Why do posters lie?
Terrorvision is a 1986 B-Horror movie parody that probably comes the closest to something I would have watched as a kid. First of all, that poster is great. It's simple, yet effective. Makes you think you are in for a treat. Well... that's not exactly what you get once this thing starts rolling.
The Puttermans are a family of weirdos that live somewhere in California (allegedly, as this movie looks like it takes place in the future or some weird alternate dimension) who just got a fancy new satellite TV system. However, at some point during the night, it locks on to the signal of some space garbage, in this case a monster that is being thrown into the vacuum of space for "safe" disposal. The monster then starts to devour everyone in the Putterman family.
Okay, so let's talk about these weirdos. The mother and father are both into "swinging" and like to talk about it all the time. They have tons of distasteful erotic art plastered all over the walls (this is the only reason I can think that this thing got an R rating) and are way more concerned about banging two strangers they met through the classifieds in the papers than anything else in the world. Grandpa is a survivalist who loves lizard tail jerky and guns. Sherman, the son, takes after gramps and seems perfectly capable of handling fully automatic rifles, of which there are plenty available. Suzy, the daughter, is a punk rocker who is going on a date with her new boyfriend (played by Uncle Rico of Napoleon Dynamite fame) who is dumb as dirt. You might recognize her as the foreign exchange student from Better off Dead. There's also a cheap Elvira knockoff who gets thrown into the mix for good measure.
So this movie is fairly sleazy, it's not well constructed, and it's goofy as hell with not one scare to be found. That being said, I had a hell of a lot more fun watching this than 90% of the movies I've seen so far. The giant puppet they used for the creature was pretty good. There's no blood, but the attacks were all pretty entertaining, watching people hollow out as it sunk it's teeth into them. It also went places that I did not expect at all, including the ending. At one point the kids even befriend the monster, unaware that it's already eaten their parents and grandfather, due to it's ability to mimic the people that it's ingested.
So, and I don't mean this as a recommendation of any sort, this movie was okay. Don't watch it if you can help it, but if someone tries to get you to watch it, remember that you could do much much worse. At the very least you'll have a few laughs.
-Nate