Psycho Space Demons (2003?) — Triskaidekafiles

PSYCHO SPACE DEMONS

WRITER: Carl J. Sukenick

DIRECTOR: Carl J. Sukenick

STARRING: Carl J. Sukenick

QUICK CUT: A man cavorts around his yard, having the time of his life.

THE MORGUE

Carl - A man tasked with protecting a sorority house from an extraterrestrial invasion. He’s excitable and determined.

Not to be confused with Space Psychos. Totally different.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Happy Triskaiversary! This is the 14th anniversary of doing this shit, and to celebrate? Or is it torment? I have chosen, by my own free will, to return to an old friend, the works of Carl J. Sukenick, with Psycho Space Demons.

Let's...let's just get into this.

The movie opens up with grainy, black and white footage of a woman...oh, and she's topless, so instant boobs, as shrill music loops in the background. Yeah, we're in the right place for a Sukenick joint.

A masked, cloaked figure approaches, and strangles the screaming woman. This will be the most coherently straightforward the movie gets. The figure then places a strange mask upon the woman, and I am going to guess this takes over the now lifeless husk, to do the bidding of whatever. This is never stated outright in the course of the narrative, but it makes sense with what we’re shown.

I feel like I am viewing footage transmitted from an alternate universe that isn't quite coming in at full signal.

The scene fades to the *exact same location* as a dude lays down on the same, now vacant, bed. And it's not long before the cloaked figure repeats his moves by wandering into this room and killing this dude as well.

Side note: The cloaked figure, whom I would bet dollars to donuts is Carl himself, has to stop and check where the angled wall/ceiling of the roof is, because I would just as willingly bet he can't see shit in his mask.

And the hits keep on coming because I love that you can see the cloaked figure, once he is done, CLEARLY approach the camera reaching to shut it off, and just couldn't be bothered to edit that part out.

You merely adopted the dark. I was born in it.

Then we cut to a naked woman in a chair wearing a black mask, the same one from Alien Beasts I would wager, and she is being secured by a figure dressed all in black.

While that's going on, there is a woman's voice narrating how she is having a psychic vision of the past, which surprise! Is something we can all do! But she says she sees the Black Scorpion terrorists now rule the world.

Yeah, okay, great. None of that means a single thing to anyone outside of Carl's brain.

Flying through the vastness of my carpet.

We go from there to that spaceship, presumably flying through space (With a brief scene of a black guy just sitting there, and I am given flashback vibes of Carl's dad sitting there in Alien Beasts. This guy is never seen again).

Inside the ship, I presume, is Carl himself confirmed, dressed in a black cloak, a golden mask like he's out of John Boorman's Excalibur, standing in front of a black sheet draped with Christmas lights.

This figure speaks, in Carl's fashion of every line repeated twice, saying he will "direct the master, securing the area and move in," and that he will see everything going on. Yeah, not in that mask.

It’s Christmas! It’s Christmas! Get up get up come on get up!

But then we come back to Earth where Carl as actual Carl is on the phone, giving a report of what he's seen. Because we haven't seen it. Because to show us would give me joy.

He says the comet or whatever crashed from space (I guess something crashed from space!) has landed in a remote area, where there is nothing...EXCEPT a sorority house. Because OF COURSE it's a sorority house.

Shockingly, this isn't something Carl runs with, which seems entirely up his alley. The movie is clearly setting up the psycho space demons to ransack the sorority house, and then it simply...doesn't. Like, I guess that was the start of the movie, but it kinda came and went.

After that, we drive around for a bit, presumably to get to the sorority house, but does it matter? And then it's back to the golden masked dude shouting at the ceiling.

He loudly declares that his transformation is complete, and now he is immortal! ...Great! If you say so? Who are you? Why are you immortal? How?? What did you do?

Next, he tells his master to "move the box into the new base!" What box? Who master? WHAT NEW BASE?! WHERE OLD BASE???

Fortunately, we do get to see a minion transporting said box into Carl's h....er, the new base at the sorority house, which is a shocking amount of actual follow through.

We then cut to, and I am doing a LOT of assuming here, inside the sorority house, as Carl in his third role, is calling out to his "baby" and saying it's time to go, the delivery man is here. But no one comes.

Carl the Third is also stubbornly not facing the camera through all of this. One reason might be because he looks like everyone else in the movie, and he's trying to hide that despite his VERY DISTINCTIVE VOICE.

I continue to make assumptions as "baby", now transformed into a gooey faced psycho space demon, comes up behind him, and smooshes his head against the wall. Carl coughs a LOT as he slides down the wall, smearing it with his face, and is that supposed to be his death rattle, or is he choking on fake blood that went in his mouth?

Hiding the blood gag would be another reason to not show his face

It then cuts back to "baby" and YOU CAN HEAR CARL GIVING THEM DIRECTION AS HE ADJUSTS THE CAMERA.

There's then the usual random collection of scenes going from one place to another, and I will spare you some "And then there's this, and then there's this, and then..."

But we are treated to yet another scene of, what I presume is another Psycho Space Demon slash Carl #5? setting up the camera and turning it on, before wandering off towards the edge of the nearby woods to do...something?

Movie? Is there something you'd like to share with the rest of the class?

Oh, and I have yet to mention this movie's score is all one song. Which is like...thirty seconds long, and endlessly looping. It is the ONLY music, and I swear it is wholly being created by playing from a stereo placed next to the camera and is literally recorded on set or whatever.

This music is going to be forever droning, stuck in my head, and will the final thought I have as my last neurons fire in the event of my death.

There's then ANOTHER presumed Psycho Space Demon, probably still just Carl in a different hoodie (The hottest Psycho Space Alien fashion!), who also walks in front of the same patch of woods and does...something?

And in case anyone was wondering, the naked woman in the black mask is still around, we cut to her every few minutes to confirm something is happening to her. It's never explained, but she's there! Is that why Carl Gold is immortal??

But then it's BACK to that same patch of woods as a background, as ACTUAL Carl walks over to them, and does...something?

I left the plot of the movie over here SOMEwhere, I'm sure of it...

Finally all that walking in front of the woods stuff pays off, as Carl edits together a scene of himself fighting himself, stabbing himself as a Psycho Space Demon in the face.

Carl then heads into the attic of the sorority house, where everything is now orange, because why not at this point? and he attacks another mask until the head pops off.

This movie is just sixty minutes of masks on dummies or something, set up for Carl to react to and attack, because he doesn't have enough people.

Continuing this trend, we cut from the orange bathed attic to another mask on a stick. This time it's a red baby head gushing blood from it's eyes. Why? Who? What? It doesn't matter.

Then we get to see Carl, dressed differently than last time, and showing off his chest, as he picks up a knife.

And I am now howling with laughter as he is clearly beckoning over whomever he got in yet another Psycho Space Demon mask and hoodie to fight him, and gets the person into position. All while the camera is running.

OH no wait, this guy is on CARL'S team, and he is repeatedly, REPEATEDLY telling him about the special new lenses, the slow motion attack lenses, the lenses for attacking in slow motion, the potion for poisoning Kuzco.

You know, for the number of times he says "slow motion attack lenses" I STILL DON'T KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.

But it cuts to a view from, I can only presume, like every other moment in this movie, is from the view of the "slow motion x-ray attack mode lenses" because we see some glob drenched in red that might be another behoodied Psycho Space Demon as...something happens to it? I don't know anymore. If I ever did.

Which then cuts to, I presume the same Psycho Space demon gushing blood from it's face, which then cuts to a DIFFERENT Psycho Space Demon...gushing blood from its face. I sense a theme.

I said half of this movie is "mask on a stick being attacked" and the other half is "guy stands far away and does something I can't see."

It looks like a PSD is waving around nunchucks, and then Carl wanders around looking calm and unbothered, until that same, I presume, Psycho Space Demon shows up, throwing the nunchucks at Carl, and following that up with a bunch of ninja stars.

But! The Psycho Space Demons did not reckon with the unparalleled hand eye coordination of one Carl J. Sukenick! For he caught each and every thing thrown at him, not coming to any harm for all that effort!

Carl declares that he "will now destroy this box and solve everything!" ...Great! What's the box doing? Why is it crucial to the plans? You don't even deserve the Seven reference everyone is thinking right now.

But I guess it works, because the green mask that's appeared a few times in this, and other movies, starts gushing blood. So I guess we win?

And the movie is ostensibly over at this point, but it then shows images of random people, and some rando appears to inform us, "The zombies have been destroyed. We won." IF YOU SAY SO?? Wait there are ZOMBIES now?!

Which leads to a video of David "Rock" Nelson, showing off some of his stuff to Carl, which feels much more like something that was recorded at the end of the tape Psycho Space Demons was on, than anything else.

And that's followed by a clip of some random movie, so yeah, lots of tail ends of things here, for some reason. Weird, weird artifacts. It feels like someone was handed a tape that was little more than random stuff Carl recorded as it came to him, or they took some random footage and sliced out an hour, and called it good.

If you've seen this woman, contact Unsolved Mysteries...

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: Oh this looks bad. It’s one of the worst things we’ve seen in awhile. I would guess it’s largely recorded on VHS, and it might even be several generations removed. Those scenes of people far away are particularly incomprehensible.

Audio: Only slightly above the video quality. At least I can hear everything, and what little dialogue there is, I can understand. Not that this HELPS anything, but hey.

Body Count: Well, people sure do get killed in this.

1 - A woman is choked to death in the first couple of minutes

2 - Not long after, a dude meets the same fate.

3 - Poor guy gets his face mashed against the wall

4 - One of the psycho space demons, I guess, gets his face stabbed with things?

5 - I guess a Psych Space Demon got his head cut off??

5 - Do I count the red demon baby head spurting blood???

6 - I think someone got stabbed in the face in slow motion x-ray mode????

7 - And then there's another red demon baby head spurting blood????

8 - And another guy just quivering and faling over?!?!?

Best Corpse: Any time something is spurting blood from the face is good.

Blood Type - C: Acceptable amounts spraying from faces. The other effects are lacking.

Sex Appeal: Topless women here and there, and a shirtless Carl for the ladies.

Drink Up! every time they cut back to the naked woman in the black mask

Movie Review: Can this even be called a movie? I supposed, broadly speaking, there is a plot, but it’s kinda on the back burner as Carl runs around beating up masks. Despite saying this is from “2003”, this is clearly filmed WELL before that, and likely the only reason that date is connected to it is the timestamped footage at the end from David “Rock” Nelson. If I had to wager, this was filmed more towards the start of the 90s, circa Alien Beasts, since its look is much closer to that in uh, ‘quality’ than it is to the relatively more recent Space Psychos. This movie doesn’t quite have the same level of narrative coherence as Carl’s other movies, AND YES I KNOW HOW THAT SOUNDS, but it’s true. My love/confusion relationship with Carl’s works is well known by now, and out of the three I’ve seen, this kinda sits in the middle. There’s a certain wild quality to Alien Beasts. As absurd as it is, there’s SOMETHING there, a “try everything” attitude, and at least it’s packed with stuff. As opposed to Space Psychos which does nothing for 40 minutes and then has its big events off screen. And Psycho Space Demons is just…somehow better and worse at telling a story than Space Psychos. There’s stuff going on, but very little narrative. And of course, all the other Carl bits of weirdness are here too, on top of everything else. This is a nightmare of footage, it only makes sense to Carl, and I’m only giving it a two out of five throwing stars because while I don’t like it, it’s at least tryng something.

Entertainment Value: A lot of the weird, wonderful, fun stuff in Alien Beasts isn’t here. There’s some of that, but this movie never quite hits that sweet spot of every idea under the sun, and making you wondering what’s next, while still somehow delivering what could arguably be a story. It’s also just lower in energy. This feels kinda droning, and punishing at times, as nothing every really gels. But it still has some of that feeling of ???? that keeps you guessing, and the blood gags are fun, at least. Two out of five slow motion attack lenses.