Extra Terrestrial Visitors (aka Pod People)

To listen/download, click here!

For the third episode of Derek's Narcissistic Month-Long Birthday Celebration, he chose one from a classic MST3K episode: Pod People (originally known as Extra Terrestrial Visitors), a knock-off of E.T. the Extra-terrestrial starring Ian Sera, Nina Ferrer, Susan Blake, Sara Palmer, Óscar Martín, Maria Albert, Emil Linder, and a bunch of other people you have never heard of.

And whatever the hell these are supposed to be.

We begin when a group of poachers (Frank Braña, Guillermo Antón, and another, uncredited guy) arrive in a quiet wooded area to murder a bunch of animals "in peace and quiet," as one of them says. None of them seem to like the others, and they spend more time arguing than anything else. While trying to climb a tree--presumedly to murder some birds while they sleep in their nests--they send one of their number (the uncredited guy) to go get a rope from the truck. On his way there, he sees a meteor fall and decides to take the group's truck and investigate, and finds a giant hole that glows red. So, of course, he goes inside to have a look.

What Uncredited Guy finds is what appears to be a nest of some kind. There are a number of giant eggs on the ground, and they're all bathed in the red glow and some sort of goop. Duly unnerved by this, Uncredited Guy grabs a stick and starts pounding on the eggs, revealing them to be filled with what looks like the same stuff they used to fill Stretch Armstrong dolls with, as well as raw chickens. While doing so, he is attacked by...something.

Burt (Braña), who looks like George Peppard, looks for critters to shoot.

Without warning, it seems we are thrown into a second movie, where young Tommy (Martín), an on-the-spectrum boy who collects pets (which he refers to as his "specimens") and demands everyone call insects by their scientific names. He gets into an argument with his father (Manuel Pereiro) about what to call a centipede, but Tommy's mother (Concha Cuetos) intervenes and tells Tommy to go to his room. High drama, indeed.

We are saved from this emotional rollercoaster by being violently tossed into yet another movie, where a singing group, led by the smarmy Rick (Sera), tries to record a terrible song. It's pretty clear from the start that Rick is not impressed with the work his backup singers, Sharon (Ferrer), Kathy (Palmer), and Tracy (Albert). He berates them and demands that they try to keep up with him. When they try again, making it all the way through. When the producer, Brian (Linder), tells them that it sounded good, Rick offers his own opinion.

The iconic "It's adequate" scene.

Having half-assed their way through two takes, the group takes the weekend off, intending to go camping and having lots of sex. But when they get out to their RV, they are met by Lara (Blake)--a woman that Rick "accidentally" hooked up with and invited to go with them.Sharon, who is currently dating Rick, is upset, and she storms off. Brian chases her down and tells her that being a lying, cheating asshole is part of Rick's act, and she falls for it. Then they all leave to go camping.

So, of course, it's time to check in with what's going on in the poachers in the first movie. They are still trying to find animals to kill, but are not having much luck because of rangers and an absurd amount of fog that permeates the entire movie.

There's probably tons of cool stuff happening in this scene, but we'll never know.

Checking in with movie number two, we find that Tommy has gone out to find more bugs to argue about with his father. While blindly trudging through the forest, he runs across the same hole in the ground that Uncredited Guy found, and he goes inside, where he finds the body of Uncredited Guy, all the eggs that were broken, and one unbroken one, which he promptly stuff into his coat and takes home.

Back to movie number three, where the group has reached their destination and made a fire to cook over. Small talk and pleasantries take place as Lara tells everyone about Rick inviting her to come with them. Sharon makes a sarcastic remark, Lara returns one, Sharon throws coffee at Lara, and Lara runs off into the woods.

Good times, if you hate being comfortable.

The rest of the group go looking for Lara, but she is found by the remaining poachers from movie number one. They make some lewd comments and she pulls away from them, only to fall down into a pit where she no doubt suffered multiple broken bones and lacerations. The poachers split because they only want to murder four-legged animals.

Rick finds Lara at the bottom of the pit and, with the help of Brian, the pick her up and move her back to the camper, despite what even the most rudimentary first aid training might suggest about moving someone who may be injured. After putting a blanket on her and trying to pour some whiskey down her unconscious throat, they decide to maybe try finding some help, which eventually leads them to the home of Tommy and his family. And his new pet alien.

Please...Just let me die...

From here, people start getting picked-off, one-by-one, and thrown onto the ever-growing pile of dead bodies stacked in the spare bedroom. Rick wants to stay where they are. Tommy's dad wants them to get the hell out of his house so he can drink and shoot at things in peace. Tommy wants his new pet alien, which he named Trumpy after it hatched (that took about ten minutes after him getting the egg home), to do tricks for him, and Trumpy is happy to oblige, resulting in a ridiculous sequence involving a Simon game, a jigsaw puzzle, a generous amount of peanuts, and a terrified bunny.

The poachers have taken up residence in a cave, hoping to ride out any fallout from being partially responsible to what is at least the crippling of a Valley Girl. As they try to decide what to do, they are attacked by a familiar-looking alien that kills the younger of the two and brands him with a weird, glowing mark on his head.

Mick "Mankind" Foley joins a cult.

So the George Peppard-looking guy goes running to Tommy's house, because it's the only one around, we guess. He teams up with Rick and Tommy's now visibly drunk father, and they go looking for an alien to kill!

But will they find it? And is it Trumpy? Will Rick be considered an accessory to murder for the terrible injuries Lara sustained by being manhandled by him and Brian? Will Tommy's balls ever drop, allowing him to sound like a male? Will this thing ever end, possibly with a very Harry and the Hendersons-style sending-off of the alien? You'll have to tune in to find out!

Larry was visibly shaken after watching this, having entered into this with high hopes that he would be surprisingly entertained, like he had been from the last two movies. He is disappointed by the poorly-designed alien, as well as the goo in the eggs. Why was there a raw chicken in there?!

Derek is deeply upset by the lack of simple first aid knowledge in this film. It's very likely that Lara and all the other victims may have survived, had it not been for Rick and Brian flopping their unconscious bodies around like ragdolls. Those guys are the real monsters in this film.

So fire up the RV, load up your innocent animal killin' guns, put on some hip waders, and listen to this latest episode!