TerrorVision

(Ted Nicolaou, USA, 1986)

Some very fine B-to-Z movie talent was assembled for this weirdly stylish, quite hilarious project.

Ted Nicolaou is a prolific director whose feature filmography (to 2023) notches above 50 entries. He is a veteran of the Charles Band academy, and indeed Charles and brother Albert are the producers here (while Nicolaou and Charles co-wrote the script).

Out-there actors including Gerrit Graham (from De Palma’s Phantom of the Paradise, 1974), ex-Warhol superstar/Chelsea Girl Mary Woronov (Eating Raoul, 1982) and Robert Altman regular (for the duration of the 1970s) Bert Remsen are part of the cast.

This is a warped horror-comedy, depicting an unlovable nuclear family unit immersed in pop culture overdrive – complete with kitsch décor, MTV, and a ‘leisure palace’ playroom for sexy swingers.

The compulsion to consume inevitably draws in (anticipating Twin Peaks: The Return!) a prime novelty from beyond the stars … and then the gruesome fun begins.

From the screeching, occasionally out-of-tune earworm of the theme song (“My own reflection I’ve never seen!”) to the last gross-out gag, it’s a true mid ‘80s treat – and, in the micro-history of film cycles, it arrived a few years before the craze that included Earth Girls Are Easy (1988) and Martians Go Home (1990).

MORE Nicolaou/Band: Remote

© Adrian Martin August 1990 / September 2024