What the hell did I just watch? Long after the credits stopped rolling on TerrorVision, I am still slack jawed at what just played in front of my eyes. Was it a real movie? Was it supposed to be cheesy as hell? Was the acting intentionally awful? Was the budget happy meal size on purpose? I really don’t know, but I do know it’s a movie I’m going to show to all my friends, hopefully while tipsy.
Release: Feb 14th, 1986
Rating: R
Run time: 83 mins
Starring: Diane Franklin, Gerrit Graham
Director: Ted Nicolaou
Short nitty-gritty plot description from IMDb is as follows: A family’s new satellite TV system starts receiving signals from another planet, and soon it becomes the passageway to an alien world.
Tatlock’s Quick ‘n Dirty Review: I’ve seen some low budget 80s movies before, but man, TerrorVision takes the proverbial cheesecake award and runs with it. It’s got some awful, albeit hopefully intentional bad acting, hokey visual effects, some hilariously low budget set pieces and surprisingly enough, some wonderful special effects by John Carl Buechler (director of Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood). I can’t really say I didn’t like the movie and in fact, I ended up having a blast throughout. I mean, yeah it’s pretty damn bad, but it’s purposely bad. More of a parody than a serious movie and it succeeds in that category.
The movie is chalk full of weird randomness. The parents are a bunch of loose swingers, looking to hook up with another couple, while the kids are running around fighting this giant monster from Pluto. Oh, and you can’t forget Miss Medusa (Jennifer Richards), a big breasted chick, who runs the late night horror show, who has two big parts in the movie, her boobs.
Blu-ray Features for TerrorVision:
TerrorVision comes to us from Scream Factory in a double feature with The Video Dead. The Blu-ray definitely makes for some late night fun. Below are the features for TerrorVision only.
– Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Ted Nicolaou and Stars Diane Franklin and Jon Gries
– Monsters on Demand: The Making of “TERRORVISION”
– An all-new retrospective with Writer/Director Ted Nicolaou, Stars Gerrit Graham, Mary Woronov, Diane Franklin, Jon Gries, Chad Allen, Ian Patrick Williams, Special Make-up Effects Creator John Carl Buechler
– Poster & Still Gallery
Verdict: Honestly, TerrorVision is bad, but it’s so bad it’s good. It’s a lot of fun to watch and if you get some friends together and have a few drinks, you’ll for sure get some great laughs out of this movie. As for a rating, this is one movie that is pretty hard to rate, but I think I’ll give it a…
Rating:
