The schlock is in full display in Toxic Alien Zombie Babes From Outer Space, a movie filmed throughout the Covid lockdowns by people around the world, all coordinated by director Gerardo Chierchia. It’s a gleeful, gamboling bit of cinema that has moments of genuine insight and humor but is hampered by an overlong runtime and a lack of deeper narrative sense on the part of writer David Black.
Like so many flicks of this type, Toxic Alien Zombie Babes From Outer Space follows an over-the-top plot: the invasion of Earth by giant, green, sexually repressed Venusian women. These female aliens kill men by incinerating their libidos with beams of energy. It’s a suitably absurd concept for this style of filmmaking, drawing inspiration from schlock forerunners like Battle Beyond the Stars and Attack of the 50-Foot Woman.
From the very start, the film has a remarkably incisive sensibility. By keeping its eyes trained on the habits of everyday people throughout the lockdown and augmenting them with the fantastic, it is able to cut directly to the truth of society. All the while, it is satirizing the inane actions of both individuals and the government. With this method, the movie also generates a wealth of clever humor, such as the Chinese news lady who is very literally a puppet or the Australian internet influencer who serves as a voice of the people while also selling them hair products, despite being bald.
“…female aliens kill men by incinerating their libidos with beams of energy.”
There is an inherent astuteness in Toxic Alien Zombie Babes From Outer Space ruminations as well. Routinely the silly sci-fi lark makes you realize how surreal some of the occurrences of the last few years were simply by making a joke out of them. In this way, and despite the low-grade aesthetic, it exceeds its humble foundation by offering clarity on the ideals and obsessions of people when they are isolated.
Still, even for a film of this kind, it runs needlessly long. At over two hours, much of the novelty of the plot’s nerve dulls long before the credits. The irreverence of seeing a man “zapped in the balls” so often becomes childish after the sixth or seventh time. Furthermore, there is no greater vision holding the movie together. More so than having a narrative core, the film is a series of comic vignettes, but each is almost exactly the same, just happening worldwide. Halfway through, it becomes clear that the formula won’t change but will instead repeat tirelessly until the finale.
Ultimately, Toxic Alien Zombie Babes From Outer Space is more memorable as a scrapbook than an outright motion picture. Nevertheless, there is something deeply commendable about its existence as a Frankenstein’s monster. So many people in so many disparate locations filmed themselves individually, and those scenes were stitched together to create a movie. I imagine that this achievement alone is a success for the creators. From that vantage point, I can understand that they wanted to edit out as little as possible so as not to destroy the communal tone. However, the film finds a genuine truth in its silly displays of the quotidian. Admittedly, it’s muddled without editing or narrative focus. But, frustratingly, this would’ve been truly noteworthy if it had been more thoughtfully presented.
"…makes you realize how surreal some of the occurrences of the last few years were..."
