Consider this science fiction movie history 101, not quite in the serious vein as "Watch the Skies!", the more professional and non-sarcastic documentary aired on TCM about 10 years ago. Then consider the fact that the narrators of this are all veterans of the original company of "Saturday Night Live" with "STV's" John Candy thrown in for good measure. In order to understand the cult following of such deliciously bad science fiction movies as "It Conquered the World" and "Plan Nine From Outer Space", you also need to be able to compare it to "The Day the Earth Stood Still" and "War of the Worlds". Great time and artistic effort was put into creating those masterpieces which stand the test of time, while the others stand the test of time because they are so delightfully silly you can't help but turn them into comedy classics that just happen to involve outer space creatures.Then, there's killer trees, wobbling rocks that manage to crush their victims even though they stroll around on turtle time while human beings can certainly outrun them (if they would only stop wasting their time trying to shoot them!), white furred apes, creatures from the sea that look like they are trying to break the Coney Island record for eating hot dogs and various other inhuman beings that can't remotely compare with the artistic talents which went into making "The Creature From the Black Lagoon". Giant turkeys, leeches, lizards, insects and even vegetables pounced up on our drive-in movie theater screens, making the giant ants of "Them!" and tarantulas seem like classics, much like the original "Dracula" and "Frankenstein" were 25-30 years before most of these movies were made.The funny thing about these bad movies is the fact that once you get past the idiotic subplots, you really find yourself enjoying them. They are extremely clever in their own inept way, maybe unintentionally, but some filmmakers must have known that their subject matter and monsters were ripe for ridicule. Some of these films make Ed Wood's notoriously bad turkeys step up a notch. I guess you could say that there's an art to making bad movies. Some of the narration here truly is bad, but it will be the film clips that you'll want to experience here, not the dumb quips from the original not ready for prime time players.Two specialty segments cover "teens gone wild" and the bad musicals of the golden age of Hollywood. Certainly, the teens gone wild segment is truly funny, totally reminding me of the Lois Bromfield spoof, "Sorority Girls From Hell", but it is the musical sequence narrated by Gilda Radner which struck my interest. Main-stream movies such as "Sunny Side Up" and "Wonder Bar" get included with two truly campy production numbers. The "Sunny Side Up" number, "Turn on the heat!", shows dancing girls making bananas grow on the vine just by wiggling their chests at them, while "Goin' to Heaven on a Mule" strikes controversy today with its depiction of blacks in a small section of heaven (the white section is three times as large) eating pork chops right off the tree, plucking chickens and frying them, and most tastelessly, a giant watermelon which opens and has a tap-dancing Hal LeRoy in black face popping out. Other musical segments aren't really from musicals; One of them is actually from an MGM Technicolor short from the mid 1930's, and the rest are silly brief song interludes from some of the worst Z grade adventures ever filmed. So the film is a mixed bag of clips, but there is something here for everybody to enjoy and it might inspire future filmmakers to go out and research these films to try new ideas of their own.

As advertised, this is truly a documentary with scenes from early, and poor budgeted, 'B' movies dealing mainly with cheap horror films from the 50's. I would not say that this film is outstanding but it was humorous to see the sets and costumes worn in the golden era of 'B' type films with the narrative performed by comedy actors from the early 80's.I really do not understand how people can say that it was a 'Gem' since the entire film consist mainly of footage from non-classic films with added commentary by the hosts. It was a nice look back at early low-budget films but not much else in the form of entertainment.The best thing is that nearly all the cheap, low-budget, corny 'B' type movie scenes are now in one place. Other than that not much to see here.But again it is a documentary and as documentaries go-- it was interesting.

This film still has me rolling whenever I see it. This film not only makes fun of the grade Z stinkers, but in it's on weird way, pays tribute to these films at the same time. The only problem I have with it is the fact that it includes two classic sci-fi films, "The Incredible Shrinking Man" and "War of the Worlds". Other than that this is one funny film, especially Cheech and Chong's look at the anti-drug films like "Reefer Madness" and "High School Confidential".

One of the reasons I liked this film so much was because it actually featured Guilala. Dan Aykroyd and John Candy make comments about the best and worst Sci-Fi movies like Plan 9 from Outer Space and other films by Ed Wood. It also features Attack of the Mushroom People and X from Outer Space. I loved it. Recommended to everybody.