The Third Floor Photo Society hosted a movie screening of Bloodsuckers From Outer Space on Thursday, Oct. 30, at 7:30 p.m. The screening will be held in the lounge on the third floor of the Journalism Building.
Bloodsuckers From Outer Space is a B-movie that had its premiere at the historic Inwood Theater in 1986. The movie, considered now to be a cult-classic, campy, horror film, has its origins right here in Texas A&M University- Commerce. The cinematographer, Chad Smith, is now working in the art department as an assistant professor of photography.
“My role in the production of the movie was the actual visual part of it, but I was also the assistant director when needed. The titles were to make the movie look more professional, but it was all a collaborative effort,” Smith said.
The movie was written and directed by Glen Coburn, a friend of Smith’s. Smith said that no one actually knows the final budget of the film; however it was well under $100,000. The take ratio, usually very high to get a good take, was 1.5/1.
The plot of the movie involves the story of a young photographer and his companion as they encounter a space-borne evil force that takes over the population of a backwater Texas town. The aliens literally cause the townspeople to puke themselves to death, draining their bodies of blood before re-animating their corpses to do the alien’s evil bidding. The military is of no help, but one General sees it as a perfect time to use a nuclear weapon to blow up the rural area.
Smith met director Coburn during 1983 while still a student at East Texas State University (now A&M-Commerce), and began working on the daily soap opera Ivory Towers, produced out of the Radio-Television department. According to Smith, the actors were the production crew. When they were not acting, they were behind the camera shooting. Smith was their picture guy.
“Glenn was very funny. I admired him. He had a great clever, satirical style about him. We even share the same birthday that for many years we celebrated together,” Smith said.
According to Smith, most of the work on the film was done on the weekends during a six-month period, as the crew and many of the actors were busy with full-time work during the weekdays. All of the scenes, except for a cameo shot, were done on location around the East Texas area. Only the cameo scene was shot on a sound stage.
Smith’s main contribution to the film, that often goes unnoticed until it is pointed out, is that the entire film was shot in still frame. According to Smith, this meant it made the actors’ jobs harder, because they had to figure out how to work within the frame.
Bloodsuckers From Outer Space was meant to be homage to the camp movies of the 1970s.
“The movie was meant to be bad; it’s all about the one-liners. Go rent it, put the kids to bed, turn down the lights and watch the movie. The acting is so bad it will scare you,” Smith said.