Anybody who has sat in a dark theatre squinting at a double-trouble bill of terrible black-and-white cheapie-creepies knows it can strain not only your vision, but also your tolerance of bad acting, clunky editing, and fantastical movie monsters held together with duct tape, prayers, and a hell of a lot of dollar store super-glue. According to research at the Mayo Clinic (although I’m not sure how much funding needs to be spent studying the deliciousness of sandwich toppings), movie fanatics should practice the 20-20-20 method: Every 20 minutes, look at something 20 feet away for at least 20 seconds. Yet 👁️ say this is darn near impossible when you are watching (more like staring) the horrifically comedic science fiction classic The Eye Creatures (a.k.a Attack of (The) The Eye Creatures). Not only is this a classic bait and switch with the ocular grabbing poster (👁️ want the creature with tentacles in the movie and 👁️ know you do, too) but the film is filled with so many visual monstrosities, from the weird badly dubbed dialogue to the ghastly acting to the eye-popping special effects, it cannot be said to be a feast for the eyes but downright starvation!
In low-budget filmmaking, you can forgive a lot of things (and have to for some junkers), however, every person who picks up a camera and calls themselves a filmmaker must stick to one cardinal rule: if ‘t be true t hast to doth with the maj’r plot pointeth of the movie, then thee wilt spendeth at least $2.35 f’r t (as Billy Shakespeare used to say). 👁️ don’t want to give away any spoilers (as the movie will undoubtedly spoil your taste in good movies as is). Still, at one moment our heroes need to use a camera flash to stop the… bluish, squishy, cottonball-glad creatures who have two eyeballs (if the super-glue holds). However, due to (probably) low production values, the flash doesn’t work in the shot (or would it be frame? Remember the ‘rule of thirds’)! Shot on 16 mm film and made for a mere $40,000, the goal was to remake a few of the even then-considered classics from American International Pictures that were shot in black and white (this was a remake of sorts of Invasion of the Saucer-Men) and adds a few extra ingredients not in the original recipe (maybe they baked without their reading glasses). Mixing a few pinches of humor this time around, cashing in on the Roger Corman style álá A Bucket of Blood and Little Shop of Horrors, the film has overall decent photography (when they are not sterling a shot here and there) and boasts a great score by AIP stalwarts Ronald Stein (The Girl in Lover’s lane, Frankenstein’s Great Aunt Tillie) and Les Baxter (Beach Blanket Bingo, The Mini-Skirt Mob), but this sacred rule must be a priority. Considering the filmmakers put in some decent effort to make it a cohesive film, 👁️’ll give them the benefit of the doubt they might have been cleaning their Coke bottle glasses during this take.
The secret government-funded “Project Visitor” does something the government never expected – it worked (if only the DMV would, now read the top line: D, U, M, B…). Flying saucers are viewed rock ‘n’ rolling into our stratosphere and they slip past because the video technicians who were to monitor the skies were monitoring juvenile delinquents making out in the woods (don’t touch THAT dial). However, it is these, um, trumpeted teens the optic star wanderers try to destroy first. The teenagers rally to any adult who will give them the time of day (as a teacher, 👁️ say this is impossible) but most adults believe “these darn kids have been watching too many movies and not reading enough books!” Even when the government gets involved they still don’t believe the kids are telling the truth and it seems like the peeper creatures might just take over the world until the teenagers have a lightbulb go off above their heads and discover the lookie-spookie’s weakness – bright lights (hopefully they don’t multiply with water and no matter what, don’t feed them after midnight). When you have mid-thirty-year-olds (John Ashley) dressed like teenagers running around with intermittent edits of the weird-looking aliens walking around in stolen shots sliced together with low-lit exteriors that make you squint at the screen, it can only be said this film is truly a sight to see.
(This is not even the monsters from the movie, but a creature from another movie. 👁️ see you tried it)
Side glancing your way at a blinking eighty minutes, and directed by Larry Buchanan (who made classics like Mistress of the Apes and The Loch Ness Terror), this film was made as a TV movie remake along with other AIP titles that appeared on the boob-tube like Zontar, the Thing from Venus (remake of It Conquered the World), Creature of Destruction (remake of The She-Creature), and In the Year 2889 (remake of Day the World Ended). Due to AIP not caring to renew the TV rights and falling into the public domain, the film can be seen on most streaming platforms, but catch the classic MST3K episode which many feel features the first-ever ‘Rick-Roll’ (👁️ will certainly give up this film and 👁️ most definitely will say goodbye). So the next time you park out with your partner in the woods to… look at shooting stars (yeah, right), be sure to take in all the sights, even if it is an invading fleet of orby-worby species because they say the 👀 are the windows to the soul, even if the windows are broken like this film!
