Candy Stripers - Give 'Em Some Sugar, Baby

Candy Stripers

2006

aka Species XXX;

Hospital Macabro

Windchill Films/Snowfall Films

Approx. 89 min - Rated R

I've had Candy Stripers in my Netflix DVD queue for about 10 years or so.  It's always been hovering around somewhere around the middle of the queue as other movies came and went.  It sort of became invisible to me, I think.  Well, that was rectified this past week when it showed up in my mailbox. 

It was the first "modern" movie I've watched in probably two weeks, what with being on my VHS binge and all. 

I don't want to say that I had high hopes for the film, after all it's about aliens disguised at nurses sucking the life out of men, but I had hoped that it would have at least lived up to it's premise.  Sure it's got a bevy of somewhat attractive women in candy strip uniforms.  Sure there are aliens.  Sure they invaded a small town hospital and started to cocoon men with alien sex.  Sounds good doesn't it?  Yes.  Yes it does.  It's execution however, is pretty damn lackluster. 

There's still some fun to be had here if you're in the mood for a b-movie.  

A trio of basketball players end up in the hospital after getting into a scrape with the opposing team.  Apparently a broken leg or a fractured wrist is enough to get you admitted in this town.  I don't even know what was wrong with the third guy.  He was in a wheelchair and then he wasn't.  Seemed totally fine after that.  Oh well.

Well, this coincides with aliens invading the hospital.  They take over the bodies of females via the mouth.  Usually an infected female will transfer alien essence (or something like that) to another female by trying to get them to kiss her.  When their mouths get close a nasty green slimy tentacle thing comes out of the infected girls mouth and into the other.  The newly infected nurse will shimmy and shake for a moment and then become an alien.  I guess that's a fairly effective method to spread the alien essence.

The alien nurses are completely addicted to sugar, scarfing down anything sugary that they can get their hands on:  candy bars, donuts or even just sucking down sugar packets.  After the get all hopped up on sugar they roam the hospital looking for unsuspecting men to screw into a cocoon.  Literally.  They wrap them in sugary cocoons.  Poor bastards.

I'm not certain what the alien's endgame is.  It might be just to populate the planet with their own kind.  They also give birth to nasty little larva (that basically look like red slug things) and keep a tentacle thing in the basement that spits out a green sugary substance.  That's really the most I got out of it.  They screw/cocoon the men (presumably for food) and infect the women.  I suppose if you really dug down deep you could come up with some sociopolitical meaning to the film about the battle of the sexes or something, but that's way over my pay grade.

The acting is about what you'd expect from a Syfy Channel made movie...and to be honest aside from a few boobs here and there, this very well could have been.  A few quick edits would make this perfectly okay for TV broadcast.  Which was one of the highly disappointing things.  If you're going to make and R rated movie about killer alien nurses that fuck guys to death, you might want to really deliver on the goods.  The T&A factor is surprisingly low. 

There's a few bits of gore, but the rest of the special effects are really pretty terrible.  Once our hero's figure out how to stop the growing alien horde and start fighting back, the candy striper deaths are some of the most ridiculous computer effects I've ever seen.  Pretty much all that happens is their faces distort with terrible CGI (not even distort into an alien face....just basically wiggle around).  It was quite laughable and just about anything would have been better than that effect. 

GORE:

As I mentioned before there are a few good gore gags:  A man gets his heart ripped out and another guy gets his junk bitten off.  Plus there's all the cocooning and such.

T&A:

There are some boobs, but not as many as you would think!

MONSTERS:

For the most part the aliens strictly take the form of buxom nurses.  Sometimes they have a weird scaly arm or something.  At one point a nurse peels off her human face to reveal a reptilian visage below.  There's also the green tentacle thing that comes out of the nurse's mouths as well as the red baby slug things that they vomit up. 

FINAL THOUGHTS:

This is definitely a "check your brain at the door" movie.  If you can get past the wonky acting and questionable logic, there's some fun to be had here.  Just don't overthink things and you'll be okay!



Space Raiders - Swashbuckling Space Pirates!

Space Raiders
1983
D: Howard R. Cohen
W: Howard R. Cohen

S: Vince Edwards, David Mendenhall, Patsy Pease
Rated PG - Approx 84 Min
Millenium


Taglines
 - The ultimate adventure in space
 - He's 10 years old and they've taken him 10-million miles into space.

Alternate Titles
Star Child - US Alternate Title
Robber (Ryövärit) - Finland
Space Pirates - West Germany

"These aren't real onions, are they? They're some kind of alien yucko onions. Wonder if this is real cheese?"
                                                                                              -Peter

Oh boy, here we go again.  Another review starting with a Video Paradise story/memory.  I'm starting to feel like that one particular Uncle that always tells stories about his time in the Navy:  "Did I ever tell you about the time we sailed right into a rogue wave in the Navy?  Did I ever tell you about the time I got syphilis while on shore leave in the Navy?  Did I ever tell you about the time that I peeled a potato that looked like Jay Leno's head while I was on KP in the Navy "  That or Sophia on The Golden Girls:  "Picture it....Sicily....1945...."

It's a laser gun shoot out!

 

Awww...the cute little alien bug is going to eat some corn.....

Anyway....Video Paradise....Circa 1987.....a young me is taken to the video store on a Saturday afternoon to rent a video for the weekend.  My first instinct is to head directly for the animated section and grab a copy of Gumby for President.  Seriously, I must have rented Gumby about eight million times.....I was obsessed.  It was bad.  This time, however a I decided to check out the sci-fi section.  I was already a card carrying Star Wars fanatic, so I figured "What the heck!" and took a chance.  After milling up and down the aisles for a bit, lingering over the movies that I didn't have a shot in hell of renting yet (I'm looking at YOU Return of the Alien's Deadly Spawn!), I came across Space Raiders.

It had everything I could possibly want!  Lasers, spaceships, aliens, space pirates.....what more could a boy ask for!?  I brought it home and popped it in the VCR and was instantly in love with it.  I think I watched that tape about seven times that weekend.  It became another "go-to" movie when I didn't know what else to rent.

Robots!

Aliens!

Last year, I came across a VHS copy of it while out flea marketing.  There's a flea market up in Hollis, NH that has a Video Barn.  Literally.  It's a barn stuffed to the gills with VHS tapes.  It's a giant mess and cramped with tapes strewn about everywhere.  In other words, it's beautiful and amazing and one of the most happiest places in my world.  As I squeezed and contorted my way around the cramped confines of the barn (no easy feet for a larger fellow such as myself!) I came across that old familiar box art and immediately scooped it up.  I paid a dollar for it and I regret nothing.  I finally popped it in the ol' VCR this past weekend and watched it for the first time in nearly thirty years.  The Mrs. Cinephile watched with me as well.  So how did it hold up to thirty year old memories?  Surprisingly well!

Space Raiders is a Roger Corman flick.  Oh sure, it was written and directed by Howard R. Cohen (whom you may know as W/D of Saturday the 14th, writer of Deathstalker III & IV and writer of Rainbow Brite and the Star Stealer!) but you can always tell when a film is produced by Roger Corman.  Most notably in this flick is the fact that the same ship from Battle Beyond the Stars is used as the Raider's ship.  You know....the ship with boobs.  Seriously.  The spaceship has breasts.  I'm not kidding!  LOOK!

See!  Ship Boobs!

This ship is well endowed.

The story involves a young boy, named Peter (David Mendenhall....who provided the voice for Daniel Witwicky in the original Transformers cartoon and animated movie!), who ends up aboard said breasted ship, which belongs to a motley crew of space pirates, led by Hawk.  Hawk is your typically rough around the edges with a heart of gold type.  After learning that the kid is on the ship, he promises to get him back home.  Peter and Hawk bond and develop an almost father/son relationship.  You really get the feeling that Pete's real father isn't that much of a stand up guy.  Sure, he's trying (sort of) to get Peter back, but you really don't get a sense of urgency from him.

We follow along on their adventures as the crew tries to get Peter home while fending off Company fighters (The Company is your standard futuristic "we own everything" type of deal.  Either you're with The Company or your not.  The Raiders steal from The Company....you know how it goes.) as well as the henchmen of evil alien Zariatin.

The evil Zariatin.

Flying 'n' stuff

There are laserblasts a plenty.....though I should specify that we never see any laser beams coming out of any guns.....just a bunch of sparks shooting out of the muzzle.  There are lasers that shoot out of spaceships though, so you can get your laser fix there.

Most of the film plays out like a swashbuckling space pirate adventure....though there really isn't much in the way of actually swashbuckling.  As a matter of fact, I don't even know why I said that.  Probably so I could keep in the pirate them.  Oh well.  At any rate, there's plenty of action and for the most part, it's a kinda feel good action flick.  The Raiders are clearly the good guys and the bad guys are gonna get their comeuppance.  There's also lots of robots!  Not like really cool robots....more like guys wearing spandex with plastic parts hot glued onto them.  Which is totally fine.....just didn't want to get your hopes up too high.

Flying 101 with Hawk.

The obligatory outdoor scene.

Like I was saying before getting distracted by the robots...it plays out like a feel-good kinda action flick for the most part.....and then in the last twenty minutes or so it gets dark.  I'm not going to spoil it, but I have to say that I didn't remember how it all ended up going down and I was a bit shocked at the rather violent and downbeat ending.  Oh yeah, and Peter is a total ingrate.  Just saying.

GORE
There's a little bit of blood here and there.....squibs and whatnot.....and the blood is of the ketchup variety.

T&A




No such luck, amigo.  This is a PG flick.

MONSTERS
There are a few different varieties of alien creatures....plus the aforementioned robots.  Oh yeah, and a really swanky stop motion alien bug.

The poor mans Mos Eisley......

.......has intergalactic pizza fights?!?!?

FINAL THOUGHTS 
This still holds a very special place in my heart.  It's wonky, sure, and it's cheap, but it's got charm and it's a hell of a lot of fun, so why not give it a shot?  I watched my VHS copy of the film, but there is a limited edition Blu Ray that was put out September, 2014 from Scorpion Releasing.

"Get outta here kid......go get a copy of Space Raiders!"

Overlords of the U.F.O.

Overlords of the U.F.O.
1976
Director: G. Brook Stanford
Writer: W. Gordon Allen
Stars: W. Gordon Allen, Trevor James Constable & Juan Fava
Unrated - Approx 94 Min
Scientific News/Tower Investments International Ltd.


PROOF!  The E.T.'s have found us and they're not all friendly!

This is an "animated" segment, believe it or not!

Run!  It's the Overlords!

If you come here on a regular basis you know how I feel about UFO's, aliens and the whole shebang.  They creep me the hell out, yet I'm obsessively fascinated by them.  It's been that way since I can remember.  I used to take out the same three or four books about UFO's from the Fitchburg Public Library when I was a kid.  I must have read those books a thousand times.  Then in Jr. High through High school (way back in the day glo soaked 90's)  schoolyard and lunchtime conversation was filled with talk of the latest UFO/Alien shows that popped on the FOX network at an alarming rate.  Of course the most famous of these specials was the Alien Autopsy (Fact of Fiction?) special from 1995.  You know the one.  It was hosted by Jonathan Frakes and it is considered to be one of the most controversial specials ever aired.  I won't lie....back in those days I was in full Mulder mode.  I wanted to believe everything.  Clearly the whole thing was a hoax...the creators even came forward and admitted it.  I digress.


UFO documentaries are nothing new.  The earliest known UFO Doc that I know of is a thirteen minute Telenews reel that was shown in theaters in 1952 entitled The Flying Saucer Mystery.  From there there have been many, MANY documentaries covering every aspect of the UFO phenomena.  Today I want to talk about Overlords of the UFO.  Quite possibly one of the weirdest, wonkiest and outright most ridiculous of all documentaries produced on the subject.

BAM!  Wood paneling!  This is SOOO 70's!

Huh.  It's an alien!

Hosted by W. Gordon Allen, Overlords explores the idea that UFO's are not from outer space but are in fact craft sent from another plane of existence by inter-dimensional beings.  As the doc asks about a quarter of a million times:  Who are the Overlords of the UFO?  Who the hell knows.  This thing is all over the place!


According to Mr. Allen, "The UFO" (as he puts it) is an inter-dimensional craft that is able to materialize into the fabric of our universe.  The pilots of these UFO's are said to be robotic servants to these Overlords though the reasoning for sending slave scouts is never really explained.  There is a metric shit ton of information flying at you at all times, yet it's all wonky talk that makes no sense.  However it's spoken with strict authority and given and pure fact, which is odd.  All the incredible claims made in this documentary are just put out there as fact....as if they've officially and without dispute answered the question "Are we alone?" with a resounding "NO!".

Stanton Friedman is one of the only sane people to appear in 90's minutes.

"I saws a flying saucer!"

BAM BAM!  More wood paneling goodness!

Somehow Uri Geller appears in the final third of the film.  We watch as he bends metal (Keys and such) with the power of his mind....using biometric energy or some such thing.  Apparently that's how the Overlords of the UFO power their crafts....biometric energy.  That could explain why electronic equipment fails when UFO's are around......but then why don't your keys bend?

Uri Geller?!??  WTF?  Here, bend my keys.....

Cattle mutilation is also touched upon and the theory is placed forth that cattle mutilations are not the result of extraterrestrials, but in fact because of giant invisible flying "critters" (as they are called) that come down from the atmosphere and feed on the cow's soft tissues, regurgitating their bones and leaving them behind for dismayed farmers to find.  Holy shit, I can't believe I just typed that last sentence.


Of course there are also many terrible photographs of UFO's peppered in.  Most are quite blatantly fake (I'm looking at YOU, Ummo UFO!) and others are just indecipherable....but there are plenty of them!  There's artists renditions of outer space and psychedelic colors swirling around as we listen to sounds from another planet.  It's all really trippy.

This "photograph" was hailed as the best photo evidence ever.  Good grief.

A shot of the "Ummo" UFO.  Apparently they like to put runes on their craft.

Another shot of the "Ummo" ship

This is......a........jellyfish?  Or a UFO.  I'm not sure which.

Oooh, shiny!

A classic "Bell" shaped UFO.  There is video of this one!  All wobbly on a string like.

There's also plenty of  nightmare fuel as artist depictions of UFO encounters and abductions.  These aren't your normal artist renditions of that you would expect to see....they're boldly colored and there is something unsettling about them.  It's hard to put my finger on what exactly what makes them so, but I would definitely NOT want these hanging on my wall.

I don't know exactly what is being depicted here and I don't want to.

That UFO is friggin EVIL looking!  Look at the blood red light!

Nope, I was wrong.  THIS ONE is evil looking!  It's got eyes for Christ's sake!

An artists rendition of the invisible air critters shitting out cattle skeletons.  Joy.

An alleged robotic humanoid UFO pilot.

This brings me to an interesting point about this doc.  It's incredibly ridiculous, it's completely devoid of any actual fact and yet there is something sinister and unsettling about it.  Maybe it's the sounds from Ummo, who knows.  I watched this at about three in the morning, which is the appropriate time to watch something like this.  At times it feels a bit like In Search of.... other times it feels like I should be on some serious mind altering drugs to understand what the hell they are talking about.

W. Gordon Allen looking all authoritative 'n' shit.

So wonky and cliched.  Love it.

The long and short of it is that you NEED to see this.  If you are at all interested in UFO's, the paranormal, or 70's bat shit craziness, then this is for you.  It's easily found in it's entirety on YouTube....or if you want the complete Overlords experience, then you need to pick up a copy on VHS for about $14.99 on Amazon.  Then take it to a room with shag carpeting and wood paneling, immerse yourself and drink the Kool-Aid, man!


GORE
What?  No, dude...this is a documentary on UFO's!

T&AYeah.....not so much.

MONSTERS
Well.  There's pictures of aliens.  And invisible air critters.  So that counts.  Right?


Final Thoughts

Like I said, you should watch this.  It's a trip and a half.  Just make sure that you're watching it on a 19" tube TV on a VCR while in a den with shag carpeting and wood paneling.  Perfect.

Alien Abduction - First Person Fire in the Sky

Alien Abduction
2014
Directed by Matty Beckerman
Written by Robert Lewis

Starring Katherine Sigismund, Corey Eid & Riley Polanski

Not Rated - Approx 85 Minutes
Exclusive Media




Tag Lines
 - Fear The Lights

Alternate Titles
The Morris Family Abduction




"Everybody up here knows there's something weird going on."
                                                                                                  -Sean

First off, I've gotta get this off my chest:  I'm tired of people automatically dismissing a movie because it's found footage and continually bashing the format.  Found Footage films are here to stay, deal with it.  If you don't like it, that's fine.  If everyone liked the same things it would be an awfully boring world.  But for the love of God and all that's holy PLEASE stop judging films based simply on the fact that they're found footage.  Stop making automatic comparison's to Blair Witch and stop calling it lazy filmmaking.

Meet The Morrisons!  

I would have packed up my shit right then and there and left....

Okay, now that I've gotten THAT out of my system......let's talk Alien Abduction.  This is (if you haven't already figured it out) a found footage film that chronicles that last days of The Morris family.  The family of five (Father, Peter...Mother, Katie and siblings Corey, Jillian and Riley) are on a camping trip in the Brown Mountains of North Carolina.  On the first night, the kids spot a series of bright lights in the sky that are behaving quite oddly before shooting off into the night sky.

The next day things start to go wrong for the family.  Their SUV is mysteriously low on gas, the GPS is malfunctioning and tensions are starting to run a bit high.  When the family comes to a tunnel that is blocked by abandoned vehicles, you KNOW shits about to go sideways.  Dad and the boys trek into the tunnel to see what could possibly be causing the problem.  What they find is goddamned creepy.  Dozens of cars are abandoned.  Some have their hazards on, some don't, but they are ALL disheveled.  Clothes are strewn about, babyseats seemingly ripped from cars and laying on the ground, cell phones and other objects just apparently abandoned.  Getting towards the other side of the tunnel, Peter see's what he believes to be a person standing at the tunnel's mouth.  It's not human.  Personally, right then and there I would have lost my mind....because...well, you guys know how I feel about aliens.

There are aliens in the tunnel!

I just pooped myself a bit

From there on out, it's a fairly constant extraterrestrial assault on the family as they scramble for safety.   Unfortunately for them, the car doesn't have much gas left in it and after a highly disturbing shower of dead birds, the car completely runs dry and they're now on the run....literally....on foot.  They manage to find shelter when they come across a cabin belonging to a hillbilly named Sean.  At first he seems like your typical mountain dwelling type....not very fond of city slicker tourists who come up to his mountain, but he quickly becomes more of a protector and dare I even say hero as the film progresses.

That can't be good.

Meet Sean.

The aliens themselves are only ever briefly glimpsed, which makes their appearances all the more jarring when they do appear.  Their presence is heralded by blinding white light that seemingly infiltrates every crack, nook and cranny of whatever structure you happen to be in.  The light is accompanied by an unsettling metallic/ electronic noise that I can only describe as uncomfortable sounding.

Pretty much my worst fear encapsulated in a single screencap.

The film is based on the real life phenomena known as the Brown Mountain Lights, which have been sighted in the Brown Mountain region of North Carolina since the early 1900's.  They can still be seen to this day and there is still no explanation as to what the source of the lights could possibly be.  They've been the subject of several songs, books, movies and paranormal television shows.  There was even an episode of The X Files that revolved around the lights in 1999.  

Gore
No blood in this one.

T&A
No skin in this one either

Monsters
Aliens.  Goddamned aliens, man.  Freaky bug eyed bastards with their long spindly fingers.......

That town looks a looooooooong way off.

Final Thoughts
It's no secret that those grey skinned freaky bastards from beyond the moon scare the crap out of me, but I try not to let that get in the way of my objectively viewing the film.  Even if they had used a different monster in the film, it still would have been effective.  Set pieces such as the car tunnel and the road covered in dead birds were highly effective.

It still amazes me that in this day and age of YouTube and Vines that people are so against found footage films.  The argument that "No one would continue to film as all this scary stuff happens" is invalid.  YouTube and other online video sights prove that.  Do you know how many videos you can find online of REAL people being killed in accidents and even murdered while someone stands by and numbly films it?  How many websites are dedicated to pictures of videos of gruesome accidents, injuries and death?

If you were in an unbelievable situation and had a camera with you (as most people do on at least their phones now) wouldn't YOU want to document what was happening?  Should you manage to get out of it alive, you'll want proof of your unbelievable story.  If you die, you'll want people to know what happened to you.  Unlikely that you would be filming when bad shit happens?  In this day and age, I think it would be unlikely that you WOULDN'T be.  Think about it.

Final Rating
THREE OUT OF FIVE PIZZA ROLLS