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Mars Needs Men
Rating: 2 Stars
Produced by Dan Cross. Written, photographed, and directed by Jett Blakk. Edited by Ann Igma. Starring Jason Crew, Ty Hudson, Troy Punk, Jason Ridge, Nick Capra, Mario Cruz, Jason Hawke, Luciano Haas, and Drew Warner.
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It's that October night in 1938 when Orson Welles's Mercury Theatre on the Air scared the hell out of thousands of people with its Halloween broadcast of War of the Worlds. Presented as a series of news bulletins out of New Jersey, the H.G. Wells radio adaptation is taken for the real thing by two guys in Pittsburgh; a border guard and an illegal immigrant in Arizona; and a lone, scared farmer in Willow Brook, Illinois.

Troy Punk and Jason Hawk, the guys in Pittsburgh, consider seeking refuge in a church, then settle back to spend their final hours sucking and fucking. The border guard (Nick Capra) gets coercive nooky he probably would have obtained anyway, without the aid of Martians, from cute wetback Mario Cruz. At the New York radio station where the Mercury Players are broadcasting live, Brett Matthews tries to stop the show to stem the escalating panic, but gatekeeper Jason Crew wards off the intrusion with sex. Meanwhile, farmer Ty Hudson, a hick who shucks corn all over his living room floor, is drawn into a threesome by college pranksters Luciano Haas and Jason Ridge, posing as aliens. "Mars needs men," they assure him before helping him out of his overalls.

Writer/director Jett Blakk deserves points for the premise, but the finished product could have been funnier, sharper, and more erotic. Anachronisms like designer underwear and styrofoam cups abound. The soundtrack makes extensive use of the actual 1938 broadcast, sometimes to bizarre effect. An announcement about "bodies burned and distorted beyond all possible recognition" makes a strange audio backdrop for the moment when Brett Matthews first reaches for Jason Crew's cock.