Bloodsucker From Outerspace

Bloodsuckers From Outer Space (1984)
Dir: Glen Coburn (Tabloid)

It's funny sometimes how times change, I remember as a child I was actually frightened by this film. It's strange because growing up one of my favorite films was Texas Chainsaw Massacre and i was no stranger to horror as a child because growing up during the VHS boom and every time I would go with my mom to the local rental shop I would always pick up some gory horror flick that's cover stuck out to me at the time, But for some reason the extremely cheesy make-up like in this one and Redneck Zombies used to scare me for some reason. Anyway, Now years later watching this film again I cannot understand for the life of me why a movie this silly and light hearted would actually scare me?
          So the film starts with a farmer doing his daily chores and after a strong wind passes by the farmer collapses in pain and starts puking up all of his blood, Shortly after he awakes in blue face paint and screams at the camera. Later we see our main character Jeff who is a local news photographer arriving at a crime scene where his friend a police officer Sam is investigating two bodies who have been mysteriously drained of all their blood with no sign of being attacked. At this point a local hillbilly claims that it must be the work of the Homo's.

After the crime scene we are taken to a science research center conveniently named Research City where Jeff's brother Ralph works and they are monitoring one of their superiors who has been turned into one of the mysterious Blue faced zombies who apparently has a craving for human blood. While Jeff is on his way to see his uncles farm his car gets a flay and after realizing his spare is no good he begins to wale on his car with a crowbar when a woman pulls along side him and offers him a ride. After some small talk and a few hits of nitrous, she takes him to his uncle's where Jeff is told he needs to do something with his life and join his uncle on the farm. This does not make him happy so he leaves again with the woman who at this point is still nameless and after they hook up at her place they exchange names finally.While back at Research City an Army General arrives looking for answers to the strange corpses being found drained of blood to no success.

After the General leaves Ralph finds their specimen lifeless on the work table and is lulled in and attacked and drained of his blood.Jeff and Julie return to his uncles where his family has been turned into the Blue Faced Bloodsuckers and after a brawl with his uncle in which he chops his arm off after a kung-Fu fight sequence.
Afterwards they head to research City to find his brother and are greeted by The leader of the Bloodsuckers and all the staff including his brother dead.

Looking for some help Jeff contacts his friend Sam and alerts him of the situation and heads to meet him. While on their way the couple runs out of gas so they head into town on foot.When they arrive the place is deserted and on their way back some soldiers show up to investigate but are ambushed. Once Jeff and Julie arrive at Sam's they find that he and his girlfriend have now been infected so Jeff and his girl flee.We see the General making a call to the President to request permission to drop a nuke on the town to put a stop to the epidemic and after being annoyed by the general's approach he eventually gives in. Before The General pushes the Kill switch Jeff and Julie are caught in the wind while driving but the strong wind breaks their Nitrous container and the gases seem to kill the deadly wind. As they realize they have killed the strange wind and embrace each other in celebration, The nuke drops and we see a Mushroom cloud in the distance. After the bomb is dropped the General is alerted that he put in the wrong destination and accidently blew up a Catholic commune miles from the determined site. As the film closes we see the small town has been completely taken over by the Bloodsuckers and they seem to be going about life as if everything was normal.

As I said before I have no idea what it was about this film that made me so uneasy as a child but I guess it was something about the lame make up effects that just struck a cord for me. Bloodsuckers is really a fun movie that never takes itself serious and is truly a comedic homage to the lame science fiction movies you would see riffed on MST 3000. The dialog is so intentionally goofy and cheesy it is hard not to like this film.
If it were not for the one scene of nudity in this flick this could easily pass as a PG-13 Sci-Fi comedy and this would be a nice film to put in for a cheesy movie night with some friends. If you are looking for something gruesome and gory this is not gonna be your speed, although their is allot of blood it is all so cheaply done it is definitely not intended to pass a graphic or grim. If you enjoy films that are just silly pointless fun and want something light for a movie night this one would be perfect but if you are looking for a gruesome Sci-Fi flick you would do better tracking down something like Deadly Spawn, Bad Taste or The Abomination which ave similar themes but are much more gruesome and dark. This is just a film that seems to nod at films like Plan 9 and other Ed Wood style films.
Gore:5 ( Definitely not a film that sets out to turn stomachs, but does have a few funny ore effects just to keep the viewer guessing)
Nudity:1 ( Just one pair of breasts in this one, so if thats what you are looking for you will be let down)
Story:5 ( Nothing serious here at all just lighthearted fun)
Characters:5 ( Everyone ham's it up for this one and knew exactly what kind of film they were making here)
Overall: 5 out of 10

                                                            This pretty much sums it up