“PARTY!”

Justin’s rating: How can 90 minutes of this feel longer than any of Christopher Nolen’s films?

Justin’s review: Part of the love affair that the ’80s had with the 1950s manifested in a generally welcome resurgence of scifi B-movies. With better special effects and a population that was experiencing some of the best genre flicks ever made, lower-budget outfits gladly pushed out some genuinely fun stuff like The Blob, Night of the Creeps, and The Stuff to welcoming crowds.

But if you dug below those well-meaning but underfunded projects all the way to the Z-grade bedrock, you’d find Hobgoblins and Vice Academy director Rick Sloane looking for the next way to make a quick buck. After what I imagine to be an unholy ceremony of hamster sacrifice and Bee Gees lyrics recited backwards, The Visitants emerged with a foul belch.

A pair of quirky aliens infiltrate earth during the ’50s on a 30-year mission to lay the groundwork for an invasion. Now it’s 1986 and said invasion is about ready to happen — on October 31st, the most inconspicuous date for aliens to crash the party. However, the alien duo’s plans are knocked off-kilter when the next door teenagers accidentally run over their satellite dish and make off with their one and only ray gun.

Now the lame chase is on, with the alien couple trying to get theirs back, and bland teenagers Eric and Ellen hoping to stay one step ahead of them. Try to hold on to your seat as this film rockets off to realms unknown.

Listen, I’m on board with the intentionally hokey retro theme and sets, and I can even extend my generous statements to praising the overall look of The Visitants as colorful and kitschy. But that’s where my praise runs dry, because this is a repository for some of the most awkward acting I’ve seen outside of a Neil Breen movie. I wouldn’t be surprised if this was everyone’s first time on camera, really.

And when I wasn’t cringing at the stilted conversations, I was rolling my eyes at the soundtrack that is clearly suffering an identity crisis. It’s repeatedly weird, with the synth score often working at cross-purposes with whatever’s happening in a scene.

Probably the biggest sin that The Visitants commits is neglecting to tell a good story while frantically waving its hands in the direction of whatever scifi B-movie homage is on the screen. Oh, and when it aims for comedy, it’s not afraid to insert some cartoony sound effects, so that’s another piece of evidence for the eventual war crimes tribunal.

Instead of crafting a love letter to the scifi B-movies he obviously admires, Rick Sloane cribbed a smarter kid’s notes and put in the sloppiest, least amount of effort possible while expecting to coast on culty coattails. Yes, it’s impressive on some level that he could make a full movie like this with $8500, but would it be too much to ask for it to be enjoyable to watch?

With better writing, directing, and especially acting, I could see The Visitants actually becoming something worth seeing and remembering. However, it’s only good for us weirdos that like to scrounge way down here for wasted potential and truly bad output.

Intermission!

• Alien couples also bicker while driving
• The girl holding the 3D glasses
• Wait, this is a cartoon now? You confuse me, opening credits.
• Kellogs All-Bran sounds nasty
• “You just creamed your neighbor’s satellite dish!”
• Shooting a toy gun in a science class gets you a C grade
• Wait, how did his alarm clock get cut in half and still work?
• The aliens are undercover as TV repairmen
• Teachers are cool with you bringing guns to school. Sometimes they even tell you to do it.
• Eric is the worst at stabbing
• “How about this power tool?” “Fantastic!”
• Eric’s not even gagged effectively
• Cringe line of the century: “GUESS AGAIN!”
• “Hi there neighbor, would you like to borrow a cup of sugar?”
• Archie outfits? What a loser.
• “We might even get a motel with a waterbed!”
• That is an awful duck helmet. At least, I think that’s what it’s supposed to be.
• Thrashing around and screaming “PARTY!” is what makes a party a party
• “After tonight, I wonder how many friends I’ll have left.” “Oh you’ll have friends. They won’t be alive, but they’ll be left.”
• “You’re really becoming an earth bitch.”