| There’s been a little bit of confusion regarding the offbeat motion pictures The Unearthing (1994) and The Unearthling (1983). The titles are annoyingly similar – in fact, given the shape of the lowercase letter "l" that is the sole difference, it could be said both literally and figuratively that only a fine line separates them. Nevertheless, titles are their only similarity.
Let’s begin with The Unearthing, as in "to dig up" – in this case referring to buried evidence discovered in a backyard. This rarely seen but interesting 1994 horror film is about a Filipino vampire called an Aswang that feeds on the blood of unborn children.
There’s a folk tale from the Philippines about a man who returned home one day to see a giant tongue snaking in through the window and ending up between the legs of his pregnant wife. He chopped the tongue in half and heard a loud scream, followed by the sound of a body falling off the roof. Running outside, he found the body of his own mother. She was an Aswang.
This grim tale is retold with shadow puppets during the opening credits of the movie, which is itself inspired by Filipino lore. The setting is modern, though – an unwed pregnant teenager agrees to pose as a young man’s wife so that he can claim an inheritance. As she spends time with her "husband’s" weird family, we begin to suspect that the inheritance scam is just a ruse, and that the family has predatory designs on the girl’s unborn child. The discovery of some tiny skeletons, unearthed in the garden, bears this suspicion out.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen this flick, but certain images remain potent. There are the aforementioned shadow puppets, the woman-hanging-from-the-roof-by-her-incredibly-long-tongue scene, and the strangely beautiful image of a light bulb popping as a chainsaw brushes against it. Fans of this movie will be glad to hear that it’s been released on DVD under its alternate title, Aswang.
Now let’s move on to the next movie, entitled The Unearthling, as in "not an earthling." This hilariously bad E.T. ripoff was hauled out of well-deserved obscurity by Mystery Science Theater 3000, which presented it under the title Pod People, one of the funniest MST3K episodes ever. In its unaltered form, The Unearthling is a startlingly inept tale of a boy and his alien. The alien, named "Trumpy," is a furry four-foot-three humanoid with a long snout. Some viewers have pointed out Trumpy’s resemblance to Alf, although I think he looks more like a cross between an ewok, an elephant and Zippy the pinhead. Tommy, the film’s annoying protagonist, raises Trumpy from an egg, and squeals "Trumpy! You can do magic things!" when Trumpy uses his otherworldly powers to make Tommy’s belongings dance around the room. Meanwhile, another alien, just like Trumpy only without the dubious benefit of being raised by a dorky kid, is going around killing people! It’s this shift in tone from family-friendly fantasy to horror that makes The Unearthling so weird. Imagine E.T. with a body count, or Aliens with a cute kid protecting his pet face-hugger from the marines while shouting "You can’t hurt Spiney! He’s my friend!"
Alternate titles for this fiasco include Extra Terrestrial Visitors, Tales of Trumpy and even The Return of E.T. I remember seeing it on video shelves as The Unearthling, but these days, the only way you’ll probably ever see it is as Pod People on MST. That’s OK, considering what a dud the movie is, and how brilliantly Joel and the ’bots skewer it on their show. When the mysterious cave glows way too red, Crow shouts, "I’ve gone blind! I’m looking at the back of my retinas!" Or when a truck starts out deep in the snow, but winds up at a log cabin surrounded by greenery, it prompts the comments, "Thank God we’re here! It feels like we’ve been driving for months!" and "Why don’t you go inside? You drove two seasons to get here!" When Trumpy sucks up peanuts with his snout, we hear "I’ll get the attachments – you can do the couch!" Best of all is an incomprehensible pop song that Joel and the ’bots re-create verbatim during one of the host segments. That is, they do the closest approximation they can, given the unclear lyrics. "Idiot control, Peas on pie; Burnin’ rubber tires!" or something like that, followed by a cheery "OK" hand gesture, contradicted by immediately snarling "It stinks!" |
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