The Galaxy Invader

Back in high school, one of our favorite six-pack stinkers was The Fiend (1980), in which a supernatural creature resembling a radioactive Twistie enters the grave of a recently deceased music teacher. He comes back from the dead, naturally craving blood, but more unnaturally, still giving home lessons on the violin. It was one of a string of low-budget genre movies from Don Dohler, a Baltimore filmmaker who may have turned out like his more famous Baltimore counterpart John Waters if he'd spent less time gluing together fanzines and devouring Famous Monsters Of Filmland, and more time huffing nitrous and shimmying around with perverts.

And just like a John Waters film, Dohler's movies are filled with would-be thespian matrons and blockheads with thickly nasal Baltimore twangs screaming at each other in garishly decorated sets. In the case of The Galaxy Invader from 1985, it's the family of a violent, gun-toting alcoholic hillbilly doing the screaming - dear old Paw discovers the crash site of an alien in a green rubber reptile suit, and decides bagging a spaceman before the CIA does means big bucks on the black market. He rustles up a hunting party of greedy Harleyville hicks while the Moon Man goes on a Human Hunt. One early victim of the reptilian rampage is George Stover, a Don Dohler standby who keen-eyed John Waters watchers will recognize as Mink Stole's father in Waters' Desperate Living (1977).

Compared to most shot-on-video garbage released these days, it's an unexpected treat - shot on film with a distinct style, albeit a Z-grade one, and with a real wide-eyed, earnest and straight-faced appreciation of the genre which gives Don's movies a genuine charm. Sadly Don passed away in December 2006 aged 60, but he leaves behind the legacy of his hardly misspent life. Don Dohler, wherever you are in the cosmos, I salute you.

It was certainly a handcrafted movie, made in worst financial conditions as possible, the plot is fully nonsensical to start, foolish and lack of creativity, the synopsis is about a UFO which fell down at Maryland, a boy advises his school professor, they'll meet where the UFO crashed, although in the city a red neck Montague's family face the odd Alien invader, a sort of green rubber skin, he just grunts and has a strange space-gun together a noisy ball on the belt, thus leading by a drunkard Montague father's family and together a self-called smart guy gathers a lot of loafs to hunt the creature, worst impossible, laughable, I have to admit, I've stay between of an attack of laughs or about to cry watching this funny, enjoyable and absolute TRASH piece, at least had many hot girls on the plot to relief meantime!!!

Resume:

First watch: 2010 / How many: 2 / Source: DVD / Rating: 3.5

The creature design in this would have been rejected by 1960s era BBC.

The acting is awful, the writing is awful, and the dialogue is on par with a drunken toddler.

What a load of worse than cheesy crap but kinda semi-funny. I think the humor was completely intentional... sorta a spoof on the old alien horror sci-fi films of the 50s, 60s maybe the 70s I'm guessing. I don't recall this film, maybe it was because it was a direct-to-video.

The lame hillbillies are better than the actual creature. They get so annoying that you can't wait for the creature to get them but you kinda want all of them to stick around just to hear the next dumb thing they say and do.

I think the creature kinda looks like The Swamp Thing in away. And it carries what looks like an alien egg that flashes to red sometimes.

It's lame enough to get a couple of giggles out of at best.

3/10

Okay, I gotta admit that this is the ONLY redneck, white-trash sci-fi film I have ever seen--so by default it is the best. And with a very charitable score of 2, this isn't saying much! I UFO lands in the country and the alien that came from it was actually pretty good--with an interesting costume and makeup. Unfortunately, from this auspicious start, the film was all down hill from there. Why? Because then the action switched to a group of horrid actors who made up a family that looked like they'd escaped from a John Waters film, such as FEMALE TROUBLE or PINK FLAMINGOS. The two daughters and wife were all pretty stupid and awful but compared to Daddy, they were like charm school graduates. Daddy was the most pointlessly obnoxious and trashy person I've seen in film in a long time--spending practically every second in the film with alcohol in his hand, cursing, threatening or shooting. Plus, his costume was the ever-present white t-shirt that was like one giant hole! And, to assist Daddy in all his obnoxiousness was his cigar-chomping and rather psychotic friend. Together they decided that it was a good idea to capture the alien and get rich. This was pretty much the whole plot. Daddy and his inbred idiot friend chasing the poor alien. In fact, this duo was so obnoxious and awful that the rest of the white trash decided to help the alien! The film is full of amateur acting, bad filming and horrid dialog. In no way other than the alien's costume is this film superior to films like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE. It honestly looks like someone's home movie starring their drinking buddies, though on this level it's good for an occasional laugh.

FYI--If anyone cares, this film was made in Maryland. As I saw some real similarities between this and some of the cheesier John Waters films I wonder if perhaps the writer/director Don Dohler wasn't perhaps a friend or associate of Waters or at least was seriously impacted by his work.