Invasion from Inner Earth

A couple of people are trapped in a log cabin during an alien invasion of the Earth. They communicate with the unseen aliens and gradually make it back to civilization after much discussion. Every cliche in the book is used, and the low budget assures terrible special effects. Bad all around. Made in someone's back yard in Wisconsin.

I should have realised as the title music was a sort of electronic version of something Ennio Morricone left on the studio floor that I was in for a treat... This is dreadful. A group of young folks find themselves stranded in the Canadian wilderness as technology around them is breaking down. It appears that we are amidst an invasion - but of where, by whom - and why? Don't expect any answers to these and any other questions in this shockingly over-long, badly lit and directed piece of nonsense. The score is frequently outperformed by the sound of static on the radios and the acting (and dancing!) - well, think little Toby's Christmas nativity when he was 8. It didn't help that the version I saw recently was terribly over-exposed (perhaps a dodgy NTSC conversion) but by the middle, the invasion couldn't come fast enough - never mind by the end.

The premise for this movie was interesting enough, and there are some very developed characters in it like the TV talk show host, and his two guests. Unfortunately they only have about five minutes of footage. The main characters are believable and the acting competent. So what went wrong? It's almost as if they started making this movie on an interesting idea, but quickly realized that they had no idea where it was going, because by the time the movie concludes, you feel like you were played for a fool, and wished you never wasted your time. It seems like they made up the plot as they were making the movie. I know it requires a certain amount of cognitive dissonance to watch a movie like this, but this one is so awful you can't even enjoy how lousy it is. Here are a group of people in a winter wilderness with nothing but a ham radio to communicate with the outside world, but they start having a debate about what is going on by reading newspaper articles? What the....? Where are they getting this information about a situation that just started?, and in such an isolated place? By the end, if you don't get disgusted enough to just shut it off before then, it has to be one of the most idiotic movie endings you will ever see. It's like it is for some other totally different movie. I won't disclose it, but believe me, you will want to throw the DVD in the trash.

How can one write a script and produce a movie without one entertaining moment. Film is supposed to be visual in nature and this has people sitting around talking the whole time. And it's no "My Dinner with Andre." Something is killing the people of earth. It's spreading. Some people, trapped in some pretty cold environs (Canada?) are left to try to figure it out. That's all they ever do. Try to figure it out. They have no plan. They have no vitality. The aliens never confront them, to speak of, and so we don't even know what's going on. The outdoorsy scientist has a theory, but it could just be a bunch of hooey. The conclusion is about as stupid as anything I've seen in years. How could someone get the money to put together such a snoozer. If you can't compete with the big boys, at least tell a decent story. As with so many of these, there are long treks through the snow and a snowmobile trip that goes for about ten minutes with nothing happening.

I saw this film on TV about 20 years ago, and while the film was pretty bad, I could not help but notice that in its basic premise was potentially a very powerful idea. There is something about the idea that some huge conflagration is consuming the rest of the human race, but the people in the film are isolated from it, and watch as it happens from far away. Every now and then they make contact with the force that is destroying the rest of the world over their radio, but they are not important enough either to be singled out or to be meaningfully communicated with.

I remember thinking, that's a pretty cool idea. Someone could actually make a good movie out of it. And finally, someone has, the movie SIGNS.