Lethal Invasion - Attacke der Alien-Viren

As all other miniseries,this one is also a b-movie,but a b-movie doesnt necessary have to mean that it is a bad movie.It just has a lower budget and more unknown actors. This movie has actually gotten two actors which is quit famous,Luke Perry and Rebecca Gayheart. Luke Perry is known for his role in Beverly Hills 90210,and Rebecca Gayheart has played in movies such as,Scream 2,Urban legend 1 & 2 and From dusk til dawn 3.

The story is about a small rock who fell from the sky,nobody seems to know anything about it,but when someone touches it they get a virus who takes control of them.

The movie is scary at times and one of the better miniseries I have seen.

I only checked this out because the score was done by Don Davis, composer for the first 3 Matrix movies. You can definitely hear some proto-Matrix music here and it really lifts the material.

Expecting this to be a slog, it turned out to be pretty damn engaging, somewhat reminiscent of Invasion of the Body Snatchers and V (the original miniseries). What really amazed me is that they created a fairly decent alien invasion story with a TV budget. There are also deaths/conversions aplenty for costars, which ups the ante suspense-wise. Don't go in expecting Arrival or Independence Day, and I think it will be worth a slow night's watch.

In Phoenix, the social assistant Beau Stark (Luke Perry) and the substitute teacher Cassy Winslow (Rebecca Gayheart) live together and are in love with each other and Beau proposes to marry her. Their best friend, the medical student Pitt Henderson (Christopher Orr) is happy with the news. When Beau returns to his car, he sees a black stone that felt from the sky and when he touches it, he feels bad in a sort of influenza. When other black stones fall from the sky, there is an epidemic of influenza in Phoenix and Dr. Sheila Moran (Kim Cattrall) tries to convince his director to summon the CDC, but he says that it is not necessary. Soon Beau changes his behavior and Cassy tells Pitt. Their further investigation shows that RH- people have stranger reaction after touching the black stone that activates a latent virus in the humans that mutates them into an alien breed. Now Sheila, Cassy, Pitt and a few other humans are trying to find an antibody to save the human race. But no one can be trusted.

"Invasion" is an entertaining sci-fi, with a storyline that recalls "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Stargate". In 1997, it was an underrated film, but re-watching in the present days, the viewer realizes that the story has not aged and the special effects and make-up are still good. Unfortunately, this film was only released on VHS in Brazil. It is also great to see the gorgeous Rebecca Gayheart and Kim Cattrall very young. The conclusion is failed since other countries have been also invaded and the airborne gas is only used in Phoenix. Maybe the third episode would provide a better conclusion to the story. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Epidemia Mortal" ("Deadly Epidemic")

Hokey music, cheesy special effects, a really dumb script, and heavy-handed, pedestrian direction, all drawn out to great lengths - is this a movie? No, clearly it's a TV mini-series, and a poor one at that. The only thing that might attract you to it is some meaningful acting talent, and that certainly is present. I was drawn into watching it by the presence of Kim Catrall and Rebecca Gayheart, both of whose work I've previously admired... but don't make the same mistake. Truly, it's not worth it. Give this one a miss.

I didn't see this miniseries in its original run in 1997, but watched it last week in a rerun on the SCIFI channel because of Robin's Cook's involvement. All of his work (books, screenplays, miniseries) has been consistently good. (Remember "Coma"?). This one was no different. I thought it was an interesting story, played seriously by a better than average cast. Luke Perry plays the leading man, the first to be infected by the alien virus, and his girlfriend (the extremely cute Rebecca Gayheart) who becomes the one to try to save him from it with the help of a molecular biologist in the person of Kim Catrall. As I enjoy most 'virus' type movies (Outbreak, The Stand), I enjoyed this one, too. I give it a 9 out of 10 for a TV miniseries.