"The Do-It-Yourself 100 picks up things from EVERYWHERE!"
TerrorVision is a 1986 Sci-Fi Comedy Horror movie produced by Charles Band, directed and co-written by Ted Nicolaou, and starring Chad Allen, Diane Franklin, Mary Woronov, Gerrit Graham, Bert Remsen, Jon Gries and Alejandro Rey.
An alien civilization has decided to send its garbage into space as energy so it doesn't clog up their planet. On Earth, a family have just set up a fancy satellite dish. These two events clash when the trash energy is given material form through their telly, and naturally turns out to include a monster which begins gobbling up anybody it can get a hold of.
This film contains examples of:
- The Assimilator: The Hungry Beast can mimic the speech patterns of people he eats, and with proper concealment, can make them look perfectly alive by recreating their heads on its tongue.
- Big Bad: The Hungry Beast.
- Big Eater: The Hungry Beast gets its name from the fact that the slightest push could send it into an unstoppable eating binge.
- Crazy Survivalist: The grandpa of the family is a gun nut who has a massive panic room with an arsenal and is convinced that lizard tail turkey is the way of the future.
- Crying Wolf: Not all TV horror hosts are Peter Vincent. When Medusa is initially contacted by Sherman about the alien she thinks it's a prank call and pranks Sherman in return, and when she still arrives to the house in the final act, her panicky reactions at seeing actual aliens are the direct cause of the film's Downer Ending.
- Downer Ending: The Hungry Beast consumes everybody in the main cast, including the Kid Hero, and makes its way to a movie studio to continue feeding.
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: The Hungry Beast may be a ravenous monster, but it will stop rampaging if it sees somebody wearing a glove that resembles the one worn by whoever handled it as a baby.
- The Hero Dies: Sherman is devoured by the Hungry Beast.
- Hope Spot: Pluthar, the alien that has appeared in warning transmissions throughout the film, finally appears in the third act and has a solution to kill the Hungry Beast for good and regenerate Sherman's assimilated family... and then Medusa (who now finally arrived to the house), thinking he's an evil alien, gives him a "Hey, You!" Haymaker that kills him. She also shakes Sherman when he finally figures out how to use Pluthar's gun, making him miss its one shot.
- Horror Host: A parody of one who dresses as Medusa the Gorgon shows up on TV. She becomes a Chekhov's Gunman of the worst sort.
- My Little Panzer: Turns out that the Hungry Beast is considered a pet among Pluthar's species. Downplayed in that the Hungry Beast's species can mutate and become dangerous, and this whole mess happened because of the aliens' method to destroy the beast.
- Portmantitle: "Terror"+"Television"
- Shout-Out:
- Robot Monster and The Giant Claw show up as part of Medusa's program.
- A metalhead character is seen wearing a W.A.S.P. shirt.
- Title Theme Tune: "Terrorvision!"
- Villain Opening Scene: The trash creature being blasted into space.
- Your Head Asplode: The alien sent to stop the Hungry Beast is killed when his helmet cracks and the sudden change in air pressure makes his head burst.
