Review: ELVIS FROM OUTER SPACE Is A Hunka Hunka Burning Junk
Elvis From Outer Space is one tiny (and long played-out) joke stretched to fill a slow and suffering 90 minutes of so-called cinema. The title pretty much sums up what this low budget sci-fi comedy is about and your tolerance for it will depend on your demeanour, your humour and your patience.
Elvis (George Thomas) faked his death in 1977 and took off into space with aliens to spend the next 40 years in the Alpha Centauri system. He decides to return to earth using the alias John Burrows in an attempt to meet his secret lovechild (Dianna Renee). With the CIA on his tail, Elvis hits Las Vegas and enters an Elvis Impersonator contest, as his newly constructed body begins to disintegrate due to the Earth’s atmosphere. If that brief plot rundown makes it sound good, then I apologise in advance.
When watching Elvis From Outer Space, you’ll be left to ponder who writing-directing duo Marv Z Silverman and Tracy Wuischpard have in mind as its audience. This bargain basement ‘comedy’ feels like a 15 minute short film stretched to breaking point and apart from the occasional gag and cameo from some of The King’s old crew (like Sonny West), there’s very little for fans to enjoy. The film’s budget is so tight that it doesn’t have any Elvis tunes, instead the it is loaded with ridiculous sound-alike songs which are as forgetful as they are bad.
Ridiculously cheap special effects and an over-reliance in a voice-over and faux television clips, Elvis From Outer Space is a hodgepodge of ideas thrown together without any apparent thought. The digital revolution gave us a lot of talented filmmakers, but it has also thrust on us many movies which should never have been made. This is one such film.
Throughout his career as an actor, Elvis Presley was involved in quite a few cinematic atrocities – none of them come anywhere near the debacle which is Elvis From Outer Space. It’s a hunka a hunka burning junk.
