Okay, I finally watched it. I put up a full review on my (beta version) blog:
http://366weirdmovies.wordpress.com/2009/01/27/9-help-help-the-globolinks-hilfe-hilfe-die-globolinks-1968/.
The summary version:
PLOT: In this children’s opera, the world has been invaded by bizarre alien creatures named Globolinks, who are allergic to music. A bus full of children returning to boarding school breaks down in the middle of a lonely forest, and the students are surrounded by the alien creatures. Meanwhile, back at the school, the headmaster is infected by one of the aliens, meaning that he will soon turn into a Globolink himself.
The most memorable image is the Globolinks themselves, who come in two varieties: one that looks like a wriggling rook from a chess set, and one that looks like an avant-garde ballerina dressed in a full-body dayglo bungee-jumping suit.
Many people who cannot bear the sound of screeching sopranos, or minor characters who answer a simple request for the time of day by belting out a phrase in F-sharp minor, would find
Globolinks pure torture even if it were a
good opera–which it isn’t.
Globolinks doesn’t fare much better as a story than it does as a piece of music. Even though it was designed for children, the plot is probably too preachy and ridiculous to enchant them. The second act drags badly as the focus shifts from the Globolink invasion to comic relief and a claptrap debate between the characters about the power of music.
But although
Globolinks is a failure as a work of high art, that doesn’t mean it can’t hold our attention as a weird curiosity piece. The collision of the stodgy operatic form with the love-generation art direction is entertaining, and more than a bit surreal. The Globolink costumes are bizarre and fun, and the weird blips and distorted theremins of the alien language sound like something lifted from the internal soundtrack of a circa-1969 hippie’s acid trip.
Ultimately,
Globolinks isn’t very good, or even very entertaining most of the time... However you categorize
Globolinks–as an opera flop, an avant-garde experiment, or simply a poorly conceived excuse to fill up and hour and a half of German television–it is a genuine curiosity, a rarity that’s off the beaten path of even the weirdest movie fan.
I gave it 2/5 stars. I think if
I had been the one to discover it I may have given it more stars.
It's one of those movies you almost can't believe exists when you see it. But to me, it wasn't that much fun overall. Once was enough, it wasn't something I'd ever feel like popping into the DVD player again.