Well, I started this crazy thing, so I guess it’s up to me to bring us on home, and finish up this retrospective of that legendary side project by the former cast members of Mystery Science Theater 3000. No, not RiffTrax. The other thing. No, not Cinematic Titanic. The other other thing. That’s right, the post-MST3k, non-RiffTrax, non-Cinematic Titanic side project known as The Film Crew!

Our story up to this point: At the behest of boss Bob Honcho (née Bob Rhino), the Film Crew (Mike Nelson, Bill Corbett, Kevin Murphy) began recording commentary tracks for every movie that didn’t have one. With only four movies under their belts before the plug was pulled, they fell somewhat short of that goal, but they did suffer through a well-oiled Steve Reeves, jungle women worshipping a dead alligator, and Rue McClanahan stripping.

This may be hard to believe, but we’ve saved the worst for last.

For the big finish to this series of articles, the Film Crew take on 1954’s Killers from Space, which is one of the most accurately titled films in motion picture history. Except for how the titular characters operate in underground caves, and are never seen in space. And how they don’t directly kill anybody. Unless you count all the people who died laughing at their ridiculous, Muppet-eyed appearance, of which there are many.

Oops, there goes a few more. Will the bloodbath never end?

In actuality, Killers from Space mostly documents a young Peter Graves as he drives aimlessly, walks aimlessly, and even flies on a military jet aimlessly. And at one point, for a change of pace, Peter goes to see a movie full of close-ups of insects and lizards. Oh, wait, those are supposed to be giant, man-eating creatures.

“I guess this isn’t the 4:35 Avatar showing, is it?”

Killers from Space is a lot like ‘50s drive-in horror movies like Them! and The Creature from the Black Lagoon, only done with zero money or skill. It’s really to the Film Crew’s credit that they have as much fun as they do with this non-space related, killing-deprived film. Let’s take a deeper look.

As with all Film Crew DVDs, there’s an intro where the guys open up a package containing a VHS tape of their current subject, and communicate with their boss Bob Honcho via speakerphone. Bob tells a mildly off-color joke with a punch line of “a peter grave”, which leads into his Dr. Forrester-like introduction of Killers from Space.

And then comes the feature presentation itself, and just like all other Film Crew releases, they’ve used the absolute worst print they could find, complete with abrupt splices all throughout the movie. Honestly, even the print of Killers from Space you can find on YouTube looks better than this. I’m pretty sure they used this print solely for the humor they could mine from people randomly teleporting into and out of scenes.

The movie opens with a long stretch of atomic test stock footage, during which an overly mellow narrator tells us this test is code-named “Operation: A-Bomb Test”. I think the writers missed the whole point of “code names” somewhere along the way.

Inserted between stock footage clips is Peter Graves as Dr. Douglas Martin, nuclear scientist, onboard a military jet to study the mushroom cloud. And in long shots, Doug’s plane is an obvious model plane superimposed onto the stock footage. We can even see clouds through the plane.

The jet’s call sign, believe it or not, is “Tar Baby 2”, which gives the Film Crew guys a good laugh. As the plane circles the mushroom cloud, Doug sees what he thinks is a “fireball”, but which really looks like someone on the ground fucking with him by flashing a mirror into his eyes.

They fly over to investigate, and that’s when the plane suddenly goes into a dive. And by “a dive”, I mean the plane is now flying perpendicular to the ground.

This can’t be good.

Back at base, they lose radio contact with Tar Baby 2. In more stock footage, rescue planes are scrambled, including the wonderfully named “Tar Baby 7”. I can kind of see why 30 years later, they switched over to more innocuous stuff like “Goose” and “Iceman”.

Cut to a threadbare office with an obligatory portrait of Ike, where an Air Force colonel starts to break the bad news to Doug’s wife, Ellen. For no particular reason, he calls in Doug’s colleague, a guy named Dr. Kruger. After lots of stalling, the colonel says there’s absolutely no chance Doug survived the crash. Dr. Kruger comforts Ellen, holding her head a tad too close to his nether regions.

Meanwhile, the colonel casually lights up a cigarette. As you’re about to see, there’s a lot of smoking in this movie. I mean, a lot. There’s definitely a killer in this movie, but it’s not from space, unless space looks a lot like a pack of Camels.

But wait, Doug’s not dead! He’s now stumbling onto the base, still in his flight suit. Cut to a medical doctor looking him over. Peter Graves is shirtless here, but we never actually see him from the waist down, so I think he’s supposed to be stark naked. Which makes the following moment all the more awkward: the doctor looks him up and down and says, “Everything seems alright.” Come on, just alright, Doc? The guy is six foot four. He’s got to be more than “alright”.

“I’m sorry to have to tell you this... but you have a case of terminal blandness.”

Doug has no memory of anything that happened between the plane crash and him showing up on the base. What’s more, he now has an unexplained L-shaped scar on his chest.

Cutters from Space!

Back in the colonel’s office, an FBI agent named Briggs shows up, mostly to introduce a pointless paranoia element to the film, and also smoke a lot. He suspects that Doug might be an “impostor”.

“Doug may be an impostor, but these Winstons are the real deal!”

Oh yeah, and the Doctor is here, and he’s also smoking. What did you expect? It’s the 1950s. Nicotine was part of a balanced diet back then, along with eight eggs and three servings of vitamin-rich bacon every day.

Cue footage of people examining big blown-up photos of Doug’s fingerprints. Agent Briggs gets a call at his desk saying the fingerprints matched. See, we needed that interlude, because if Briggs had just gotten a call that the prints matched, we’d have no idea what anyone was talking about.

Whoa, slow down there, you guys are moving way too fast for me.

So Briggs is no longer worried that Doug is an impostor, and Ellen is allowed to take her husband home.

Cut to Doug and Ellen in bed that night. As per the custom with TV shows and movies of the era, Doug and Ellen are sleeping in separate beds. Doug suddenly wakes up, looking terrified. He may have just had a nightmare about actually sharing a bed with his wife. Just then, he sees a pair of ghostly Muppet eyes floating towards him.

Apparently, he’s being stalked by Grover.

He rubs his eyes and the Muppet eyes are gone. Doug now wants to go down to the base and find out when the next atomic test is happening, but Ellen keeps him from leaving by having sex with him. Of course, this is all very, very subtly implied. In fact, I’m still not sure of what I just saw.

All I know is it’s suddenly 11 AM, and Doug steps out on his porch to get the newspaper. To his dismay, the headline declares that another nuclear test happened earlier this morning.

”What the—? No more Marmaduke?”

An angry Doug heads down to the base, to yell at the colonel and Dr. Kruger for going on with the test without him. They tell him that due to the crash, he’s now a “security risk” (who knows why), and then the colonel orders him to go home immediately.

Instead, Doug heads over to his office, where he finds his frumpy old secretary sitting at his desk. He has a weird, hammy bit with her where he’s bitter about being called a security risk, and he overacts being crazy. It’s so bizarre that all the Film Crew guys can do is laugh the whole time.

He shoos the secretary out, and then randomly sticks a pipe in his mouth, but never lights it. And then we watch for a mini-eternity as he hides in his office, occasionally peeking out as his colleagues leave for the day. Finally, he sneaks into Dr. Kruger’s office and breaks into his big, walk-in vault.

Agent Briggs is alerted of the break-in. He meets with the colonel and Dr. Kruger, and tells them that Doug didn’t sign out until after they left. That’s right: After stealing stuff out of Dr. Kruger’s vault, Doug actually signed out at the front gate. Agent Briggs then pokes around in Kruger’s vault, where he discovers a dark substance on the floor. He dutifully scoops it up and shoves his face in it before deciding it’s pipe tobacco.

“Yup, just as I thought: rat feces!”

Briggs is instantaneously over at Doug’s house, where he’s asking Ellen about her husband’s favorite brand of tobacco. Also, he’s got his hand in a big can of pipe tobacco. For god’s sake, it’s Doug! Doug Martin broke into the vault! How much more circumstantial evidence does Briggs need?

Randomly (and hilariously), Agent Briggs asks Ellen if she’s ever suspected Doug of having “another woman”. That’s right, sweetheart, he might be sleeping in separate beds with someone else! Ellen is shocked and appalled, so Briggs immediately apologizes. And then lights her cigarette.

“Have you ever suspected your husband of being really smooth with the ladies? Smooth like... these new Kool Menthols?”

Next up, Doug is out in the desert, and it looks like he’s putting a grocery store receipt under a rock. Supposedly, these are the confidential military secrets he stole from Dr. Kruger’s vault. Agent Briggs suddenly appears and grabs his wrist. Doug stares at him, and then the whole frame is blacked out except for Briggs’ eyes. I have no idea what that’s about.

“My, Agent Briggs, that suit really brings out your eyes!”

Doug punches Briggs in the jaw, knocking him out cold, and quickly drives off. Moments later, Doug pulls into a gas station for a fill-up (hey, cut him some slack; back then, “fuel efficient” meant “nine miles to the gallon”), and gets into a similar staredown confrontation with the gas station attendant. Again, the whole frame is blacked out except for the attendant’s eyes. I still don’t know what that’s about.

Doug drives away, and the attendant runs to a payphone to alert the police. Weirdly, we cut to (I’m guessing) the police station, where a woman rips a sheet of paper off the teletype, stuffs it in a pneumatic tube, and sends it up to a policeman who slowly opens the tube and unfolds the paper. Man, emergencies were a whole lot less urgent back in those days.