LOBSTER MAN FROM MARS (1989) ¢ ¢ ¢
D: Stanley Sheff
Deborah Foreman, Anthony Hickox, S.D. Nemeth,
Tony Curtis, Dean Jacobsen, Patrick MacNee,
Tommy Sledge, Billy Barty, Bobby Pickett,
Fred Holliday, Ava Fabian, Erica Evans
In the framing device for this film-within-a-film, Tony Curtis plays a movie producer who owes the IRS more money than he can ever pay back, unless he can come up with a sure-fire flop. (Yeah, like "The Producers".) In the nick of time, a kid named Stevie Horowitz shows up with a film canister containing his masterpiece, a loony sci-fi thriller called - you guessed it - "Lobster Man From Mars", and the producer and the filmmaker head off to the screening room to watch the kid's film, which is no more silly than most of the low-budget space-monster pictures it's sending up, and a lot more entertaining. Highlight: standup comic Tommy Sledge in his persona as detective Tommy Sledge, who has nothing to do with the story, but materializes now and then to deliver wacky, hard-boiled commentary. Keep an eye out for the references to "Alien", "Jaws", "Patton", the Three Stooges, Rod Serling and "Little Caesar". A guilty pleasure.
