This came to us from our Spanish friends in 1983, with the original title "Los Nuevos extraterrestres". The title basically translates to "The New Extra-Terrestrials" - the brains behind this movie were trying to cash in on the E.T. craze.
A meteor crashes in a forest which is perpetually covered by a blanket of thick fog. This particular meteor contains alien eggs. Little Tommy, an impish red-headed child too curious for his own good, finds an egg and takes it home. There it hatches, revealing to us all a loveable, huggable, furry alien which looks pretty much like ALF with a longer snout. Tommy promptly names the alien Trumpy for no good reason. Trumpy can do magic things! He causes things to fly around Tommy's room. It's really quite miraculous.
OK, the "small child finds a sensitive alien creature" plot had been done before (and done much better, I should add) in a little movie called E.T., so Pod People obviously needed more subplots. Let's add a group of "hip" youngsters in a talentless band who are camping near Tommy's house. Not incongruous enough? There are also some poachers wandering through the very same forest looking for wildlife to slaughter.
The scene is now set... for bloodshed.
What started out as a badly-dubbed kiddie romp goes horribly wrong, as another Trumpy (an evil Trumpy) hatches from one of the eggs still at the meteor site and goes on a killing spree. The rock group ends up at little Tommy's house after one of the girls with them falls down and has an encounter with Bad Trumpy. Bad Trumpy apparently can kill people just by touching them; after he touches the girl, she dies. Bad Trumpy follows this up by killing both the poachers, and then he kills some more of the band members. There's a tense moment when Good Trumpy and Bad Trumpy meet up in the woods, and Bad Trumpy is shot by someone. Then Tommy leaves Good Trumpy in the woods. The End...? They leave a door open for a sequel, but thankfully, we've been spared.
The worst movies make the best Mystery Science Theater 3000 episodes, and this one is no exception. Joel and the Bots do wonders. One might even say that they do magic things. This episode is filled with musical moments, including "Idiot Control Now" (an homage to the unintelligible song that the rock group is recording), Music from Some Guys in Space, and "Clown In The Sky".