It! The Terror From Beyond Space
IN THE MIDDLE 1980s/ WAY DOWN ON LEVEL 31 …
Before MST3K there was The Texas 27 Film Vault! Balladeer’s Blog continues its examination of this neglected cult show from the 1980s. Randy Clower and Richard Malmos, our machine-gun toting members of the Film Vault Corps (“the few, the proud, the sarcastic”) do their usual bit of showing and mocking an old serial then showing and mocking a bad movie.
Thanks to my interview with Randy Clower, the show’s co-creator and co-star and thanks to my research through VERY old newspapers plus emailed memories from other T27FV fans I’m taking a look at another episode of the show where an exact broadcast date can be determined.
ORIGINALLY BROADCAST: Saturday July 12th, 1986 from 10:30pm to 1:00am.
SERIAL: Before the night’s movie Randy and Richard would often present old serials. In this episode of the show our “Film Vault Technicians First Class” showed an episode of the 1950 Columbia serial Atom Man vs Superman to be mocked. Kirk Alyn starred as Superman with Lyle Talbot as his archenemy Lex Luthor. Lex has his own secret identity in this serial – each episode he dons a lead mask and oversees the villainy as “Atom Man”.
This was one of the liveliest and most campily watchable serials of the 50s. Especially laughable are the bits when Superman “flies” – an effect achieved by switching from live footage of Kirk Alyn to INSERTED CARTOON FOOTAGE of Superman flying. Think of the ‘Toons in Roger Rabbit interacting with the live backgrounds and you have the idea.
FILM VAULT LORE: This episode of The Texas 27 Film Vault was the first to come with a Viewer Discretion warning. Gore effects fans (And what T27FV fan WASN’T a gore effects fan?) were in Nirvana this night as Film Vault Corps member Joe “The Hypnotic Eye” Riley was given full reign for some of his most graphic effects work during the comedy sketches or Host Segments if you prefer.
Howling!
Direct from the Film Vault Corps Academy in Leadville, Colorado, the Academy’s Little Theater Group was touring Film Vaults across the country. Tonight they were performing on Level 31 of the Film Vault underneath Dallas, where the show was set. The Little Theater Group was reenacting scenes from famous alien monster movies and since It! The Terror From Beyond Space was a partial inspiration for the original Alien, the chest-burster scene was reenacted in darkly comic glory! (As if the chow in the Film Vault Commissary wasn’t unappetizing enough already!)
THE MOVIE: It! The Terror From Beyond Space is one of the consummate low-budget schlockers of the 1950s. It embodies the “so bad it’s good” aesthetic that so many Movie Host shows have always reveled in. In the far-off year 1973 (LMAO) a very fake-looking space-ship on an even more fake-looking matte-painting of a Martian landscape has come to rescue the sole survivor of the previous mission to the Red Planet. (So far it sounds almost like Queen of Blood, shown on T27FV in May of 1986 and reviewed previously) Continue reading
FINAL FOUR: FIRST BERTH – The 6th seeded BLUEFIELD COLLEGE RAMBLING RAMS went up against the 3 seeds – the MID-AMERICA CHRISTIAN UNIVERSITY EVANGELS. 
FINAL FOUR: SECOND BERTH – Up next the 2 seeds – the EMMANUEL COLLEGE LIONS – battled the 7th seeded COLLEGE OF THE OZARKS BOBCATS. 
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NUMBER THREE – A look at how CHE GUEVARA AND GUY FAWKES came to symbolize the opposite of what they were in real life. CLICK 
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NUMBER THREE – FRANKENSTEIN’S ARMY (2013) – A review of this look at a horror movie about a descendant of the original Dr Frankenstein. This Doctor F is reanimating custom-weaponized corpses for the Nazis during World War Two. CLICK 
NUMBER FIVE – THE SOUL OF KOL NIKON (1913) – My Halloween Season review of this neglected novel by female author Eleanor Farjeon. The story deals with a Changeling using his supernatural command of music to try to steal a soul for himself from a human victim. CLICK 
NUMBER SEVEN – THE BOURNE IDENTITY – My review of ROBERT LUDLUM’S NUMBER TWO NOVEL, about amnesiac intelligence agent Jason Bourne. CLICK 
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NUMBER FOUR – The American Left has come to love censorship as much as the religious right always did. 
NUMBER FIVE – Balladeer’s Blog was examining various espionage novels by Robert Ludlum, the man behind the Jason Bourne books. 
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NUMBER FOUR – The blog post DEMOCRATS, THE SMIRKING JACKASSES OF LIFE took a good look at why so many of us who still lean leftward have grown to despise America’s Democrats and to regret having ever been associated with them. 
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