jellopuke This is a weird one about an alien that comes through the TV and absorbs people. It's trying to be a comedy with some gore and some of it works really well, like the Gramps character, but other parts fall flat, like the valley girl daughter. Not gory enough to be horror and not funny enough to be comedy, it falls in the middle and never really reaches the top. Worth watching but it's no classic.

Woodyanders The madcap Putterman family find themselves being terrorized by a ravenous people-eating alien beast that gets beamed to Earth through their television set. Writer/director Ted Nicolaou pokes incredibly broad and cheerfully zany fun at America's obsession with trashy television culture, gung-ho survivalists, and kinky swingers. Moreover, it's overacted with tremendous histrionic zest by an enthusiastic cast: Gerrit Graham as kooky electronics whiz Stanley, Mary Woronov as sexy fitness buff Raquel, Diane Franklin as vibrant punkette Suzy, Bert Remsen as feisty old-timer Grandpa, Chad Allen as the spunky Sherman, Jonathan Gries as dim-witted heavy metalhead O.D., Alejandro Rey as suavely smarmy homosexual Spiro, Randi Brooks as the ditsy Cherry, Sonny Carl Davis as luckless TV repairman Norton, and Jennifer Richards as alluring, but abrasive horror show hostess Medusa. The tacky (not so) special effects, priceless zingy dialogue, goofy monster (designed by John Carl Buechler), catchy'n'groovy theme song, colorful and eccentric caricature characters, energetic off-the-wall tone, and blithely inane humor all add substantially to this picture's infectiously campy charm. Romano Albani's garish cinematography gives this movie an appropriately bright and cartoonish look. Richard Band's lively score hits the spirited spot. Sure, this flick is pretty silly and ridiculous, but it nonetheless still sizes up as a total loopy hoot just the same.

David Massey We're introduced to a family brimming with all the worst trappings of the 1980's; the clichés have been elevated to the absurd and it's to the director, Ted Nicolaou's, credit that, in 1986, he was able to poke so much fun at the decade without the benefit of hindsight. The result is an off-the-wall comedy that feels like a 1950's monster movie, staring 'Leave it to Beaver', as filtered through 'Adult Swim'.The daughter, Suzy, played by Diane Frankin ('Better Off Dead' / 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventure'), has the hair and make-up of an animated Cindy Lauper and an over-the-top valley-girl gab. A very young Chad Allen (you'll recognize him from nearly every family TV show of the late 80's and early 90's), is the war-game-obsessed son. The mother, played by the always fantastic Mary Woronov (Roger Corman's poster girl and star of 'Eating Raoul'), is a distant, self-involved socialite more interested in her exercise videos than her kids. Gerrit Graham ('Phantom of the Paradise' / 'Demon Seed'), hams it up as the swinging (literally) father always on the lookout for the next big thing. Rounding out the family is Grampa, the paranoid vet with a bomb shelter in the basement (Bert Remsen – 'Nashville' / 'Places in the Heart') and Suzy's boyfriend, 'O.D.', the tweaked metal-head dropout played buy 1980's staple, Jon Gries ('Real Genius' / 'Running Scared'). Together, this group inhabits a home that looks like a cross between a sex spa and a Patrick Nagel exhibition on ecstasy.Wacky from minute one (the theme song being one of the film's high points), the family has just hooked up their new satellite dish while, simultaneously, far across the cosmos, a creature that can only be described as a booger with eyes, is being transported in exile by a humanoid-lizard alien that we don't learn much more about until the film's climax. The monster is mistakenly transmitted to the family's satellite dish and has the ability to escape at will from their TV sets. Nonsense ensues as the monster is able, by transforming its tongue, to impersonate the face and voice of anyone it kills.The film never really crosses into any straight genre and manages to hover, quite proudly, over 'wonderfully weird'. If all of Hollywood had ostracized, instead of embraced, Tim Burton, this is the kind of live-action cartoon he'd be making.

wes-connors To begin this unpleasant horror satire, the planet Pluton disposes of a big ugly, mutated monster by blasting it into outer space. Unfortunately for Earthlings, it is directed to our planet and gets picked up by the TV satellite dish installed by gregarious Gerrit Graham (as Stanley Putterman). The alien monster lives in television airwaves and eats people. Others in the host family are: Mr. Graham's wife-swapping partner Diane Franklin (as Suzy), their punky teenage daughter Mary Woronov (as Raquel), cute blond pre-teen son Chad Allen (as Sherman) and lizard-loving old Bert Remsen (as Grampa)...Young Allen tries to tell the family there is a monster in the television, but everyone is too self-absorbed to believe him. The monster eventually appears more comfortable outside of television. Allen, Ms. Franklin and her heavily metallic boyfriend Jonathan "Jon" Gries (as O.D. Riley) try to make friends with the creature. A concerned alien from Pluton warns Earth the monster could eat everyone on the planet. Bosomy horror TV hostess Jennifer Richards (as Medusa) is called in to help. Alejandro Rey and Randi Brooks have fun poolside, as a "swinging" hot couple. Everyone tries hard and the sets are cool.***** TerrorVision (2/14/86) Ted Nicolaou ~ Diane Franklin, Chad Allen, Jon Gries, Gerrit Graham