Purple People Eater

Purple People Eater (1988)

IMDB: 4.5

A long time ago in a department store far, far away a six year old me was browsing through the display of Halloween titles on video tape the store had set up, and there amongst the Jasons and Freddies was a movie based on a song starring TV's Doogie Howser, I walked out of that store without purchasing this film a mistake that has hung over my life for decades, a mistake that thanks to the glory that is youtube has now been rectified. Dear readers I give to you Purple People Eater starring Ned Beatty, Shelley Winters, Neil Patrick Harris, Dustin Diamonds, Thora Birch and Sheb Wooley.

Billy Winters (Neil Patrick Harris) has been left at home with his older sister whom we never see again and his younger sister Molly (Thora Birch) in the care of their Grandpa (Ned Beatty). Grandpa enlists Billy's help repainting his apartment, planting flowers and laughing...laughing at everything no matter how funny it may or may not be in that bizarre syndrome way that all really bad movies seem to have. While painting in Grandpa's apartment, painting it purple of course, a little bit of paint drops on Billy's head causing him to freak out his Grandpa tells him to calm down it's just paint to which Billy replies "It's not your head." A fair point that Grandpa acknowledges and proceeds to take the paint roller across the top of his own head leaving a purple streak through his hair, a look that Billy declares as punk. This of course leads to another round of giggles. Billy is shocked that Grandpa doesn't have a radio of any kind but he does have a record player with all of Billy's dad's old rock n' roll albums. The two get back to painting and Billy decides to punk himself up as well with a paint streak in his own hair and paint stripes on his shirt to match.

The record player switches to the halloween classic "Purple People Eater" as purple lights appear around Billy and he hears a crash outside. Billy rushes out to see a large purple monstrosity with one eye and one horn hanging upside down in a tree, the monstrosity floats down on small wings and makes "B-B-Billy" his friend, Billy in turn names his alien buddy Purple and puts him in the garage.

Billy and Grandpa go to the mall and are drawn to a laser show at the food court where Purple is blasting 50's era rock n' roll from the horn on his head, this causes Grandpa to encourage Billy to put a band together with Purple and his friends. It is at this point that I should point out that every one thinks Purple is just a kid that likes to wear a fuzzy purple outfit and plays a trumpet through his horn on the top.

Billy and Purple

The plot gets going when we are introduced to Grandpa's neighbor Rita (Shelley Winters) who is having problems paying the ever increasing rent on the apartment and now the owner of the building, Harry Skinner (played by Sheb Wooley the man who wrote and originally recorded the Purple People Eater song), is planning on evicting all of the seniors to make room for condominiums. Purple and Billy along with their friend Big Z (Dustin Diamond) have become the biggest band around after a single concert where they performed with Chubby Checker, and are staging a benefit concert called S.O.S. Save Our Seniors to keep them from being evicted. Desperate to put a stop to it Harry kidnaps (alien naps? abducts?) Purple believing that without the mascot horn player people won't show up to the concert. Purple escapes and leads Harry on a car chase that ends with Harry trapped in a car wash and the police escorting Purple to the concert.

At the benefit concert the whole town has gathered including the Mayor (Little Richard) and the entire city council. Unable to wait for Purple to appear Billy starts the show with a speech about the importance of taking care of our seniors, the Mayor bebops his support for the seniors and declares it illegal for any one to evict seniors from their homes. 

Purple shows up by crashing a car through the back of the stage and tells Billy he is proud of him and that it is time to sing "Purple People Eater" The concert is a roaring success and Purple returns to his home planet as credits roll.

A good movie for the under 10 crowd with plenty of fun music and goofy visuals. A great movie for terrible movie lovers, with a cast of past and future stars. I recommend watching this one, hell watch it here for free.