History Film / PodPeople

* HongKongDub: The English dub was recorded by two actors and two actresses at most.

* ArcSymbol: The Big Dipper. [[RuleOfScary For some reason]], it appears on the forehead of anyone Trumpy's mother kills.

* TheBrainlessBeauty: Laura is referred to as [[TheDitz an idiot]] (in-universe, even), and certainly seems to have trouble reading a room. Like when she tries to brag to Sharon about making out with Sharon's boyfriend.

* DeadpanSnarker: One of the back-up singers (Tracy, the redhead with the shortish hair) constantly makes sarcastic jokes, occasionally at her own expense.

* SouthernBelle: In the English dub, Laura Stapleton is given a dippy Southern drawl, and she's emphasized as being sweet (at least to men), but naïve.

** One of the poachers finds a bunch of eggs at the beginning and decides to smash them all [[ForTheEvulz just for fun.]] Shortly after, Trumpy's mother [[MamaBear shows up and kills him.]]

* StupidEvil: One of the poachers finds some weird eggs which, for all he knows, could be really valuable. Rather than take them to sell on the black market or anything he instead decides to smash them all just to be a dick.

** So, you're poacher number one and you come across a glowing cave full of eggs. What do you do? If you said "smash them all with a stick for literally ''no reason whatsoever'' and then become the first victim of the monster's revenge" then you win!

** Later on, Trumpy's mom comes across the two remaining poachers at their campfire. They lure her closer with some food, and she actually seems ready to accept that they're not responsible for the egg-smashing and move along... until they decide she'd be worth a lot of money and try (and fail) to catch her in a net). This after number 3 (the older guy who looks kind of like Creator/LeslieNielsen) was close to seeming like the OnlySaneMan of the group!

-->'''Matt Collins''': Now we can shoot us some game in peace and quiet.

* GratuitousEnglish: The song "The Engines Roar" in the original Spanish version.

* SouthernBelle: In the English dub, Laura Stapleton is given a dippy Southern drawl, and she's emphasized as being sweet-but-naïve.

* LovecraftCountry: Downplayed. It's (mostly) a ScifiHorror movie set in a region of eerie forest and hills surrounded by OminousFog and intermittent snow, but the only way you'd know it's specifically supposed to be set in New England are the Massachusetts plates on all the vehicles, which are easily missable in most prints of the film, and Tommy having [[UsefulNotes/MajorLeagueBaseball Boston Red Sox]] and [[UsefulNotes/NationalHockeyLeague Boston Bruins]] pennants on his bedroom wall.

* LovecraftCountry: Downplayed. It's (mostly) a ScifiHorror movie set in a region of eerie forest and hills surrounded by OminousFog and intermittent snow, but the only way you'd know it's specifically supposed to be set in New England are the Massachusetts plates on all the vehicles, which are easily missable in most prints of the film.

* FakeBand: The main characters are a part of one. We're introduced to them at the studio, performing "Burning Rubber Tires".

* GratuitousEnglish: The song ''Burning Rubber Tires'' in the original Spanish version.

* KavorkaMan: Rick is not a bad-looking guy by any stretch, but he's a terrible boyfriend to Sharon. It's a great mystery why she's so determined to keep him.

A little boy named Tommy (who has an extensive array of pets he likes to call "specimens") finds an alien egg to hatch. When it hatches, Tommy names the creature--who manages to use his snout to suck up peanuts and warp time and space with his fingers--Trumpy. Unfortunately, Trumpy's mom is found by poachers (who destroy all of her pod-like eggs) and goes on [[RoaringRampageOfRevenge a killing spree in response]]. To add to the terror, a group of unappealing young people takes a break from recording [[FakeBand nightmarish "pop" music]] to travel by RV up to the scene of the alien foothold. When one of their members is killed by the alien, they are drawn into the hunt for the culprit.

* MoodWhiplash: The movie can't decide if it's trying to be a cutesy ''E.T.''-like movie or a monster movie, [[TakeAThirdOption so it settles on being both.]][[note]]It was apparently supposed to be a straight horror movie until ''Film/ETTheExtraterrestrial'' came out and raked in boatloads of cash, at which point the producers demanded that the script be rewritten to make it more like that movie.[[/note]]

The film is as much of a mess behind the scenes as it is on-screen. ''Los Nuevos Extraterrestres'' (''The New Extraterrestrials'') began its life as a low-budget horror film. Then, after the initial script had been written, [[http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0086026/trivia the producers demanded the addition of the subplot about the little kid adopting the alien]], in a blatant attempt to [[FollowTheLeader cash in on the success]] of ''Film/ETTheExtraTerrestrial''. It was filmed in Spanish and French. For the US release it was (badly) dubbed into English and retitled ''The Unearthling''. Then, when the copyright expired, the distributor Film Ventures International purchased the film, slapped the credits from a ''completely different film'' onto the beginning and end, and changed the name to ''[[http://www.mst3kinfo.com/mstfaq/subtle.html Pod People]]''.

* EagleLand: The set dressers occasionally feel the need to remind us that the movie we're watching is set in America. Therefore, the bar in Tommy's house has a picture of George Washington on the wall and an American flag on the bar, and the park ranger cabin has a giant framed portrait of Ronald Reagan surrounded by cutouts from nudie mags.
* ExpoSpeakGag: Tommy has acquired a bug preserved in glass, which he excitedly shows to his uncle Bill, and, being the amateur naturalist that he is, he refers to it by its scientific genus and species name. Bill angrily insists that "To ''me'', it's a centipede! It's ''always'' been called a centipede!"

* SceneryPorn: The movie was shot in Spain's Sierra de Guadarrama range, but most prints of the movie are too washed-out to really appreciate the landscape. The restored Blu-Ray edition looks a lot nicer, and lets you appreciate the eerie beauty of the [[OminousFog fog-shrouded]] hills.

* ShooTheDog: At the end of the movie, knowing the others will try to kill Trumpy if they see him, Tommy tries to abandon him in the woods and makes a point of shooing him away.

* BrokenBird: Tracy shows lots of elements of having a very low opinion of herself, which she overcompensates for by acting ''very'' flirtatious and boy-crazy (when Tommy mentions bringing food to one of his pets, Tracy hears a male name and wonders if there's another man in the house).

* CuteKitten: Among Tommy's many pets is a truly adorable black-and-white kitten, who actually attacks Trumpy's snout at one point.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Trumpy and Tommy are both safe, but Trumpy's mom has been killed and Tommy had to pull the BreakHisHeartToSaveHim on Trumpy, and that's most likely the last thing the poor alien ever heard from him.
The final shot shows the poor alien, alone and friendless in the foggy woods, with nowhere to go and no way back to his home planet]].

* TheEighties: Complete with a picture of UsefulNotes/RonaldReagan in one scene. One of the rock girls has a very eighties headband.

* BigEater: Trumpy is fed by Tommy and literally vacuums up a ton of food, sucking up peanuts into his trunk and downing a big glass of milk in seconds.
* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Trumpy and Tommy are both safe, but Trumpy's mom has been killed and Tommy had to pull the BreakHisHeartToSaveHim on Trumpy, and that's most likely the last thing the poor alien ever heard from him]].

* CreepyChild: There's something ''wrong'' about a boy who wants to collect ''specimens''. Doesn't help he's dubbed by a breathy adult female.
* CuteKitten: Which actually attacks Trumpy's snout at one point.

* JerkAss: The poachers, Rick (the leader of the band) and Bill (Tommy's uncle) are all pretty unlikable.

* MixAndMatchCritters: Trumpy and its parent look like some sort of sasquatch or ape, with an aardvark nose.

* NeverTrustATitle: The movie doesn't really contain any pods, much less people who come from pods.

* SceneryPorn: Attempted with the filming locations in Spain's Sierra de Guadarrama range, but either the mountains aren't stunning enough or the filmmakers don't really know how to pull this off. The OminousFog doesn't help either.

* TheSpeechless: Trumpy. Obviously he doesn't know English since he's an alien from outer space that just hatched from an egg a few days ago, but he doesn't seem to be able to make ''any'' sounds at all.

** If you're poacher number two and you see a random teenage girl walking through the woods, then clearly your only reasonable response has to be to grab her and make a joke about wanting to rape her. Even poacher 3 refuses to help him when she runs off, telling him "you better run!" The only reason this doesn't end with him behind bars is that she dies instead after jumping off a cliff to escape him. Of course, he still proves TooDumbToLive when...
** Later on, Trumpy's mom comes across the two remaining poachers at their campfire. They lure her closer with some food, and she actually seems ready to accept that they're not responsible for the egg-smashing and move along... until they attack her, again for ''absolutely no reason whatsoever''. This after number 3 was close to seeming like the OnlySaneMan of the group!

** When Laura falls off the cliff, landing on her back, the other campers find her and carry her around. Obviously they had to get her someplace safer and warmer, but even someone not trained in medicine should have known to keep her spine straight, perhaps even build an improvised stretcher from the many branches all around. These idiots don't even so much as try to carry her steadily, much less anything like that. Also, Tommy's mother seems to think the cure for a crushed spine is a good night's rest.

** Laura might be a mild, [[DisproportionateRetribution "disproportionate karma"]] example; while she does nothing quite deserving of death, and commits no offense against the aliens themselves, she does behave in a petty, mean-spirited manner toward Sharon, whose boyfriend Laura is trying to get into his pants.

* BaitAndSwitchCredits: With ''Film/TheGalaxyInvader'', featuring a monster that looks ''worse'' than the one from here.

* BittersweetEnding: [[spoiler: Trumpy and Tommy are both safe, but Trumpy's mom has been killed and Tommy had to pull the BreakHisHeartToSaveHim on Trumpy, and that's most likely the last thing Trumpy ever heard from Tommy]].

* KillEmAll: This movie manages a very respectable body count. It's even lampshaded in the [[Series/MysteryScienceTheater3000 MST3K]] presentation. By the end of the film, [[spoiler: Rick, Sharon, Tommy, and Tommy's mom are the only humans still standing]].