Invader

'Invader' is a decent aliens film, no more but no less either. It is done in the mid 90's, is is clearly a low budget film - so the effects are far from what big studios succeed in similar movies. Directing and acting are quite routine, nothing memorable above the usual TV series level. However, the script is quite decent, and despite some inconsistencies, it keeps somehow the interest high. The end is quite good, kind of justifying the viewer surviving the 90 minutes the movie lasts. Science fiction fans may like it, though we have seen much better. 6/10 on my personal scale.

When an object lands in the Mojave desert, it turns out to be our own Viking Mars probe. Taken back to a lab facility for decontamination and study, the team there soon realizes that it has been altered. Then, the military gets involved and takes over the entire project.

Uh oh!

Something that has stowed away in the probe leaps out, and escapes. It's on the loose and growing at an alarming rate. It also displays a superior intelligence. Now, the scientists and soldiers must keep the mutating creature from getting out of the lab.

LIFEFORM is a low-budget sci-fi thriller that makes the best of its limited resources. Not surprisingly, the best aspect of the movie is the ever-changing alien. It's different and actually pretty menacing. This movie is far more intriguing than anticipated...

Even in an auspicious premise over a NASA lander Viking sent to Mars in early eighties, it strangely is back landing at California desert area, in the same time Nasa's Engineer crew members aware of the happening pick up the lander sending it at Mojave closed laboratory there they try figure out why it was back on Earth, due such lander didn't has any pre-arranged device to allow any post-returning, therefore just this element was enough good to developed a better screenplay, instead once again another slime Alien monster aiming for capitalize on the successful formulaic ALIEN.

Aftermaths the Pentagon notifies the US' Army to take over the incident and remove the lander Viking to a top-secret place to clarify the sudden appearance, turns out that inside a spheric pod came an embryonic egg of an alien form, who growing faster and hides on the facility, to worsen the lame script mixing a struggles against a hermaphrodite Alien, even once dead is growing inside another being, the came up the unexpected matter, a soldier suffering of appendicitis needing a rush surgery, what a mess, just wait for strong emotions, it just the beginning.

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First watch: 2024 / How many: 1 / Source: Youtube / Rating: 5.

Lifeform (AKA Invader) 1996 R

This film is about a team of scientists and military yahoos that end up fighting an alien creature. It's that simple. It's yet another film like Alien or Leviathan (which itself was a direct rip-off of Alien) or Species. In this one, intelligent life that reproduces asexually sends a Viking probe back from Mars (because Mars is new territory in the world of alien encounters you know), and that probe has been modified to carry this creature along with it. Of course, the alien gets out and gets hunted and gets killed.

Overall, the acting isn't too bad, and the special effects are competent. The alien is intelligent, so of course, the one woman in the film feels sorry for it. The design of the alien itself is kind of like those half-human, half-horse creatures. You know, a centaur. It looks all terrifying on the outside, but then it extends it's little alien body up (the part where the human part of the centaur goes) out of the normal trunk (the part that is the horse), and it looks all benevolent. The military base they're on is rather bland, and of course, Big Brother shows up and spoils the show. The Army folks saunter about trying to kill the alien and they're all afraid it may have some contagion that it's spreading around.

The atmosphere isn't bad, but the film is somewhat shallow—it's just a straight-forward science fiction/horror flick with some decent gore and a humorous kill (guy is stabbed with the blunt end of an M-16). Nothing really special, but nothing really horrible. Recommended to hardcore SF/horror buffs. And that's about it.

5/10

"Lifeform" starts off with an intriguing mystery. Viking 2, one of the two landers that were dropped on Mars by NASA during the 70's, has returned to Earth. From the start we get the idea that Lifeform's scriptwriter did his homework, as one of the scientists examining the lander starts rattling off real-life technical details about the lander, rather than some spurious techno-babble. From there things rapidly switch to a monster hunt straight out of the '50s, as the scientists bicker with the military when the Lifeform in question breaks loose from it's hiding place in the lander and starts running around the sealed lab complex. It's nothing we haven't seen before, but the script never insults the audience, neither the scientists or the military act like idiots, and the f/x aren't _too_ cheap. There's even a genuine red-herring or two to keep the audience interested, not to mention some clever ideas about the Lifeform's biology. If you can't find anything else on the tube, you could do worse than to watch this.