“You will take me to a man of surgery to remove the metal pellets from my flesh.”
Teenage aliens from outer space land on Earth looking for a planet to raise Gargons, a lobster-like creature that is a delicacy on their planet. There is a dog barking at the ship when it lands. One of the aliens, Thor (Bryan Grant), shoots the dog with a disintegrating ray. It turns into a skeleton. Another alien, Derek (David Love), finds the dog’s tag.
Derek does not want to use Earth as a planet for the Gargons to graze. He believes that there is intelligent life on Earth that should not be put in peril. The others disagree. They are arrogant and smug in their superiority and don’t care if life on Earth is in danger. They restrain Derek intending to bring him back to the home planet. Derek escapes. He finds the house that belongs to the address on the tag. Derek meets Betty Morgan (Dawn Bender) and her Grandpa Joe (Harvey B. Dunn). They have a room to rent. Somehow, he manages to rent it having no money, no job and no one has ever met him before.
Thor is sent to find Derek and bring him back. Everyone he meets he disintegrates. Skeletons are stacking up all over town. Meantime Derek and Betty are growing fond of each other. When Thor finally catches up with them, he gets wounded by the police. Thor makes Derek and Betty take him to a hospital. Derek finds out that he is the son of the alien’s leader.
Meanwhile the Gargon has grown to tremendous size and is rampaging around the countryside. The Gargon is hungry. The Gargon sounds like a sick elephant. Thor, the snotty alien, kills more people than the Gargon does.
"Teenagers From Outer Space" was released in 1959 and was written and directed by Tom Graeff. This is a movie of many names. Also called “The Gargon Terror”, “Killers from Outer Space”, “Invasion of the Gargon”, “The Boy from Out of This World”, “The Boy from Outer Space” and “The Ray Gun Terror”.
The budget was somewhere between $14,000 and $20,000. Shoestring budget doesn’t even fully explain the corners cut for this movie. The same skeleton was used over and over. They only had one. The alien costumes are flight suits with masking tape on them. Their boots are shoes covered with socks. The ray gun was a Hubley’s “Atomic Disintegrator” toy. The monster was a regular lobster back lit on a rear projection screen.
The movie definitely qualifies as low-budget camp. Credits for the movie for Tom Graeff include producer, screenplay, director, editor, music score, cinematography, special effects and star. He played Joe Rogers, the reporter.
When you consider everything that this movie had going against it, you kinda have to give it some slack. Substitute a better monster and the plot is not bad. Aliens from space that want to use Earth as grazing land for their food source is a new one. Usually, they want to use the Earthlings themselves as a food source. It was a good try anyway.