I remember, back when I first rented this, that a made-for-TV sci-fi/horror flick starring a SANTA BARBARA soap-actor (A. Martinez) just couldn't be good. Not in a million years, right? Yet still I rented it, because of the photo of a very weird, rather grotesque-looking alien creature on the back.
I got pretty much what I expected. It wasn't very good. But the creature and one particular death-scene stuck with me all those years. So I couldn't resist re-watching it again last week.
While technically, it's not badly made or anything. It's the made-for-TV vibe and the completely unoriginal (seen-a-dozen-times-before) script that kills it. It's just another take on the story of an alien creature invading and terrorizing a small American town. But I know that premise alone, might just be an excuse for some of you to watch it. By now, it has become an excuse for me too.
And considering what it is, the movie does actually deliver what you may expect (or want to see): No nudity (made-for-TV, folks) and all kinds of inhabitants in the town (from a kid & his grandpa, over the mom who's a scientist and has some love interest running around, to random people who serve the sole purpose of being killed off). But also, you get a meteor crashing, containing a larva that soon mutates into some slimy, rubbery, bug-like alien-thingie and eventually evolves into a larger, pretty darn weird-looking creature (bigger than a car, hard to describe and with jaws that open sideways). The only slightly original element that was added, is that it feeds on electricity (enter cheesy animated lightning effects) and when it gets its "suckies" on you, your bodily functions will shortly after start to malfunction and you'll basically explode, with the results being both bloody messy and electrifying... or something like that, 'cause it's hard to tell (this was the one cool death-scene I mentioned previously).
And of course, there's the obligatory, climactic battle with the creature at the end, in which mommy-scientist comes up with a way to kill it... and then the movie still tries to make its tail twitch, with a very predictable end-shot.
In a way, this does sound good, doesn't it? Too bad all this is being poured into a flat and unimaginative made-for-TV production. And I just can't help being a bit forgiving for such productions.
