Friday, November 9, 2018

PSYCHO BETTYS FROM PLANET PUSSYCAT (2011) **


Psycho Bettys from Planet Pussycat is a lot like The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  By that, I mean it’s a musical that usurps old Sci-Fi movie tropes and turns them on their ear to make a statement about changing contemporary mores.  That’s the only reason they’re similar.  I can’t imagine anyone dressing up like the characters from this flick at midnight and singing along with the songs.  

Four alien women named Betty live on a planet with no men.  They are sent to Earth by their queen to find breeding stock and land in Albuquerque in a spaceship disguised as a Honda Fit.  The leader, Betty Hou (Katy Houska) goes around picking up men in bars and luring them into an alley where she cuts off their gonads.  (She keeps them preserved in the freezer for the return trip home.)  Meanwhile, the other Bettys wind up falling in love with a trio of nerdy losers.  Complications arise when the Bettys become pregnant.

As far as the songs go, I’ve heard worse.  They’re mostly bland and unmemorable but I did like the song Betty Hou sings in a toilet stall while recovering from a hangover.  The filmmakers must’ve known the songs weren’t anything special because there’s a running joke where the characters try to stop each other from singing.

Even though the songs aren’t great, they help to set Psycho Bettys from Planet Pussycat apart from countless other no budget, shot-on-video-in-someone’s-mom’s-house movies.  Like most of these things, the CGI is crappy, and the “futuristic” sets are terrible. There are scenes that look like they were filmed in a storage unit, and one set is literally nothing more than a wall covered with aluminum foil.   

If there is a silver (aluminum foil?) lining, it’s that Psycho Bettys from Planet Pussycat is just different enough to stand out from the rest of the homemade DIY movies that are out there.  That’s not exactly a recommendation.  However, if you like musicals and cheap no-budget sci-fi flicks, you might enjoy it.

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