most underwhelming I’ve ever seen.

The aliens themselves are also perhaps the worst example ever committed to celluloid. In fairness, this was before the days of the popular ‘grey’ design we all associate with aliens these days, so the filmmakers had nothing to go on.

That said, what they decide to go with is ridiculous: the aliens are simply normal people with large fake eyes which are clearly just ping-pong balls with dots painted on them as pupils.

Another cop-out is the scene in which Doug tries to escape the aliens’ caverns and comes face-to-face with their giant mutant animals. Well, I say face-to-face.

What really ensues is four mind-numbing minutes of Peter Graves wandering back and forth in half-arsed fear as blown-up footage of normal animals is played behind him. Four minutes has never felt so long.

For all I know I’m being ignorant and Killers From Space was as thrilling as Saw back in the day, but these days it isn’t even funny enough to entertain as a cheesy film.

Three decades later, after starring in Airplane!, Peter Graves would become well-known for putting his arm over a young boy’s shoulder and asking him: “Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?”.

I can’t help wondering if the original line had been “Joey, have you ever seen Killers From Space?” but it was decided that would be too offensive.

In the past we have heaped a fair amount of abuse on Albert Pyun, director of such films as Spitfire and Hong Kong '97. Before him, Charles Band, director and producer of Trancers was our whipping boy. Meet our new whipping boy, writer Benjamin Carr. Carr is apparently the new writer at Full Moon Studios, as nearly every new release we've seen from Full Moon has his name on it. The last film of Carr's we watched was Zarkorr! the Invader, which we panned in a big bad way.

In a newsgroup conversation with Mr. Carr, we made the mistake of calling Zarkorr "a tragedy." He took some umbrage at this. His exact words were, "No, no. Judge Dredd was a tragedy. Volcano was a tragedy. Daylight was a tragedy." While these statements are true, do they mean that Zarkorr is any less of a tragedy? Not really. It's just a different kind of tragedy. We once got really bored and watched Daylight for a second time because it was on cable. It's bad, but at least competent. In contrast, we never have and never will get bored enough that watching Zarkorr again will seem like a good idea.

Because we are gluttons for punishment, and also because we will watch anything with a giant monster in it, we decided that we should watch Kraa! The Sea Monster, the next in Full Moon's line of giant monster films. And there, right on the box, was Benjamin Carr's name.

Kraa opens with a title card, which informs us that we are looking at "Proyas - The Dark Planet." Alex Proyas, director of The Crow and Dark City, should probably sue. We are then introduced to the leader of Proyas, Lord Doom, master of all he surveys. Unfortunately, all he surveys is a smallish set that contains a throne, a pillar, a midget, and some mood lighting. Lord Doom is an undeniable homage to Dr. Doom from the Fantastic Four comic book. Homage. That's french for "steal."* As a matter of fact, Kraa! The Sea Monster's first line of dialogue ("Revenge is best served cold!") is an homage to either Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan or Paradise Lost, though slightly rephrased in such a way as to not quite make sense. (It should be, "Revenge is A DISH...") In any case, Doom sets forth to conquer Earth through the use of a giant monster, namely Kraa.

Who can possibly stand against this poorly costumed menace? Why, the Planet Patrol! All four of them. Led by Captain Ruric, these tireless defenders of the galaxy watch stuff happen on tv screens because their scenes were filmed separately from the rest of Kraa, presumably in an attempt to pad the movie to feature film length.

We arrive on the scene just in time to see a new recruit join the Planet Rangers, a young woman named Curtis. Curtis is a psychic, though the other three members of the Power Patrol don't believe in her powers. This leads to the most cliched exchange this situation can possibly engender. You've probably guessed which one we're talking about. Something happens, and the psychic asks "Where did that come from?" or something similar. And then someone present, usually the resident wise-ass, will say (say it with us...): "You're the psychic! You tell us where it came from!" That made us laugh the first 4000 times we heard it.

If it were up to us, we would give Colton Scott, who plays Captain Ruric, an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. It's not that he's any less wooden than the other actors. Hell, the four actors who make up the Planet Patrol make the kids on Saved By The Bell look like the Royal Shakspearean Theater by comparison. But we would give Colton Scott an Oscar because he delivers such lines as "Looks like Lord Doom is trying to heat things up again," and "Get ready to go to Earth. You've got a monster to fight," with a straight face. We know we couldn't possibly do the same, and we find his acheivment so noteworthy that he should be honored instead of hacks like Robin Williams and Jack Nicholson.

Just as we are getting used to the stomach-churningly bad acting of the Planet Patrol, the film shifts to footage of Kraa. Kraa is essentially a giant version of the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Actually, it looks like the version of the Creature that showed up in The Monster Squad, or the one that showed up in The Guyver. Kraa soon heads for New Jersey.

Why would he head for Jersey, other than for the obvious reason that Jersey could use a good destroying? And wouldn't destroying Jersey make the world a better place, and isn't Kraa supposed to be doing just the opposite? Wait, maybe Lord Doom's plan is subtler than we gave him credit for. Maybe he plans to have Kraa destroy New Jersey, and then the people of Earth will make him their leader out of pure gratitude!

We're getting way off topic here. The reason that Kraa heads towards Jersey is because that's where Mogyar landed. Mogyar is the only agent the Planet Patrol could find to fight Kraa. They send him to Earth, where he crashes into a diner. There he meets Bobby Machek and Alma James, played by the two cheapest actors the movie's producers could find. Mogyar is also hunted by an elite government unit that's sort of a combination of the Men in Black and the FBI agents from The X-Files, only without the equipment, intelligence, or fashion sense of either.

What is Mogyar? Well, he's a smallish alien crustacean with an Italian accent.

No, Mogyar is actually a smallish alien mollusk with an Italian accent. We fooled you good, didn't we? Truth be told, Mogyar most resembles a slimy, overlarge head of lettuce, but mollusk is probably the closest we're going to come in the animal kingdom.

The reason for Mogyar's Italian accent should probably be explained. See, Mogyar was supposed to land in Italy where he was going to try to secure the help of some Italian scientists to build a super-weapon. Instead, he lands in Alma's diner by accident. (Keep this in mind, it becomes important later in this review.) So when Mogyar lands he only speaks Italian, and Bobby (R. L. McMurry) and Alma (Teal Marchande) give him a book so he can learn English. Apparently the title of the book was "Mario and Luigi Teach-a You To Be An Ethnic Stereotype," judging by the way Mogyar talks for the rest of the film.

Kraa wades ashore and begins to Stomp New Jersey. (Hey, that's a good name for a web site!) After a quick capture-and-escape sequence involving the aforementioned government agents, the two humans take their mostly-inanimate lettuce-head buddy to a nearby nuclear power plant to hastily construct a weapon capable of vaporizing Kraa. The government agents catch up with them once again, and an excruciatingly formulaic game of "will they fire the weapon or won't they" ensues. Kraa is eventually blown away, Lord Doom is taken down by the Mighty Morphin Planet Patrol, and once again, all is well with the Universe. The End.

There is one scene towards the begininng of Kraa's rampage which almost suggests that Kraa was supposed to be a misunderstood monster. Kraa is walking along a highway when he comes across a service station with a large advertising mascot. (We think it was "Tire King," but we could be wrong.) Kraa grabs the mascot, almost playfully. Then a tanker truck drives down the road and collides, for no discernable reason, with the service station, blowing it up. It would hardly be fair to blame Kraa for that!

Even later in the film, we are informed that the Planet Patrol has sent Mogyar's "mothership" on a collision course with Kraa in order to buy Mogyar more time. We are then shown cheap CGI footage of a pyramidal space ship streaking towards Earth, then bouncing off a satellite and flying off to the west. While this is supposed to be Mogyar's mothership, we are pretty darned sure that this footage was orginally supposed to be of Mogyar himself landing. The ship looks just like the one Mogyar lands in, its the same size as Mogyar's ship, and the "bouncing off a satellite" bit would explain why Mogyar landed in Jersey instead of Italy.

What does Benjamin Carr think of what he hath wrought? To quote the man himself: "As for Kraa, who can say? It, too, has gone through changes. It's not unusual for a movie to end up being something very different from what it was to start with."

We assume that what Mr. Carr means is that Kraa! The Sea Monster started out as a good movie.

In the eighties if it was popular it had to have a tie in to something that involved merchandise. It didn’t matter what it was, whether it was Rubiks Cubes, Mad Balls, or even the Garbage Pail Kids, companies were always thinking about new ways to squeeze as much money out of their products as possible. In the eighties, My Pet Monster was a very popular kids toy that was simple in premise. It was a cute horned monster with plastic cuffs that kept its claws secure. The monster was gross enough for kids that loved monsters, but cute enough to warrant being a bed time toy. So naturally Hi Tops gave us an animated series for “My Pet Monster” and a much derided straight to video movie that reeks of a cash grab.

It’s not so much we get a movie about “My Pet Monster” it’s that the producers and writers behind the movie didn’t seem to have a good idea on how to turn the toy in to a good movie. I would have much preferred an “E.T.” meets “Gremlins” fantasy movie about kids that befriend a friendly but raucous monster. Here instead, we’re given a hokey tale of a young kid named Max who is cursed with becoming a purple monster thanks to an ancient statue during a field trip. Once the museum owner finds out Max can transform in to a monster, he hopes to catch him and study him, but Max and his friend Melanie try to conceal his identity while keeping his monstrous habits under control.

At only an hour, “My Pet Monster” wastes no time getting the plot in motion and is filmed very much like a TV pilot. It’s never made clear what kind of powers Max has, but he does become a monster when he’s very hungry. We also never find out why no one else was turned, or why he was chosen to become a monster. Either way its best not to put too much brain work in to the premise. It’s also best not to put too much thought in a movie with a sub-plot about a poodle, and with a monster whose mechanical suit barely seems to work if at all. “My Pet Monster” is another absolutely awful cash in on an eighties fad, and one whose value is centered on nostalgia and nostalgia alone.