Midnight Movie Massacre (1988)

MIDNIGHT MOVIE MASSACRE

WRITERS: Roger Brant, John Chadwell, David Houston, and Wade Williams

DIRECTOR: Mark Stock

STARRING: Robert Clarke
Ann Robinson
David Staffer
Tom Hutsler
Margie Robbins
Brad Bittiker
Susan Murphy
Charity Case
Stuart Allen

QUICK CUT: The quirky residents of 1950s era suburbia gather to watch a movie.

THE MORGUE

As you may have noticed, there are no characters connected to actors there. This movie lacks traditional credits, and instead only pairs images with actor names. And I can’t be bothered to do all that leg work. On top of that, there are two “movies” here. There is the supposed actual movie, which is just people watching movie B as they get picked off, and then there’s the second movie, which arguably has a plot, but is just entertainment for the people in the movie. And I don’t care enough about them to bother. As for the real characters of the actual movie, they’re barely named, and most of what they do is sit and watch a movie, so I’m not even going to bother with writing up their characters, because the movie couldn’t much be bothered, either.

What this website has done to my brain over the last 16 years.

TRISK ANALYSIS: Welcome back, Triskelions! Today is Triskaidekafiles... uh... *counts on her fingers* Triskaidekafiles 16th anniversary! That marks a whole lotta years, and a whole lotta movies. It all started with a movie I have a lot of fondness for, Popcorn. A movie about weird shit going on in a late night movie theatre, with a few extra movies thrown in. So, to celebrate, we are looking at Midnight Movie Massacre, about weird shit going down at a late night movie theatre, with a few extra movies thrown in!

This movie is also known as Attack from Mars, but the other title is catchier, and suits my theme better.

We open up with narrator voice musing about life in outer space, and man's questing to discover what is out there. He then turns his attention towards Mars, which appears lifeless, but wait! There is a highly advanced society under the surface, hidden from us...UNTIL NOW.

That's good, since it would be hard to have much of a movie, otherwise.

We find ourselves at the Granada Theater, circa 1958, as a bunch of the townsfolk are getting ready to watch some movies at the cinema, and the employees get ready to show them.

A pile of townsfolk shuffle on in, and these people are barely characters, hence why I skipped "The Morgue" this week. They are, at best, a series of character quirks. There’s the overweight woman who can’t stop eating to comical degrees. There’s the trio of horny greasers. There’s the girl who can’t stop sneezing…

One of the movies being shown is *sigh* "Sweater Girls from Mars". It's the sort of schlocky babe filled scifi flick you'd expect from the 50s. One of the guy's is extra horny for the girl on the poster.

The guy is so hard for this girl, he starts seeing her, and will continue to see her throughout the movie. My friend, they have treatments for this. Unfortunately for you, you don't want the ones offered in the 50s.

We start the previews, and the movie actually shows them. They're not important to the plot, but I want to be snarky, and the movie doesn’t give me much plot, so...

One of them is for a movie called Cat Women of the Moon, about cat women who hail from the moon (duh) and they lure men to their death. Didn't we see this plot in Corpse Grinders 2?

That's how she sneaks in all her snacks from home.

Following the previews, things continue onwards with a scifi serial, called Space Patrol, starring Commander Cody...er, Commander Corry, and oh. Oh wow.

Gang, lemme tell you...this serial takes up a solid half of the actual movie. Which is bad enough, but the extent of the main movie, is people watching and reacting to this, or getting up to minor acts of mischief in and around the theatre.

We sit through, I shit you not, still frames with text explaining each character in the serial, which is way more than any of the people watching the movie ever got. It's a fascinating choice that the movie movie characters are more clearly defined than the movie characters.

This movie was scratching at the back of my consciousness, and I did eventually recall, thanks to Google, that “Space Patrol” was a 1950s property that had tv shows, radio plays, comics, the whole nine yards. So what I’m getting here is, someone involved in this movie was a BIG fan of Space Patrol, wanted to do a modern adaptation of it, but didn’t really have a fully baked idea, and so we got…this.

Also...did colour serials exist in the 1950s? They went to the trouble to do some of the other stuff in black and white. It feels odd to not do THIS that way, especially with the lengths they went to for the rest of the look and feel.

While the movie plays, we "meet" the audience, and there is one in particular I want to highlight; a girl who sneezes constantly throughout the move, pulling unrealistic lengths of snot from her nose like she's a Vegas magician, and tosses them off the balcony to the audience below.

The movie within a movie is a scifi serial about a scientist who goes rogue, and uses a time travel device to go back to the 1950s for unspecified reasons, and is followed by the heroes. It largely concerns itself with "fish out of water" gags as they try and track down Doctor Bacaratti

Meanwhile, in the really real world, a large woman who has already cleared out a huge trough of food, demands her husband get her more. Also, the manager rings up Doris to close down the box office for the night.

The movie also remembers there are Martians on their way, and they decide to go to the movies too.

Yeah, sometimes my local theatres aren't showing what I want to see either, so we have to make a trip of it.

Okay, this movie IS supposed to be about the people WATCHING the movie...righ? Because we sure are spending a shitload of time seeing the movie within a movie, and they are even explaining how their time machine works. Does this even matter??

But anyways, Space Patrol is heading to 1950s Earth, where a young couple are in their car making out, until the girl doesn't want to anymore.

The guy pushes her, wanting more, but she's insistent. Eventually he says he was only kidding, and she accepts his apology. She then goes on about Ralph, her boyfriend, who she's getting tired of, so it's nice to be out with someone new. Ralph can just get SO violent, what with all his martial arts training...! The guy takes it VERY seriously and immediately says he's gotta get home!

Yeah, okay, that's actually really funny.

Shown here, a group of four with the combined brainpower of two whole minds.

Credit where it's due, aside from being in colour, this does a fantastic job of capturing the look and feel of a 1950s schlocky scifi serial. If only any of this mattered.

The time travelers come out of their ship, and greet the couple, and a convenient third person who was perving on them. The couple, that is. Not the time travelers. Well, he COULD have been perving on the time travelers too, but it was mostly the couple. See what happens when you don’t give me an actual plot to discuss??

Anyways, the futurists declare they need the locals' clothes, which one of them replies to, "What do you want from us??"

YOUR. CLOTHES. Christ, is everyone in this time period this thick??

Meanwhile, the attack from Mars continues, as the manager gets slaughtered, and the creature wanders off to cause more mischief later.

The girl is INSTANTLY hot for the spacemen of futures past, and talks one of them into kissing the hell out of her. And honestly, she is so real for that.

Back at the theatre, a kid gets bored with the serial, which is REALLY long, and we are seeing every inch of it...I just want these plots to intersect...

Where was I? OH right, the kid who got bored. He's wandering the theatre, finds the manager's office, and pokes around the sludge that the alien left behind.

Kid is already up to a two pack a day habit.

Oh, also, Doctor Bacarrati has bought a strip club and married one of the strippers. The paperwork required for all that, is how the future force knew when to come to.

There's another subplot about a kid who finds the spaceship, and the brain that calculates the time travel and pilots the vessel warns the kid they need to abort the mission, and tells him where to go.

Which all leads to all our factions converging on the dance club, where a cabaret style show is currently going on.

Let me see if I got this; this is a cabaret show in a movie that's a short before a movie in a movie of a movie.

As the Future Foundation wanders the club looking for the doctor or is wife, someone else is sneaking around and chloroforming the whole lot of them.

Several of the time team get packed away in the trunk, leaving one to question Tonga. And why am I even bothering to tell you the plot of the unimportant movie?

I mean, it's at least something to talk about while the entire cast of the ACTUAL movie is just sitting around picking their nose. At least talking about the movie within the movie gives me something to snark about.

Half this movie is just another movie I'd rather be watching.

Back in the real world though, the hungry woman goes to get even more concessions, and then the alien creature comes along to kill the poor concessions girl.

The things in the theatre are getting really creepy, as there is a lot of noncensual activity going on, from a trio of men having their way with a woman, which kinda swings between consent and not, to the point I'd rather err on the side of caution, and some mistaken identity kisses flying back and forth. Ahh, uncomfortable sexual humour of the 80s.

Back in the serial, the kid is dealing with Doctor Baccarati's robot guards, discovering they are piloted by human brains. Great, no budget Cybermen. And if you're familiar with Doctor Who in the 80s, you know calling anything lower budget than THAT is saying something.

The doctor has also captured the time team, and is gonna harvest their brains for unspecified purposes. Well, piloting his Bacarobots, but I presume he has other goals in mind.

Adric leads the robots on a chase straight to the doctor's lab and in all the confusion, gets some of the time travelers free, and then the robots chase the kid off some more.

The monster returns, finally, and kills the man in the projection booth by tearing his head off, and blood goes everywhere. For a deeply silly movie, it has more blood than some serious horror movies we've talked about.

Rodney wanders off when he once again sees his beloved "Sweater Girl" and straight up disappears from the plot. He will be seen briefly having now been added to the movie's poster. Because sure, why not at this point.

The robots surround the kid, Baacarati shows up as well, and everyone strikes the kid with swords...and the serial ends. Because that's what serials do, they end on cliffhangers. So not only is the movie irrelevant to the movie, it also has no internal conclusion, serving only to waste time.

Meanwhile, Tex has gotten frustrated with his girlfriend not putting out, so he leaves the theatre, meeting a grisly fate at the hands of the alien creature.

Well, there’s yer problem, you’ve got Brundleflies.

Now that the movie is over, everyone starts to leave, and Eugene realises Rodney has disappeared. He wanders the halls of the theatre calling for Rodney like he's a cat hiding under the bed, not wanting to go to the vet.

Tex's girlfriend, who dozed off in the theatre after he left, finally wakes up, only to discover the alien dripping her boyfriend's blood all over her face. At least they’ll be together.

She crawls around on the floor, but the creature manages to grab her, but not before she grabs a bottle, and breaks it. She gets in quite a few good shots on the creature, but it renews it's attack.

Fortunately, the ever hungry woman shows up and goes to town on the creature with the knife and fork she always has in her purse. This woman is serious about her food.

She tears into it, devouring it like Denethor with a tomato, much to the horror of the few remaining cast members.

Eugene shows up, unable to find his friend, and carries the poor shocked girl out of the theatre, and out of the movie. Imagine telling your kids this is how you met mom.

The narrator voice returns to cap off the movie, declaring the Earth saved, not by weapons, but the appetite of a fat woman.

Remember that the next time you make fun of someone's weight.

Actually, let’s not go to Earth. It’s a silly place.

TRISK ASSESSMENT

Video: For the low budget smaller studio pic it is, it looks pretty good. I can’t really complain.

Audio: The sound is fine, very unremarkable.

Sound Bite: “I don't go to the movies. I'm a scientist."

Body Count: Under what I’d like to have seen, but not the worst amount of death here.

1 - 27 minutes in, and Doris gets sliced up at the box office.
2 - The theatre manager gets killed
3 - The creature crushes the head of the concessions girl
4 - The projectionist gets killed...somehow.
5 - Tex gets ripped apart
6 - The hungry woman eats the alien.

Best Corpse: The projectionist gets a lot of love from the production, and me. They stay with his headless body for awhile, and he sprays all over the place.

Blood Type - B+: A shocking grade for the effects, I feel. But while the deaths are few, they are actually surprisingly bloody for the overall tone of the movie, and the creature effects are above the level you’d expect on this sort of movie.

Se Appeal: Some brief nudity provided by the “Sweater Girl”.

Drink Up! Every time the sweater girl shows up.

Movie Review: I rip this movie, and it’s not entirely undeserved, but there ARE elements I like here, in isolation. I love the ideas here. The core idea of the top level movie, an alien comes to Earth picking off people is decent enough. It just needed to actually flesh out THAT story. I genuinely adore the faithful recreation of Space Patrol homage, and the feel of 1950s serials. I would absolutely watch a whole movie of that, itself. There are some great bits of humour in this, and the movie leans into the 1950s camp, and they have fun with it. There’s also some humour that has not aged well though. The acting is about what you’d expect, with no one really giving a bad performance, from the major characters. The kills are memorable, and I appreciate the use of effects and blood. But the actual movie has ZERO plot to it. The serial which is the bulk of the runtime has nothing to do with anything…I would forgive SO many of this movie’s flaws if those two plots came together at some point, even if just in themes or concept or allegory for each other. In my heart of hearts, I would have loved the alien “invader” of the main plot turn out to be the time travelers from the serial, in a wild meta narrative that genuinely becomes one movie, but alas, it was not to be. That said, going into this movie, knowing what to expect, there is fun to be had here, with a lot of camp silliness, and it’s just weird enough to work on that level of just plain goofy “what the hell were they on?” logic. It’s a movie that could grow on me, just for a silly fun movie. Still, with no real main plot, and a lot of padding for the run time, I struggle to give this much more than a two out of five food troughs.

Entertainment Value: The patrons of the theatre run somewhere between genuinely quirky and comedic, groan worthy character sketches, and sometimes just plain uncomfortable. There are some good gags, and the serial has some great moments of actual humour, and winks at the audience. It hits a bit of a sweet spot of dumb fun that if you roll along with it, you can become invested enough in the serial that you forget it has no real importance, and isn’t actually the movie you sat down for. Three out of five robotos