Flesh Eaters from Outer Space (1989) (USA)

aka A Taste for Flesh and Blood 

⭐️⭐️1/2

A flesh eating (obviously) alien frees itself from a military prison and faces some seriously tough luck by ending up in New Jersey. Sure, there’s plenty of dumbasses to feast upon but there’s also some northeastern non-actors ready to get drunk and fuck. Big vision and no money brings the outer space footage to life in a gloriously mundane fashion and exposition gets delivered via someone’s grandpa in a lab coat talking into a phone. It says something to the budget that even they could not afford John Carradine to do what he does best. The big-eyed monster suit looks like something John Agar would have gone up against in the sixties and yes, that is praise. Cheap splatter is in abundance as the monster rambles around and eats anyone unfortunate enough to cross its path… after ripping out their guts and lopping off their limbs, of course. A blonde psychic has visions of the murders and wakes up gasping in her bed. An astronaut is decked out with special weapons and sent after the creature but it’s off the books. He and reluctant psychic Sandra are going to need to work together to stop the terror but there’s gonna be a shit-ton of boredom and jabbering before that can happen. Imagine a 50’s monster flick with seizure-inducing quick cuts of messy splatter, poorly conceived and delivered melodrama and way more New Jersey than anyone should ever be forced to experience. If you can manage to sink yourself into the dull Jersey skin of the large-haired and largely unappealing parade of tragic humanity, you will manage to get some sick thrills from the non-thrilling endeavor. Like people-watching with that friend who is just as sardonic as you, ya just gotta be comfortable with how much free time you’re wasting. There’s some shocking full frontal nudity (not that it’s explicit just that there’s no way anybody behind this should have been able to convince any female to get naked), some low quality music acts, a lull in monster action that feels like it goes on for at least three years, a homosexual serial killer that shows up out of nowhere (who gets mistaken for John Belushi) and vanishes back there, questionable hair, queasy mustaches, pasty white asses, a completely bleak last act and a drunk dude getting his penis ripped off. I don’t think John Agar or Carradine ever had to deal with such things.