Invasion Earth: The Aliens Are Here

Truly bad. One of those 'films' that has you shaking your head and asking "what were they thinking?" Crap acting, no character definition, bad editing, one-dimensional people, too many clips from other movies, no discernible storyline, shockingly poor effects. In fact, all the elements of a truly bad schlock movie.

I liked it.

How they got financing to even process the film stock is a mystery. Getting it past the editor, sound guys, distributors and money men has to be a work of pure genius. That's where it stops though. This film is complete s***e from start to finish.

If you have 118 minutes to waste, watch this one.

The premise of the movie had least some potential: deliberately crummy looking aliens invade a small town movie theater which is screening a B-movie marathon. The aliens take over the projection booth, to enact their plan to first numb the mind of the audience with the terrible films they are watching, and then when the audience is at their weakest, in some nonsensical to control them in order to take over the world. Naturally only a group of young kids are the only ones aware of what's really going on, and it's up to them to save the day.

Now of course, this isn't exactly the material for the next Citizen Kane. But that said, there's no reason this movie couldn't be some cheesy fun, maybe as a "monsters gone mad" movie the likes of Gremlins (1984) or Critters (1986), or perhaps as a nostalgic throwback to monster the movies of days gone by, the likes of say The Monster Squad (1987), or at least Transylvania-6-5000 (1985).

Apparently there was a reason it couldn't be any fun.

The problem is while the movie is about aliens making an audience watch old movies, that's the ONLY thing this movie is about. The thing is, there are more scenes of these old movies, than there are scenes of the actual movie itself! I'm serious; about 80, perhaps even 90 percent of the movie is simply clips from old B-movies. Out of the few and far between clips of original footage, most of it simply consists of the audience members watching these clips. There is perhaps only 10 minutes worth of actual "plot" scenes in the entire 79 minute film.

So it's not really a movie; it's just a 79 minute montage of scenes from other movies, occasionally inter-cut with clips of aliens making an audience watch the said montage. It's as if the filmmakers starting off by trying to make a movie about this group of kids, but then ran out of film 10 minutes in, so they had to make up the rest of the movie with stock footage. In fact even out of the original footage in the movie much of it gets reused over and over again, but set to different voice tracks.

The film is just wasted potential. Of course it couldn't have been a masterpiece, but it could have been a bit of harmless fun. Thank god I only paid bargain bin price for the DVD.

Okay, when I got this movie (on Danish VHS for less than $2), I was expecting a low-budget cheesy movie, which would be good for a laugh or two.. but what I actually got was a muddled incomprehensible mess of a "movie", just above an hour in running-time (fortunately!), consisting mainly of clips from such "classics" as "Plan 9 From Outer Space", "The Blob" and - my personal favorite - "Reptilicus".. but why even bother to disguise this as a movie? Why not go all out and a make a 90-minute clip-show from the old classics?? Instead, we have these stupid characters, looking like something take straight from a random Troma-production, which have the potential to be very funny, but are all wasted as random movie-goers who sit and eat popcorn, annoy each other, and are one by one assimilated by these alien "bug-creatures", who plan on taking over the world by making people watch crappy movies, so they are distracted and can easily be taken over, "Invasion of the Body-Snatchers"-style.

Anyways, because of the constant inter-cutting between new footage and old clips, the viewer can't really understand what's actually going on, and is left with a bunch of random scenes, sloppily put together, only creating few giggles here and there, but overall leaves a "what-the-hell-is-going-on"-feeling, which isn't helped by the many different characters either.

Highlights: A random biker goes into the cinema and asks the alien with an elephant-trunk to give him some popcorn. He then proceeds to fetch 10 huge packs. Hardy-har-har.

1/10, only because 0/10 is not an option, and because some of the old clips were good.

Please dont watch this "movie". Its terrible and not even the funny terrible....(except for a split-second) where a giant shouts "i dont want to grow anymore" then falls off a cliff with the worse possible special effects known to man. Stop reading this review, enjoy your-life without EVER see-ing this movie...... if it can even be called that. As its made from lots of really bad movies. If you get lots of bad movies and put them into a seires of clips without a story-line.... well you get my drift!!! 1/10......just

My review was written in September 1988 after watching the movie on New World video cassette.

Part fiction, part compilation, "Invasion Earth: The Aliens Are Here" is a subpar nostalgia piece for monster movie fans. Lightweight effort bypassed theatrical release and currently is in video stores.

Premise is similar to an earlier film (also unreleased theatrically) "Midnight Movie Massacre". Aliens from Outer Space invade a small town where a motley audience is watching sci-fi pictures. Pic is set at the Gem Theater (actually filmed at the Warner Grand in San Pedro, California), and its audience stereotypes lack the humor which highlighted "Massacre".

Four youngsters unite to fight the invaders, who in a nod to Don Siegel's "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" are using pods to take over the bodies of audience members after first numbing their brains with endless sci-fi features and trailers.

Unfortunately, this film, credited to George Maitland but with special effects expert Bob Skotak announced as director during production, also is numbing with its endless clips from very familiar pictures, mostly from the 1950s. A very young or novice sci-fi fan probably will enjoy the excerpts, but pic's target audience has seen them all many times over, complete. Unimaginative use of vintage movie theater material is also a letdown, consisting mainly of a "Let's All Go to the Lobby" animated intermission short film.

Insect-styled humanoid monsters created by Michael McCracken are okay but not scary. Casting of Mel Welles, erstwhile Mr. Mushnick from "The Little Shop of Horrors", as the theater manager is a cute touch; he also doubles as pic's production manager.

Producer Max J. Rosenberg co-produced the unrelated "Dr. Who" film with a similar moniker: "Daleks' Invasion Earth: 2150 A. D.".