THE EYE CREATURES [1965]

 "NOBODY BUT THIS SPECIAL UNIT AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES KNOW WHAT REALLY HAPPENED HERE TONIGHT!" 

OK, so Larry Buchanan (our jolly director) obviously saw INVASION OF THE SAUCER MEN because this plays like a much worse version of that.  A military department that checks out UFO activity takes some outer space footage of a tacky flying saucer (that even Ed Wood would've sent back for a refund) loitering around their space station and then heads towards earth. 

They dispatch one of their lieutenant's (Lt. Robertson) to the scene and he promptly lounges around not doing much of anything.  But first, he reports to a general who is wearing leopard-print jammies!  The flying saucer lands in the woods nearby a local teen "makeout point" and the military spends a great deal of time eavesdropping on the smooching.  Stan and Susan are there too and when they drive off they managed to hit one of the lumpy, bumpy alien creatures.  Meanwhile, some of the aliens kill Carl Fenton, a guy who saw the UFO land and came to check it out, and apparently tries to frame Stan by banging on his car fender and leaving Carl's dead body in front of the car.  The police hold Stan for vehicular manslaughter after they find Carl's body under Stan's bumper.  They certainly don't believe any story about hitting a space monster.  Of course, the VERY SAME POLICE are at that very moment surrounding the UFO and attempting to acetyline torch their way into it . . . causing a big boom!  Maybe I'M crazy but it seems to me that if some of your local police force (along with the military) is currently surrounding an obvious flying saucer, maybe the police back at the station MIGHT be a little more likely to believe that Stan hit an alien creature.  Nah.  A later scene DOES show a cop arriving on the scene after the boom and our intrepid Lt. Robertson tells him that one of their jets crashed to put him off the scent -- but I SWEAR I saw police uniforms in the crown around the UFO in that earlier scene.  Maybe I didn't . . . but it's certainly not worth watching it AGAIN to find out!!!

Amongst the unknown Larry Buchanan "stock company" we find really the only famous face playing Stan:  John Ashley who, after making a string of Frankie & Annette "beach party" movies appeared in this Larry Buchanan special a couple years before he would head for the Philippines to star in Eddie Romero's "Blood Island" movies as well as others like BEAST OF THE YELLOW NIGHT, TWILIGHT PEOPLE, BEYOND ATLANTIS, BLACK MAMBA and SAVAGE SISTERS.  Here he gamely gives it his all but hey, you're in a Larry Buchanan movie, John, you can't save it no matter WHAT you do!  Truly dull and pretty terrible, the best part of watching THE EYE CREATURES was that I watched it on the new CREATURE FEATURES and this episode saw host Vincent Van Dahl interviewing the great and glittering Jackie Kong:  director of those classics NIGHT PATROL and BLOOD DINER!  Worth sitting through Larry Buchanan's movie for, definitely!  I'll have to admit, though, that I have a strange affection for those goofy, lumpy monsters.