Synopsis
A kid plays the old novelty song "Purple People Eater" and the creature actually appears. The two then proceed to help an elderly couple who are being evicted by their greedy landlord.
Purple People Eater
1988 Directed by Linda Shayne
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Alternative Title
Der kleine lila Menschenfresser
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So wait, it doesn't actually eat people? I waited 90 minutes for it to eat someone and the only thing it chowed down on was my dang brain cells! This one's pretty rough. But also kinda mesmerizing? Like some bizarre childhood fever dream. Something that was in my memory from a distant time yet still unfamiliar?
And man the Purple People Eater is so soft. The guy can't even handle chili peppers, ruins a perfectly good pizza night, dances like a jerk and talks like a moron. But somehow he captivated my mind and caused me to almost break out in laughter? Is my brain broken? Does this movie emit LSD through the screen and into our minds? Don't know if I loved this or hated it...
Shoulda called it the Purple Psyche Puncher because I'm shook.
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Things this movie had:
-Academy Award winner Shelley Winters
-Academy Award nominee Ned Beatty
-(a very young) Emmy and Tony winner Neal Patrick Harris
-(an even younger) BAFTA and Emmy nominee Thora Birch in her first film role
-Golden Globe winner Peggy Lipton
-inaugural Rock n Roll Hall of Famer Little Richard
-performer of Billboard’s most popular single, Chubby Checker
-a one-eyed, one-horned, flying purple people-eater
-an almost religious adherence to the text of the novelty song featuring said people-eaterDespite all that, I found it less fun than I’d hoped, even as a bad movie, but it was certainly a hell of a thing to see.
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there’s literally so much to unpack here i have no idea what to say this was a wild ride from start to finish
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Purple People Eater never lives up to its name with an explicitly macabre twist, and not even a singin' pre-Doogie Howser NPH can excuse that egregious misadvertisement.
Oddly enough, this director appears to hold the same vendetta against landlords that Death Promise does.
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Very, very, very cute without ever being cloying! I imagine this to be pretty perfect for like really young kids who would be able to buy Purple as a character that can exist and not just a person in a giant purple costume. Even if you question the existence of Purple (and how could you even possibly?!?!?) it's still super cute tale of a young boy teaching this alien who crash lands outside his apt complex late one night all about 50s and 60s rock and roll (or is the alien teaching the boy?!?) And Neil Patrick Harris plays the boy! And Ned Beatty plays the grandpa--the grandpa who completely and totally takes the fact that his grandson has been…
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This is barely a real movie, but it's so charmingly inoffensive that it's easy to enjoy. At times this is quite particularly a silly kid's movie with cartoonish villain, charity concert to save some community landmark, silly musical montages, a wacky old guy (played here by Ned Beatty), and a magical character who barely does anything. But that's kind of okay, because this transcends that a little bit via a few oddball moments, a quick-moving plot, and a tone that's cutesy without being annoying. I'm also surprised how much I remembered of this. I taped it off tv and the first hour or so got ruined, but I used to rewatch the climax with Little Richard a lot for some reason? I don't know, there's something disarmingly entertaining about this silly kid's movie even though it's objectively not very good.
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A space alien who resembles Cyclops Munch from the Chuck E. Cheese gang lands in grandpa Ned Beatty’s tree. He has a unicorn horn that rips keyboard sax and starts an all-kid band with grandson and pre-Doogie Howser Neil Patrick Harris and his crush Thora Birch. They play malls and weddings with the likes of Little Richard and Chubby Checker to save up and overthrow a greedy landlord trying to put grandpa on the street.
The song is about a Purple People EATER, though. I was expecting at least one person to get eaten. But, no. There’s a very Bill and Ted style scene where Purple devours a table brimming with fast food? He talks in the same helium voice from the song. There were a few “woah” moments but for the most part, it was a chore to finish.
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Things I really liked:
-Everyone in the movie assumes the purple, furry monster who makes music out of its horn is just a kid who never takes off his fursuit. Or they just don't seem to question it at all. Neil Patrick Harris hides the monster the first night, but then Purple (the clever name given to him?/it?) escapes to the mall, and NPH realizes nobody actually gives a fuck what this creature is.
-I'm pretty sure NPH and PPE steal a piano.
-The version I watched was terrible quality, but based on the shocking amount of publicity stills on IMDb, the monster costume looked pretty good! Designed by the Chiodo Brothers!
-It has a pretty admirable message about not… -
At one point a golden retriever goes down a waterside and that's the perfect encapsulation of the joy this delightful E.T. ripoff contains. Also has some incredible band scenes with little NPH and Thora Birch.
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Linda Shaynes direction is actually wonderfully consistent and feels sufficiently sugar fueled, keeping every character and scenario in the realm of cartoon absurdity and bouncy castle level ridiculousness. Enter! A new wave punk cartoon world where magic happens at every shopping center and fucking Little Richard is the mayor of the town. Grandma, I know there are a lot of these foreign beasts befriending young boy movies, but this is the one you should buy for Johnny! The plot centers around children forming a band with an alien whos unicorn horn emits captured radio signals, in the name of saving the oldsters in what seems like an old person commune from the evil kicking outs of the devilish landlord! Not…
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I assume that almost everyone out there knows of the 1958 song "The Purple People Eater" (if you haven't, let's face it you're not missing out on much), a novelty tune about an alien that eats purple people that wants to be in a rock and roll band and plays a mean saxophone through his one horn. It's a slightly fun, harmless song penned and sung by western star Sheb Wooley that really has not much right to have been #1 on Billboard for a month and a half, but zeitgeists tend to mitigate the success of popular songs and they can either fade completely away or exist as a rare part of a limited pool of music for specially…
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I missed the first half hour but I've been assured I saw all the important bits aside from Purple flying, which I think I would have enjoyed. There's something weirdly endearing about kids' movies that unabashedly tackle grown-up topics, maybe because I had no sense as a kid of what themes I was supposed to care about or be interested in, which is probably why my brother and I would get absorbed in Dear John or Designing Women or Empty Nest. Anyway this was very charming and good-natured and weird, which made it the perfect thing to watch after a long day of traveling.