User reviews

The Spacemen are Coming! The Spaceships Have Landed! The Fifties are highlighted with stunning sequences of cars with flatheads, chrome and stick shifts. Nifty neighborhoods and helpful, unwitting locals who point humanlike aliens to the heroine and local vistas. Plus a warm-voiced Grampa who always seems to be asleep, just awakened, yawning or giving detailed, correct directions to the villain who is seeking Grampa's granddaughter and friendly alien renter. Curiously, Grampa never asked for rent in advance? But what the heck this is the Fifties, right?

Derek who is the hero Martian is a bit stiff. However, Derek's nemesis, Thor is swift of foot, quick to ray gun anyone or thing (dog, tree, sideview mirror) in his way. However, Thor MUST hurry and scamper he does in this movie, as Derek needs to meet his Dad at the spaceship. Unfortunately, Derek had never previously met his Dad and that is a curious plot twist. The beard on Derek's dad is not to be believed as are most of the effects but this is the Fifties, right?

The skeleton/ ray gun/ defleshitizer twang is ahead of its time by about 10 laser years. So, one must give the movie a few points for a non-screaming manner of death and no need for blood capsules for the humans. Also, the alien costume is quite trendy and should be awarded an extra stitch in the rankings. The heroine is heard to comment plurally on her need to change clothes which means she had THREE costumes. Everyone else except Derek only had one costume. Actually , Derek's second costume was probably what he wore to the set. The reporter clicks a few bulbs on the all time low budget reporter meter for his hat which he never loses. The t.v. announcer rates a special mention as he continues to scare the woodangie out of the village populace with reports of invading, impending and impatient aliens with their shrilled-voiced uncooked mega lobster monsters who eat humans. A subtle message here seems to be that if you don't carry a gun near the monster, you probably will not be eaten. One could regard this as abstract pacifism with a dash of vegetarianism in this stretch of Cold War craziness. It certainly adds pepper to the stew of the lobster monster creation. Locals are warned to go to their basement or fallout shelters- this is the Fifties, right?

I have always regarded this movie as essential in the timeline of Fifties space invaders movies. Not a major league effort but a more than what you expected plot that intertwines invaders in nifty Mel's Drive-In costumes, exceptionally small space vehicles, stilted alien conversations and phrasing, Ozzie & Harriet neighborhoods, and an ending replete with a face in the sky reminding us that he will always be with us. "He" being Derek who looks a bit like Duane Eddy or a very young Michael Rennie. As I mentioned a curious mix of teenage love but only one kiss in the twilight, a bit of religious symbolism, real auto sounds and a screaming- no, make that shrieking crustacean given to weapon carrying villagers for appetizers. Never forget the light-emitting Ray Guns! What?! A movie that demands an imagination? No graphic violence? You gotta work with me here- this is the Fifties, right?

****SPOILERS**** With the explosion of youth-oriented movies mixed with science fiction coming out of Hollywood in the 1950's with movies like teenage Werewolves Frankensteins and Zombies a movie about teenagers from outer space couldn't be that far behind.

Landing in the outskirts of town a spacecraft with a number of the crew looking like they just came off the set of a beach party movie plan to release a horde of deadly Gorgans, a crustacean-like creature, that will grow to enormous sizes and devour the entire human race. Later the aliens plan to use the Gorans as lobster soup lobster salad and about a dozen lobster main course dishes to supplement their planets dwindling food supply.

Derek a sensitive as well as rebellious youth, just like the teenagers in many movies made at that time, gets very upset when his fellow spaceman,Thor,shots Sparky, a cute little doggie,who was barking at him and turned the poor pup into a bag of bones. Derek is also secretly reading "The Book",that has been banned by the Leader of his planet, and "The Book" is putting bad ideas into Derek's head of how his planet is being run.

The movie tries to be a little more adult then most teenage movies released at that time with Derek more interested in saving the Earth from the deadly Gorgans then wanting to party around and drive fast sport cars and make out with the girls like you would expect him to do in most teenage movies like this one.

The story is ridicules as Derek is being persuaded by his fellow teenager from outer space Thor in order to either kill him or bring him back home to the Leader. The leader we later find out is Derek's father. The scenes when Thor uses his disintegration gun to turn people and animals into skeletons and the sight of the deadly Gorgans are hilarious instead of scary as the makers of "Teenagers from Outer Space" would have wanted them to be.

The ending of the movie with Derek tricking his father, the Leader, and fellow spacemen into destroying themselves with him included was all too predictable and didn't come off as good as it would have if Derek were to be left alive with his earthling girlfriend Betty and live happily ever after.

You would have hoped that the heartless aliens would have seen the light by getting influenced by the loving and family oriented earthlings and thus be able to see the errors of their ways. Then they would have converted to become members of the human race, like Derek tried to do and become. But that as we all saw in the movie was sadly not to be.

Tom Graeff's entire film career consisted of this one film and work editing another. He shot it for $5000, performed much of the work himself, and gave his boyfriend David Love (Charles Robert Kaltenthaler) the lead role. Graeff was 28 and Love 23 when the film was shot. Graeff died 12 years later after an apparent mental breakdown; no one seems to know what happened to Love. Amazingly, Warners paid $25,000 for distribution rights for this clunker at a time when teen audiences were eating up sci-fi movies. More bizarre details about the film, including props and locations used, are at the Daddy-O's Drive-In Dirt website.

Aliens plan to seed our planet with their monstrous food animals (lobster-like "gargons") but sensitive space-lad Derek, conscious-stricken and in love with an Earth girl, rebels. Made on a negligible budget and starring Tom Graeff, the director/writer/editor, cinematographer, his boyfriend (David Love), and former child radio-star Dawn Bender, the film is well known amongst 'bad movie' fans, primarily for its amateurish acting and dismal special effects (especially the 'focusing disintegrator' ray-gun, the repeatedly seen articulated model skeleton, and the giant semi-transparent 'gargon'). None of the aliens look like teenagers (the actors were all in their mid-20s) but the film was released in the U. S. as 'Teenagers from Other Space', presumably to attract the teen 'drive-in' market and to cash in on the success of 1957's 'I was a Teenage Werewolf'. The core story, of alien exploiters who think nothing of exterminating all life on Earth for the benefit of their herds, is surprisingly sophisticated (and should resonate with today's 'colonialism-sensitivity'), which unfortunately only serves to highlight its dire telling. The cinematography (excluding the abysmal special effects) is quite effective and there is a certain poignancy to Derek's ultimate sacrifice. Despite the bottom-of-the-barrel production values contemporaneous reviews were surprisingly ambivalent - while acknowledging the film's abundant weaknesses, 'Ron' (writing in Variety, June 10,1959), comments that "while Graeff may not have made a good picture, he has made an interesting one that every now and then smacks of brilliance". Later reviews have been somewhat sympathetic, perhaps touched by the sad trajectory Graeff's life took after the film was released: in 'Keep Watching the Skies' Bill Warren describes 'Teenagers From Outer Space' as "earnest and awkward...occasionally shows glimmerings of intelligence". Likely the best known actor in the film was King Moody, captain the alien invasion, who for 16 years (1969-84), invaded our living-rooms as spokes-clown Ronald McDonald. All in all, like most classic 'bad movies', TFOS is awful but surprisingly watchable.

A camp classic on account of it's title, it's really not that bad; especially considering creator Tom Graeff obviously created it for peanuts (although his tin ear is evident from the fact he named his hero 'Derek'). The rather mature aliens use expression's like "man of surgery" when they mean doctors, and the swift way one of them reduces a yapping dog to bones with a focussing disintegrator ray made me wish I'd got one too.

This is a crappy movie--there is no doubt about it. The acting is abysmal, the special effects laughable and the story itself amazingly dopey. However, this bad film also falls into the category of 'it's so bad it's good'--providing you with a lot of laughs due to its complete ineptness.

Let's start with the 'di-a-log'. Instead of just saying their lines, the aliens (most of which are NOT teenagers) speak in an absolutely silly staccato style--over-annunciating every syllable and sounding like a bunch of four year-olds who are pretending to be robots! Also, some of the extras (such as the doctor) are so painfully amateurish that they wouldn't have even been good enough to be in a high school production.

Now for the special effects. They weren't THAT bad during the first two-thirds of the film except when it came to the skeletons--this was pretty dumb. When the aliens used their ray guns, the hapless humans are instantly disintegrated and become skeletons. It you look carefully, you can see in some of these scenes that the top of the skull on the skeletons had been sawed off and there was a latch on the side of the skull--exactly what you'd find in a science supply catalog! Also, one time, the very top of the skull is seen and there's clearly a bolt on top--like a supply catalog skeleton! Also, every time someone is disintegrated, the skeleton is fully articulated--with all the bones connected--instead of being all disconnected like they really would be.

During the last half of the movie, the special effects hit real rock-bottom! In addition to the skeletons, they unleashed the 'most dangerous species' on the pitiful humans! You hear about it a lot and you don't see it until later. This horrible creature?! Yep, a giant lobster!! Yeah, they certainly spared no expenses here!!

Now as for the plot, as I mentioned above, the aliens were not teenagers. One or two might have been, but they looked like they were probably well into their twenties, but the rest were middle-aged. I really think the word 'teenager' was added to attract gullible and not exactly discerning teens to drive-ins. If you think about it, considering that many teens were probably more interested in getting to first or second-base (or more), the actual plot of the film was pretty irrelevant. I really couldn't see any adults or people with a working cerebral cortex actually paying to see this in the theater! Now as for me, I enjoy a bad film from time to time--and it's a great thing to watch and make fun of with friends. This film isn't quite as bad as PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, but it's awfully close!

Writer/Editor/Actor/Director Tom Graeff's One-Man-Show is an Easy Target for Arm-Chair Ghouls to Pick its Bones Clean.

But Like the Films of Ed Wood there is Something Here that Resonates. It seems to come from the Heart and is Honestly Earnest in its Intent to Entertain and Enlighten and all on the Budget of a 1960 Chevrolet Bel-Air.

The Look of the Movie Belies its Amateur Status. The Photography is Crisp and Clean, the Sets are Functionally Factored, and the Acting, well, the Acting cannot be Described as anything but On the Job Training.

The Film is Edited with a Fast Pace and a Feel for the Fearful Story of an Alien Takeover of Earth to Convert the Planet into a Grazing Globe for Their Food Source, Giant Lobsters.

The Nazi-Like Visitors are Dead-Panned Determined, but one of Them has "Read a Book" and Discovers the Evil of Their Ways.

The Highlight of the Movie is the Aliens "Disintegration Ray Guns" that Burns the Flesh from the Bones and there is a Lot of Bone Burning. That Special Effect is Effectively Efficient. The Landing of the Spacecraft SFX is also a Mysterious Effervescent Curiosity.

Overall, Entertaining and Endlessly Fascinating Combination of a Backyard Production that in the End is quite an Accomplishment.

A Ton of Fun.

This film is a prime example of the low budget 1950s B movie sci-fi. This movie is the 50s and that's the best reason of why you should see it. Anyone who is interested in 50s sci-fi, has to see Teenagers From Outer Space. The flaws are so numerous they can't be counted, and the acting is as bad as the script. The only monsters in the movie are the Gargons, which are lobsters. Apart from these flaws, Teenagers From Outer Space is a fun movie. I've watched it several times and find it very entertaining. The alien's death ray gun is quite impressive, as are the scenes in which it is used. View this movie remembering it is 1959. I would think this film would have been quite popular and very scary back then. Sit down, relax and get a bowl of popcorn. Pop in the DVD or VCR and have a good time watching this fun, exciting 1950s sci-fi thriller.

If you like unintentionally bad movies from the 50's, you will absolutely LOVE Teenagers From Outer Space. First of all, you pretty much know what you're getting with a movie that has "teenagers" and "outer space" in the title...this masterpiece offers some of the worst acting, plot, script and f/x you will ever see, and all rolled into one neat little package. There is enough action and stupidity to keep you interested all the way through. Notice the voiced-over (obviously human) barking of the dog Sparky (RIP) at the beginning, classic. Interesting too is the fact that the actor who played the ship's captain (the guy with, not one, but TWO v's on his astro suit) went on to become the original Ronald MacDonald. I'm lovin' it, and you will too.

'teenagers from out of space' has grown on me a LOT since the first time i saw it. true, it isn't a very good movie, but considering how they used what little they had to work with (budget-wise, acing-wise, etc.) i'd say this movie deserves a bit more respect. the effects were cleverly planned (if not well-executed), the fairly inexperienced actors weren't terrible ( except for TORCHA! guy, but he's so bad he's great), and it had a decent plot with a fairly atypical ending. (okay, there's no excuse for the lobster. the lobster was just terrible.) it's no 'godfather' (heck, it's not even 'cannibal: the musical'), but, in the vein of 'night of the living dead', 'teenagers' takes very little and makes something decent with it.

Aliens eye Earth as a breeding ground for their favorite food: man-eating lobsters. But one of the aliens is not a team player. His rebellion is the crux of the story. The film's plot at least has internal consistency. However, the lighting is terrible; the music is nondescript; and the acting is amateurish. But what really makes this sci-fi film painful are the stodgy visuals combined with an insipid, sophomoric script.

The "aliens" are just humans in spiffy jumpsuits. They communicate, even among themselves, in --- English. One alien is a sensitive lad named "Derek". Another is a humorless delinquent named "Thor". The town folk include a pretty girl named "Betty" who has a brother named "Bud" (right out of "Father Knows Best"). Betty lives with "Gramps". There's also "Joe", a young news reporter who wears a cheap hat that stays glued to his head.

And those cars! It's hard to take seriously a sci-fi film in which the main mode of transportation for ET is a 1952 Chevy! In one scene, alien Thor, in a threatening voice, commands Gramps: "Take me there. You will pilot the vehicle (a '52 Chevy). Go. Be swift."

Throughout, we see beings from another world speaking English, and cruising up and down Main Street in junkie, old cars. Where is the creativity, the futuristic vision? Where is the science fiction?

The real message of this film is love and sacrifice, a credible enough storyline. If they had axed the sci-fi theme and told a story about youth angst in the 50's, the film "might" have worked. But as it is, "Teenagers From Outer Space" is merely unimaginative, a description that fits much of the decade in which the film was made.

I first saw this film when I was only 7 and even then I knew there was something . . .well . . .different about it. For one thing those are the oldest looking teenagers I ever saw; then again all those JD movies offered actors who looked too old even for college in the roles of "kids" so we can't hold that fact against this film. The reason the aliens have come to our world is also atypical of 1950's films. They don't want to conquer the Earth, they don't want to re-populate a war devastated world. They are hungry and in need of a square meal and Earth is the perfect spot to breed the creatures they use as food! They call the creatures Gargans but they look a lot like lobsters. Of course since this is a science fiction picture, the atmosphere of Earth causes the Gargans to grow so large a single one could keep a Red Lobster in business for months! the effects budget was so low we never see the actual giant monster, just an empty travelling matte!

Most memorable are the ray guns used by the bad aliens . . .er . . .the intergalactic juvenile delinquents. As the original trailer said "They blast the flesh off humans!" and quite a few people get zapped into skeletons. There is one good alien, a sensitive fellow named Derek (David Love) who stands alone against his own people when he suggests they go raise their favourite meal on some other planet. Derek is unaware that he is the son of the leader of the planet, a fact which is not exploited nearly as much as it should be in this film.

The cast includes Harvey B. Dunn, best remembered as the police inspector in BRIDE OF THE MONSTER. Harvey was a professional clown and performed at parties with his trick bird (the bird appears in BRIDE also). Yes it's an offbeat film but worth a look. Get ready for a tearjerker ending that is telegraphed well in advance.

... It's a ten for the MST3K version. Poor effects, a murdered dog and humans (using the kind of skeletons every high school has), lobsters as monsters, a buck Rogers Ray gun (probably worth a fortune today) and, yes, as bad as it is - it's still better than nearly anything on the Syfy channel, especially since they cancelled the expanse. Worth a laugh, but if you watch the MST3K version - a lot of laughs.

"Teenagers From OUTERSPACE" (1959) Wowie. They arrive from outer space alright, and not a teenager among them! Youngest alien male is probably a 22 - 25 year old, or so, actor, the other three or four probably can't remember being teens

Fun for pre-hip culture L. A. and cars and scenery and cheapo effects and dialogue. Gramps character in this movie is priceless -- a heart of gold and diarrhea of the mouth! (A heart so big, he helps anyone - including the bad guys/"teenage" aliens.)

Recognized as among the worst sci-fi movies of all time. Ends up laughable -- better laughs than in modern so-called intended comedies to be sure -- to make it memorable.

"High tech" space gadgets alone provide enough laughs. I also noted the actor playing the "captain" of the earth-landed "teenagers" played the #1 assistant to Chaos' Zeigfried in "Get Smart." I didn't even check IMDb, just know it for sure.

Teenagers From Outer Space/The Gargon Terror (1959) -

"You're A Fool Derek"

This was not a well made film. I've seen plenty of the B-Movie style films of late and many of them have been enjoyable, mostly the ones that had a bit of money spent on them. This wasn't one of those at all.

I couldn't tell if the cast were deliberately acting in that odd way to add to their strange alien behaviour, but I thought that they were probably just awful, because quite frankly the "Humans" (I use the quotations because it was questionable) were terrible too.

And are we sure that Dawn Bender as Betty wasn't actually an alien? She had the emotional range of a tea spoon and I had to wonder if Susan Sarandon had based her character of Janet in 'The Rocky Horror Picture Show' (1975) on this hammy display with her overly dramatic girly ways.

David Love as Derek (A really unusual name from outer space) probably delivered the best out of them all, but Bryan Grant playing the role of Thor, was absolute ham.

Everything about it was all so far fetched and incredibly hard to believe, which shouldn't really be the way, even for alien invasion films. The idea being that it stirs such a dread in you and that it makes you "Watch The Skies!", but this was quite clearly cobbled together with a basic cast and the use of someone's house and a quarry, like some sort of YouTube fan fiction I might stumble across in the 21st century, but without the benefit of the decent camera available on a smartphone.

The shame of it was that the general story wasn't that bad. It really did have a potential to show how "Alien" we might be to intergalactic visitors and in a fun or even seriously done way. It was just the terrible performances and production choices that dragged it down.

I have absolutely no plans to schedule in another viewing of this film and will do my utmost to ensure nobody else has to endure it in the future via word of mouth. I'm not saying that all existing copies of it should be burned though, because it could be used as an example of what not to do for budding filmmakers.

232.91/1000.

I searched out TFOS because I heard that a certain toy ray gun was used in the film (a Hubley Atomic Disintegrator). I also heard that it had a low budget and poorly done, but I still wanted to see it.

As it turns out, it wasn't half bad. The effects were a little weak (as expected) especially the monster (Giant lobster) could have been done better. But overall I think the acting was decent, the actors worked well together, and the story kept me interested till the end.

Sci-Fi movies in the 50's were typically done cheaply, and were rarely supported by the studios. I think this one is at least as good as most of the ones I've seen. Good performances by the leads, as well as Grandpa, and the woman playing the nurse. It was cool to see King Moody (Starker on Get Smart) as the alien commander.

Overall an interesting example of a 50's Sci-fi 'B' movie, and in my opinion worth a look.

~Randawg.

My 10/10 rating assumes that you're the type who's decided that you like "Teenagers from Outer Space" before watching it. It portrays an alien race coming to earth to let their lobster monsters grow and devour all humans. As an example of what these aliens are like, they have disintegrating guns that can turn you into a skeleton in the time that it takes to blink. But, one of the aliens named Derek (David Love) decides that he doesn't like their plans and escapes. Most of the rest of the movie has another alien looking for Derek while the latter hides out with human Betty Morgan (Dawn Anderson) and her grandfather.

Yeah, it sounds like your average '50s B-movie, but it's still really neat. One of the many movies that truly makes one nostalgic for the era when one could go to the drive-in and see these sorts of flicks, mainly because Betty was kinda hot (well, duh; it seems like all the women in these B-movies were). And I don't think that the aliens were actually teenagers.

Still, I can't quite figure out: why would an alien be named Derek?

Obviously not a high budget production, but a good movie none the less.

I was surprised after seeing this movie how good it was. I expected lot worse after seeing the spaceship land at the beginning of the movie. Then a total surprise. The story is good, and acting was very good. Characters are fleshed out pretty good, and there's decency in people's behavior.

For a rumored $5000 budget to produce this movie, I can understand why there aren't any good special effects.

I came to see far advanced civilization from space, and found pinnacle of our civilization in this movie. Boy have we slid down the hill since this movie was made.

The producer obviously had talent, and I would have liked to see more movies from him.

Aliens land on Earth and discover it is suitable for raising herds of lobsters in the hills above Los Angeles to feed their hungry people. One of them, however, thinks it would be wrong to kill civilized beings like humans in pursuit of that goal. He flees to warn people, and falls in love with an Earth girl. Meanwhile, another of the aliens pursues him.

I was mildly disappointed in this one. With that title, and the awful dialogue of the first few minutes, I thought this was going to be one of those movies that is so awful it is funny. Certainly the idea of herds of giant lobsters roaming the hills and eating hapless people is a funny idea in a Gahan-Wilson sort of way. However, while writer-director-producer-cinematographer-editor-actor Tom Graeff can't write, direct, or act, he does know how to do a reasonable camera set-up and the movie moves along at a decent clip. So it is merely terrible.

I mention no other cast or crew member, because I am sure they knew how bad it was. Graeff sold this movie to Warner Brothers for a sizable sum as a second feature. He edited one more movie several years later and died in 1970 at the age of 41.