TERRORVISION *** USA 1986 83 mins 

On the Planet Pluton, a radical solution to the civilisation’s garbage problem (a “Mutant Creature Disposal  Unit”) ends up sending a signal back to an all-American family on Earth via their Satellite dish and sends a trash monster with it. One of Empire Pictures’ most bizarre movies, this broadly played, garishly coloured flick is like no other 80’s creature feature. The cast plays it to the hilt. Bert Remsen’s grandpa laments the “intellectual decay” caused by the international conspiracy
of television: thank fuck he wasn’t around to see the 21st century. Gerritt Graham is the all-American Dad (catchphrase: “holy tomay-to”) who, with aerobics-practising wife Mary Woronov, attends swingers parties. Diane Franklin is their rawk chick teen daughter who wears eye popping pinks and has multi-coloured hair. Jennifer Richards portrays a sub-Elvira late night horror hostess, into whose mammoth cleavage the zoom lens keeps disappearing. Alejandro Rey is “Spiro”, self-described as “the manliest of men” but really a raving homo. The fun, slimy tentacle monster squishes heads into green mush while Spiro wears gaudy red briefs that presumably loaned from FROM BEYOND’s Ken Foree that year. TERRORVISION has W.A.S.P. T-shirts, air guitar solos, wacky scene transitions, Franklin wielding a machine gun and echoes of earlier movies like EXPLORERS. It’s certainly spirited, even if the self-consciously quirky approach gets a little exhausting by the end.

Review by Steven West.