Either a hommage to or a spoof of 50s monster movies, to the point where Landis spends 10 minutes on the characters watching The Blob. Trouble is, everyone already knows those films were cheesy, and as much fun as it is watching Landis running around smalltown California in a gorilla suit ripping the arms off people to the tune of Also Sprach Zarathustra, the joke wears really thin when the movie starts becoming cheesier than the ones it supposedly spoofs. Later on, Landis would evolve thumbs.