It Came from Somewhere

From the very first frame, inviting you to the snack bar and reminding you where to return a broken car speaker, I was transported back to my youth at the drive in movies. Nostalgia at it's finest. If you're not old, you should still watch it, so you can see what we thought was so great...and still is.

The props were funny as all get out. Was that space ship really a tin foil pie tin attached to a frisbee? It sure looked like it. Love it for what it is, no one is trying to make you think it's a real space ship.

I got a l lot of spontaneous laughs while watching this film. They appeared out of nowhere, but there they were. The writer has a very subtle sense of humor which matches my own. One that comes to mind is when the male alien's voice changes when speaking first to his new love, and then to his cohort.

I thought all the acting was spot on with just the right amount of overacting as befits the times. All in all, I loved this film.

I enjoyed it from the start to the finish. It is one of those movies that left me smiling and ready to watch again. It pokes fun of the B movies of the 50's but it isn't a spoof, it is a love letter, and a very good one at that. The cheap props and cheesy dialogue are part of what makes it so appealing.

When a flying saucer crashes on Earth, chaos ensues. The interaction between the aliens and the humans is a lot of fun and and filled with several laugh out loud moments. The creature wreaking havoc reminded me of Frankenstein's monster. In fact, several scenes seemed to be a direct tip of the hat to the classic Boris Karloff film. It is a new film but very easily sits among the films that inspired it.

My first impression was how adorable the actors were, all doing their best to mimic teenagers from those old education films and of course, the scifi genre of the fifties. (I know I am stating the obvious, but what the heck) Yes it is Ed woodian. (Roger Coreman had slightly better production value) My favorite cheesy special effect was the ray gun that distintegrated flesh. When I was a kid and I saw Teenagers from Outer space on TV, I thought it was the coolest movie ever, giant lobsters and all! (I was seven years old) The movie also reminded me of The Invasion of the Saucer Men. Again, small town teenagers saving the earth from cabbage headed martians with their car head lights! And who can forget the crawling hands equiped with eye balls ! ICFS was great fun to watch and I applaud the homage to bad cinema. If only MST3000 were still around!

Well, it ain't the "Lost Skeleton of Cadavra." That one was smart -and- funny.

Some movies are accidentally bad.

Some movies are bad on purpose.

Some movies are bad by design and therefore good.

Some movies lampoon bad movies, and triumph.

Some movies are designed to lampoon bad movies, badly, on purpose, and manage to miss the mark so hard they fall all the way back to accidentally bad.

This movie came from somewhere, all right. Somewhere dank and grainy and crawling with clueless film students, like that weird kid who not only sings the wrong lyrics to every song, but then goes on to unironically make a brain-rot video with the wrong lyrics, on purpose, but instead of being brilliantly funny, it comes off a bit like a commercial jingle for a really cringe local pest-control service.

Things that were over-the-top-stupid might have even hit the mark if done intelligently. Take the flying pie pan saucer, for example: calling for "evasive maneuvers" and then re-using the same scene? Just... why? Why not really yank that thing around, make it seem like the creators were actually in on the joke? Instead we get a dry and "faithful" attempt at an homage that feels like some aliens wanted to make their own "moving picture film" because they knew it was important to the war effort, or something. I wish I could give this a fair shake, but the first 15 minutes were so unrelentingly painful that I just couldn't. Like giving yourself a tonsillectomy with a slotted serving spoon and a rusty mirror.

I'm a huge MST3K fan. I love watching old B-movies, love Svengoolie...all of it. It Came From Somewhere is so well done that if I hadn't known it was only made this year I would have believed I actually was watching an old movie. Everything about it, from the classic drive-in ads at the beginning to the "expert" (who kind of reminds me of the guy at the beginning of the old Inner Sanctum movies), to the campy special effects just had that 50s feel. Even the way the actors spoke. That just shows me how talented and dedicated the entire cast and crew were. While this isn't a comedy, I will admit that I did chuckle in a few places, just because some scene was so perfectly spot-on with the movies this paid homage to. It Came From Somewhere truly is everything that is great about 50s sci fi movies.