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Pod people

Not to be confused with People Jars, which involves Jar People, or Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which features pod people, unlike this movie.

A little boy named Tommy who has an extensive array of pets he likes to call "specimens" finds an alien egg to hatch, somewhat like Horton. When it hatches, Tommy names the creature--who manages to use his snout to suck up peanuts and warp time and space with his fingers--Trumpy. Unfortunately, Trumpy's mom is found by poachers and goes on a killing spree in response. To add to the terror, a group of unappealing young people takes a break from recording nightmarish "pop" music to travel by RV up to the scene of the alien foothold. When one of their members is killed by the alien, they are drawn into the hunt for the culprit.

The film is as much of a mess behind the scenes as it is on-screen. Los Nuevos Extraterrestres began its life as a low-budget horror film. Then, after the initial script had been written, the producers demanded the addition of the subplot about the little kid adopting the alien, in a blatant attempt to cash in on the success of ET the Extraterrestrial. It was filmed in Spanish and French. For the US release is was (badly) dubbed into English and retitled The Unearthling. Then, when the copyright expired, the distributor Film Ventures International purchased the film, slapped the credits from completely different films onto the beginning and end, and changed the name to PodPeople.

You can check out The Cinema Snob's review of the film, this time under the title Extra-Terrestrial Visitors.

For the Mystery Science Theater 3000 version, please go to the episode recap page.


Pod People Contains Examples of:[]

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 The Pod People was originally conceived as a straight-up alien invasion horror film. But while Los Nuevos Extraterrestres (the Spanish production’s original title) was still being filmed, Steven Spielberg released a little film called E.T. that became a blockbuster hit. The money people behind Pod People demanded several script changes at the last minute (“add a cute kid and make the alien more adorable!”) in order to make the movie more E.T.-ish, which partially accounts for the disjointed feel of this film.

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