Lobster Man From Mars is an inspirational apology for Category B Pentecostal Fiction directed by Stanley Scheff. Presented in the 89th in Sundance nostalgic excursion for connoisseurs of the genre, which contained all the worst and best of that unforgettable cinematic era, when molded from plasticine and cellophane ugly monsters chased blondes without any Freudian justification, armadas of glued plywood and foil flying saucers invaded the solar system without any Hawking arguments, and the audience, frightened, scattered popcorn without any 3D. And in general, everything was more fun and naive, and in the first place were not effects, but history, and any blockbuster began with a duet of a typewriter and a madman, not a duet of a focus group and a marketer.
A major Hollywood producer (Tony Curtis with a distrustful smile wandering in the face, where am I?) is having trouble with the tax police. To solve the problem, it is necessary to very quickly throw out on the market some absolutely disastrous movie (for a period of about 6 days).
But, as they say, everything is known in comparison:
Because the King of Mars is being told that an oxygen crisis is brewing, and eight months before the collapse. To solve the issue, the monarch attracts the unpopular at court because of his extravagant appearance and immoderate appetites, the Terrible Lobster Man.
Lobster, with the support of a gorilla in a hermohelmet with horn antennas and silver boots, as well as a pair of flying (once even to the accompaniment of Wagner) furry crustaceans with eyes on stems, performing the functions of air reconnaissance, will go to Earth and steal all the oxygen from neighbors in the system. Because of the particular risk and importance of the mission, Lobster Man is allowed to eat whatever he wants. And this relaxation, running ahead, he will gladly use.
The producer learns about all this from a shy young man trying himself as a screenwriter, director and cameraman in one person, who has just finished his debut film with the eloquent title “The Lobster Man from Mars”.
Seeing in such a synopsis a real salvation from all tax troubles, the producer immediately drags the young man with his film into the viewing room.
Already from the first frames, the manner of presentation gives out a postmodernist in the author, boldly polemizing with the classics.
Using all the main genre codes, combining the traditional plots “Evil comes to a small town” and “The abduction of the bodies of the inhabitants by an evil alien mind”, the author introduces new characters into the narrative, one another is better.
A young couple accidentally watches a UFO landing, unaware of it, takes Lobster to the city in his trunk, go to show photos:
- They're black!
- Probably due to radiation...
- You probably didn't take the lid off the lens.
Here appears to the brooding chants of the saxophone noir detective in Fedor and with an indispensable cigarette in the corner of his mouth:
- There's a feeling sometimes. Not a thought. Not a feeling. But - Premonition ...
But on the tail of the Lobster trying to sit a representative of the authorities (which, of course, hide), a brave mustachioed Colonel:
- I don’t know where it came from, from space or from the Russians. But it's definitely in this cave. Sergeant Schwartz, go out there and kill everyone!
At some point, the beautiful Patrick McNee appears as a mad professor who drives a moonshine in the laboratory and, without going into details, informs a journalist from television that the only life form that can live on Mars is giant crabs.
The main character will then try to ask him, saying, well, why exactly crabs? And in response, he makes a “pokerface”, and says to her, kindly: “Honey, go make us a better seagull”, an old chauvinist.
But the best moments of the film are associated, of course, with the main character - the Terrible Lobster Man from Mars. Periodically, what happens is served from his face, while everything goes into swampy green tones, looks like in a 3D shooter, only instead of a shotgun, a claw swings in the corner of the screen.
While the Lobster Man brings panic to the town and makes a mess (makes a stir in the women’s shower, kills a clown with a laser beam), the heroes are trying to come up with all new ways to deal with him – from an experienced fisherman (“I’ve been catching these creatures for 20 years!”) to army mortars.
The most elegant (though not the most effective) is the decision to lure the Lobster Man to a spiritualistic séance held in an ancient estate on the outskirts of the town. Moreover, it was built on the site of the native cemetery, and managed to change several generations of owners, and everyone ended up badly, and the current owner is a dwarf medium in a turban, whose butler serves, apparently, who is a close relative of Larchu from the Addams Family.
“This is the best movie I’ve seen in my life,” the producer sums up as the screen goes dark.
It's a success, he thinks. I mean, failure. That’s exactly what you need!
But, as Tyutchev quite rightly noted, “we are not given to predict how our word will respond.” The audience is capricious and unpredictable, its taste is changeable. A madman with a typewriter is still primary than 3D effects, and the presence of a focus group and an experienced marketer does not insure against failure.
And as of old, crooked, deaf roundabout trails lead from some epoxy and superglue-smelling garage, half of which is occupied by a model of the Cruiser-Destroyer, to red Oscar carpet, reporter blitzes and the unofficial title of chief visionary of the era.