directed by norman j. warren
tymar film productions limited
I’ll admit it, I enjoy it a little too much – trotting out the jejune sally that “the REAL horror here is blah blah blah” and so forth – but dig it, man, that foolishness is perfectly suitable for this bonkers English presentation. Oh, don’t get me wrong, this film is for the most part shoddy and boring, but holy cats does it contain some absolutely bizarre goings-on. For one thing, it’s only around 84 minutes long, but it manages to contain a four-minute-plus lesbian scene that is frankly a lot more explicit than I would’ve supposed. For another thing, at a certain point – for no discernible reason – everything goes slo-mo as the soundtrack suddenly becomes extremely psychedelic and discordant. And no kidding, even though the story concerns a space alien who’s on Earth scouting for new “protein sources” (“spoiler”!), heavens to Murgatroyd but that isn’t the REAL horror here. I watched the climactic action of this picture jaws literally agape.
why did i watch this movie?
This is the film Mr. Warren made right after the widely acclaimed cerebral exercise Satan’s Slave.
should you watch this movie?
I don’t think I really have an answer for that question. You’re on your own.
highlight and low point
The makeup and/or “FX” are, uh, minimally invasive, shall we say.
But seriously, one thing I did find laudable about this very strange flick is that it contains all of six actors. This film’s shortcomings are not a result of its minimal casting or financing, though the latter probably doesn’t help. ’Tis a pity they never made the sequel. ’Tis also a pity some critics have identified all sorts of subtextual sociological signifiers that were almost certainly tangential to this preposterous undertaking. Sure, sure, I get it, “microaggressions,” I hear ya. [Backs away]
rating from outer space: C−
that’s a switchblade, would you believe
Oh, Satan’s Slave, where have you been all my life? Sure, I’ve recently watched a movie with that
All right, so retconning this flick to be the sort-of “sequel” to the 1974 original makes sense. It’s at least half great: the first 45 minutes of this black horror comedy work well as a pastiche of the first go-round, with the added amusement of more modern horror motifs … which are basically updates of the original’s template anyway. Both unsettling and darkly humorous – much as the debut was meant to be, and 
You know, I enjoy listing the multiple titles for some of these pix, mainly because it usually follows that the more different names a film acquires throughout its life of distribution, the more debatable its quality. There are exceptions, of course; every rule has them. This picture could be one of those exceptions. Its sobriquet may have been appended because somebody wisely decided that the original name didn’t make any sense whatsoever. Now, ’tis true that one of the characters in this patently Deliverance-derived flick makes an offhand remark – a barely audible offhand remark, mind you – that the subjects may be the victims of a demonic 
A harrowing exercise in psychological terror, coupled with an in-depth examination of the fight-or-flight response, this British spelunking picture convinced me that I lack a certain sense of adventure, that I am not equipped with derring-do. (I frequently used to be reckless or foolhardy, but those are not equivalent.) Oftentimes claustrophobia-inducing, it at other times reminded me of 2014’s The Pyramid, which is unfortunate, but as it predated that flop by almost a decade, the blame lies with my tardiness. Similarly, I couldn’t help but relate this picture – featuring a group of friends with some relationship issues being picked off one by one – to others with like themes that I’ve watched of late. To be completely straightforward, this flick lacks somewhat for credibility, but it’s executed so well it’s not an issue. Dubious though I was when the cavers first encountered the resident humanoid danger, the troglodytes’ existence and demeanor felt circumstantially logical. (Indeed, I’d be hard-pressed to imagine how ravenous cave-dwelling mutants might not provoke some disbelief.) Seeing it with its original ending also helped, I think, ambiguous though it remained.
Actually directed by 
Based around a rather dubious proposition – kidnapping an acquaintance’s wife to prevent him from making a business deal at, uh, the stroke of midnight, or something along those lines – the REAL horror here is in the breakdown of the characters’ shared relationships, man. Oh, and in the revelation of the ugly truths underlying their established personas. Or something along those lines. Only intermittently interesting for some of the glimpses at the dynamics of the power structure within this group of former school chums, events eventually take a dramatic and unexpected turn for the somewhat perverse once the action tips toward and past the climax. (Literally! In at least one sense.) It’s not too hard to figure out the mystery-of-sorts as regards the killer clown(s), but another mystery proves more elusive: what the hell?
In which we find the patient suffering from sequelitis, the disease by which little vestige of the original creation still survives, save for symbols and signifiers … such as the titular bogeyman. Strangely (and unfortunately), this installment’s eponym – known this time around as “Junior” (eyeroll) – takes his characterization from the ill-advised second chapter rather than the archetypal original. Since the chainsaw itself barely plays any real role here, aside from an asinine novelty visual, one wonders why they just didn’t make this flick its own generic vehicle rather than further degrade the “franchise.” Other issues abound, of course, not the least of which concerns the edits the film had to make to garner an “R” rating. A slasher movie that doesn’t actually show any gore – hell, only one character is killed in the first hour – is a curious thing, no? And where in the hell is this backward backwoods family getting a new house and all these new relatives, anyway? The genre equivalent of Mike Love’s “Beach Boys” performing postgame concerts in baseball stadiums for decades on end.
An oddity, this number is mostly a small-town slice-of-life crime thriller until its misleading, byzantine conclusion. Apparently issued on DVD without restoration, it looks terrible, and I was amused to find out its washed-out palette was allegedly purposeful. Aldo Ray as the sheriff is believable in his role, but anything else that’s noteworthy here merely relates to the presentation of a time and a way of life that are both long gone. Its weary, lived-in 1970s feeling kept it interesting for longer than was probably warranted. By the time the goings-on start getting sorted out, they get tangled up again, and you will have lost your patience by this point, particularly with the main character. She’s being stalked! Or maybe she isn’t. The local Casanova is a rapist, perhaps worse! Or IS he. “Better not book him just yet, we got the killer cornered down at the sawmill,” one character telephones. But what of the local parson, the uncle, the goat? The ending, like much of the rest, is a muddle.
SPACE RATS From Outer Space 