Everything You Ever Need to Know About Aliens According to the Movie "Signs"

In "Signs," Mel incubates a glowing alien foetus in his spleen only to later explode in a torrent of tangy guts. The end!

I suppose that the decent thing to do would be to warn you guys that if you read any further you might in fact not want to see this movie, but I will not warn you because at this point I am of the belief that the fewer people who pay money to watch this heavy-handed disaster the better. To that extent, read on. I am planning on giving away major plot points and revealing the killer's identity (it was Timmy). Oh, and I didn't like this movie very much. You should also be aware of this. Very, very aware.

I do want to tell you right away that despite its rather trite nature, this movie has single-handedly taught me some of the most important and life-changing bits of information that I may ever learn. I mean, this stuff is more important than when my Mom told me, "Pants, then shoes," or when my guidance counselor in high school advised me that I could have a lovely career in welding or plumbing services at the local tech school if I only applied myself. Well, I showed her. I showed them all.

The information contained in this film may one day save the lives of millions of people and other animals such as sloths. I need to reiterate how unbelievably and amazingly important this movie has become in my life and how important it will become in the life of anyone who has ever needed advice on how to deal with aliens or talk to Jesus. My entire approach to extra-terrestrials and perhaps Jesus as well has changed dramatically. And asthma. Also asthma. I was very surprised to hear life-saving advice in a major motion picture, as I am used to getting most of my advice from watching the commercials that play during the airing of old game shows from the 1950's in the wee hours of the morning, but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Aliens are a tricky subject. We didn't really know much about them until the movie "Signs" came out. In fact, we knew next to nothing. Things we thought we knew included:

Aliens have big eyes. We're talking large, here. XBox-big. We know this because the people who have been abducted by aliens say that they do and draw crazy pictures of aliens with enormous eyes, so they must, right? I thought so.

Aliens enjoy rectal probes and probing and therefore probably enjoy scat porn as well. They're all fecal freaks. Bottom-feeders. Back-alley Sallies. And they like poop, too, additionally, also, LOL!

Aliens fly in dorky space ships that resemble paper plates glued together. This means that they are smarter than us and that they have amazingly advanced technology that can easily defeat our primitive junk, but for some reason they are content with abducting genetic mutants and human freaks from small desert towns. These people later participate in the Art Bell show.

They will come to Earth to either study us or kill us. They will not come here to have quiet croquet matches on the lawn with us nor will they come to purchase a two-year warranty for their product at Best Buy. They do not use the new Pentium 4 processor and they will not be playing Warcraft 3 with us on Battle.net. They will study us or kill us, one of the two.

The creepy children from "Signs."

You see, we don't know very much at all about aliens at all! The aliens in our pre-"Signs" world lay shrouded in mystery. Just when I thought that they always would and that I'd have to make the rest up by myself, out from the shadows steps brilliant director M. Night Shymamamalyanan to shed light on this very difficult enigma by giving himself a major role in his own movie and putting his name in the credits more times than Drew Curtis places his name on Drew Curtis presents Drew Curtis' Fark.com by and for Drew Curtis. Drew Curtis. Mr. Shylamalnamalnan is truly one of the greatest heroes of our time simply for answering the questions we've had about extra-terrestrials for so long.

The movie begins well. I'll give it that much. The mood is set nicely with eerie crop circles appearing in Mel's corn field and evil aliens with no pants are mysteriously spotted on top of his barn. This is the only positive thing I will probably have to say about the movie.

The animals around Mel's farm are going crazy, including the two large German Shepherd dogs that Mel owns. The local police lady says, "The animals are acting as though there is a predator afoot," but last I checked, when a dog thinks that there is a predator afoot, it PROTECTS YOU and does not TRY TO BITE OFF YOUR HEAD such as these dogs do. The culmination of the weird animals include a touching scene in which the little boy kills his dog by IMPALING IT WITH A MEAT FORK. I am not joking. Dog-on-a-stick.

Soon, television reports that the aliens are appearing all over the darn place and plan to invade, OH NO! Apparently this also includes them appearing and invading lovely Bumblefuck, Pennsylvania where Mel and his family live. This brings us at last to new and important point about aliens number one:

A prime target for invading aliens!

Aliens want to come to your farm house, which is located in the middle of nowhere. Previously, I would have thought that if you live in an isolated part of the country that you would be safer from a hostile alien take-over invasion thingy than if you were located in a large city, but now I realize that this is not the case. The aliens, rather than going after people in large numbers, will want to find your small family and do whatever it takes to get at the very low number of people inside of your house. Moving to Wyoming or building a protective bunker in Montana will not help you! The aliens are very interested in tiny groups of people holed up in a remote space far from civilization, so don't bother. You are doomed. DOOMED.

You see, this is something that we never would have guessed! We never knew that aliens would do this and were therefore previously susceptible to evil alien invasion. Now, all of this has changed thanks to the miracle of film-making and the superb directing talent of M. Night Shyhshlammimanlan. This brings me to the next part of the movie that turned out to be so revealing about the true nature of visitors from other worlds:

The only protection you will need.

Aliens may have very advanced technology but they just can't figure out doors, as evidenced by the multiple scenes in which the aliens are trying to get at the family but are thwarted time and time again by wood. The family boards up the windows of the house and the aliens, despite their spacecrafts that are able to transport them across what are probably multiple hundreds of parsecs and then turn invisible, cannot figure out how to get inside. They just end up banging on the doors a lot and making a bunch of noise.

Farmer: 1

Aliens: -34645

For some reason, the aliens are able to break through the glass windows, but doors stump them to the extent that the expert director, M. Night Shyamonlamnonanalman's character is able to trap one by shutting it inside of his kitchen pantry. At one point, the asthma kid says cryptically, "They are great problem solvers," but I guess he wasn't referring to their ability to turn a door knob or break through the wood placed across the windows. Maybe he was referring to those crazy-smart dinosaurs from "Jurassic Park" that could work complicated algebra and trigonometry problems.

Wood saves the day later in the movie as well when Mel's younger brother with Down's syndrome whacks an alien senseless with his baseball bat. The alien seems powerless to save itself and doesn't seem to realize that it should probably move out of the way. Go team wood! This tip is very important because if evil aliens ever do invade we now know that all we need to do is shut the doors and we'll be fine. We are also very fortunate to have a lot of Home Depots and lumber supply companies so close to and in our major cities. But if need presses, it has become obvious that all you will really need to do is go and cut down a tree or chop up some wood to arm yourself with the best protection from aliens that there is.

Just when this movie appears to have given all of the helpful and vital advice at any one movie could possibly give, out of nowhere comes a third piece of information about our alien friends:

DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!!!

Aliens are able to be killed by water. I don't mean that they drown like people do, I mean they can't touch water because it dissolves their skin and they melt and bubble like cheese on top of a cooked pizza. To top this off, they wore no clothing to protect themselves from evil dihydrogen oxygen. The folks in the movie beat them back with water and they suddenly leave Earth, apparently for someplace less wet.

This new fact begs several questions, the first of which is: Why would aliens choose to invade a planet that is composed primarily of something that kills them on contact? That is just not very bright. If we were looking around for planets to invade and there was one planet absolutely filled with 15 Molar HCl where it rained acid and the creatures there were mostly comprised of acid, and the very air contained acidic vapor, wouldn't you think we'd maybe look for other planets? Just a thought I suppose.

Another problem here is that the director, M. Night Shamamlyamanlyanalon's character knows how to kill the aliens at the beginning of the movie and tells Mel the answer in one of the most poorly-acted scenes since his movie with the annoying kid and the dead people and the stuff. He might as well just have said something along the lines of, "By the way, Mel, they don't like water, I think. You see, I am the direct-- I mean, I am moving to the lake! Because I wrote this scen--errrr, I am going to the lake!!!!"

I am very lucky to have seen this movie because it has taught me so much about aliens and prepared me for their eventual and seemingly inevitable invasion. I now know what to do if these horrible creatures should ever attack and I thank my lucky stars (and God; God is good says M. Night Shayalamanmlmnaononam!) that I live close to large bodies of water and to many trees. I am also glad that there are doors in my house because I have excellent protection from these creepy aliens.

Movies like this are mainly why I dislike seeing things in the theater from the month of April through the month of September. Everything that comes out in that time period is designed to rake in maximum profit for as little quality as can possibly be afforded. Now that M. Night Whatever has a shitload of money one would hope that he would be making better movies in the future, and it is that faith that keeps me going because I honestly did like his last film, "Unbreakable." If there's one thing I know, however, its that this guy has a serious issue with water, because water was the one weakness of Bruce Willis in that movie as well. Maybe he should attend some counseling and then attempt to create a movie subsequently.

In the mean time, now that I know more things about the true nature of aliens, I am going to go make myself a tinfoil hat so that they can't read my secret thoughts.

Cranky Steve is Open For Business!

Hey gang, remember Cranky Steve? The rotting old guy who reviews maps from the depths of the central sewer system? Well to tell you the truth, I forgot about him as well. There was apparently a really big rain in his town and all sorts of horrible stuff ended up in the pipeline. I heard rumors that Cranky Steve was actually swept off his feet by a wave of feces, chicken bones, and dead rats, disposing him into a pocket of sewage about 1000 feet underground. I'm not sure if this rumor is exactly 100% true though, as I heard it from a guy who had no shoes and a bucket on his head.

Nevertheless, you can't keep a cranky man down, and Cranky Steve's Haunted Whorehouse is back again, reviewing the absolute worst Quake, Half-Life, and Unreal Tournament maps in existence. The Whorehouse will soon be branching out into different games as well, so send any horrible map for any current game to the Haunted Whorehouse and they'll make sure to inform the public of how terrible it is so you guys don't have to waste your bandwidth downloading what you think is a cool map but turns out to be a 40-meg representation of the map author's bathtub. I mean, with screenshots like these, how can you go wrong?

So head on over and check out the new and improved Haunted Whorehouse, now with 148% more Vitamin Suck! Huzzah!

PS: Don't forget to send in the worst game maps you can find! Or die!

– Integral