I like sci-fi movies, sometimes even bad ones, so when I saw this was coming on the MGM channel, I set up the DVR to record it. Took several days to watch it because I had to keep turning it off - I just couldn't believe how bad it was.
Several other reviews call this a "homage" to '50s sci-fi movies. To me it seemed a lot more like a low-budget attempt to cash in on the popularity of E.T. and other sci-fi movies that had been packing theaters over the previous half-decade. This badly-made tale of invading space aliens was more of a gross-out horror flick than a sci-fi movie though. Way too many shots of people ripping their faces off to reveal slimy alien brains and whatnot underneath.
There were a lot of recognizable actors in the movie, but their performances are pretty uniformly awful and flat, which makes me think the director had no idea what he was doing. The writing is cringe-inducingly bad and the film was apparently edited by a 10 year old with attention deficit disorder. And the soundtrack music - don't get me started. Most of it sounded like it was lifted from E.T. and it almost never matched what was actually going on in the movie. Wrap it all up with a happy ending that felt forced and tacked on, and which made very little sense after the evil way the aliens had been behaving the whole rest of the movie.
The only thing saving this from a 1 star review is that some of the special effects aren't bad. I liked the glowing balls that the aliens turned people into. And if you go for gross, gory stuff, the aforementioned transformations from human to alien will be right up your alley. On the other hand, some of the effects (like the geyser of green blood from an alien that had been shot) are just as bad as the dialog, direction, acting, music and editing.
My only question is how the Mystery Science Theater guys never got their hands on this movie.
Several other reviews call this a "homage" to '50s sci-fi movies. To me it seemed a lot more like a low-budget attempt to cash in on the popularity of E.T. and other sci-fi movies that had been packing theaters over the previous half-decade. This badly-made tale of invading space aliens was more of a gross-out horror flick than a sci-fi movie though. Way too many shots of people ripping their faces off to reveal slimy alien brains and whatnot underneath.
There were a lot of recognizable actors in the movie, but their performances are pretty uniformly awful and flat, which makes me think the director had no idea what he was doing. The writing is cringe-inducingly bad and the film was apparently edited by a 10 year old with attention deficit disorder. And the soundtrack music - don't get me started. Most of it sounded like it was lifted from E.T. and it almost never matched what was actually going on in the movie. Wrap it all up with a happy ending that felt forced and tacked on, and which made very little sense after the evil way the aliens had been behaving the whole rest of the movie.
The only thing saving this from a 1 star review is that some of the special effects aren't bad. I liked the glowing balls that the aliens turned people into. And if you go for gross, gory stuff, the aforementioned transformations from human to alien will be right up your alley. On the other hand, some of the effects (like the geyser of green blood from an alien that had been shot) are just as bad as the dialog, direction, acting, music and editing.
My only question is how the Mystery Science Theater guys never got their hands on this movie.