Bad Channels (1992)

One of the more ludicrous items from Charles Band’s output from the early 1990s, BAD CHANNELS tells the story of a black leather-suited alien with a head like a giant squashed blackberry (or a gangrenous scrotum, depending on the way you view things) that comes to earth with Mr Spoons from BUTTON MOON, or at least a robot that looks very much like him. However, while he waves his arms about in as poorly animated a manner as his children’s TV counterpart, the Mr Spoons of BAD CHANNELS has a voice that sounds like a balloon being slowly deflated through a cat’s rear end. 

The two of them have come to earth to kidnap women, shrink them down, and place them in glass bottles for No Discernible Reason. This is achieved by taking over a radio station and broadcasting something that causes the young ladies in question to imagine they are in the crappiest early 1990s rock videos imaginable. And yes, we get to witness a different, bizarre, music performance from some of contemporary music’s least promising young hopefuls each time. The girls dance along to the dreadful music, and are then whisked away in a sparkle of poor special effects to take their place inside what look like empty shampoo bottles and probably are.

Will the alien and Mr Spoons be defeated in less than eighty minutes? This is a Full Moon Production so of course they will. To find out how it’s done you’ll have to watch the film. Mind you, if I tell you it involves spray-on oven cleaner, that will either cement the desire I’ve already kindled for you to watch this, or confirm forever that this is one you should stay well away from. 

88 Films’ presentation of BAD CHANNELS isn’t bad at all, with a clean-looking print in 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Extras include a Videozone making-of featurette and the usual entertaining 88 trailer park. If you can’t resist this one then you’ll no doubt be delighted to learn that if you hang around after the end credits you get an extra bonus in the form of Tim Thomerson as DOLLMAN, who appears to have been shoved onto the end of this for no other reason than to plug the next DOLLMAN movie. And why not?

Cheerfully stupid, with some terrible acting, ludicrous makeup (by the appropriately named Criswell Productions) and a music score credited to Blue Oyster Cult, BAD CHANNELS is a likeable, daft, ridiculous romp of the ‘What were they thinking?’ school of low budget film-making. You have been warned.

88 Films are releasing BAD CHANNELS on DVD on 17th March 2014