Mars à table!

I picked this up in sales-crate at my local video store. Under genre it said :Splatter satire. This caught my attention.

The sci-fi spoofs are great, and the dialogue is genius. Campbell Scott plays a great Atomic Scientist and Fiona Loewi plays the sexy bed and breakfast hostess beautifully. Not only is she sexy, but even though she has an incestous relationship with her brother, you would still like to date her.

This movie is for people who understands irony (which apparently some IMDB-users haven't), and like the splatter genre. Though it isn't by far a hard-core splatter, the scenes that are gory, works very well.

Watch it as a comedy and as a caricature of old sci-fi movies.

'Top of the food chain' is a parody of the science fiction movies of the 50s which preceded the horror stories a few decades before Polanski and the gang turned horror into a genre that cannot be ignored. It makes clear from the beginning that it is not to be taken too seriously, and keeps all over an air of freshness and authenticity, avoiding any computerized special effects. It looks like a film of the 50s with a smile, the only real big miss, but a big one is the lack of a more effective humor. Gags like the ones in this film seem too innocent to viewers have seen the heavier parody stuff of the last years. The team of anonymous actors does a decent job, among them best was in my opinion Fiona Loewi who really catches the attention and deserves some better or broader distributed roles.

TOP OF THE FOOD CHAIN (3 outta 5 stars) Canadian director John Paisz came out with some brilliant short movies back in the 80s... culminating in the brilliant "Crime Wave". He showed great promise at the time... his work sharing many surface similarities with the work of David Lynch. But for almost 15 years he seemed to disappear from the world of film... doing a little TV work in Canada and not much else. Well, he finally came back in 1999 with this zany B movie parody film and, while comes nowhere near the quality of his earlier work, it does have enough wit and style to make it worth seeing. The movie starts out TERRIBLY... so don't let the first five minutes put you off... it does get better. Man-eating aliens come down to a small Twin Peaks kind of town and start noshing on the citizens. Luckily a world famous atomic scientist (Campbell Scott) is passing through town to lend a hand. The movie's story isn't quite as well-scripted as the more recent "Lost Skeleton of Cadavra" but it does have some very funny lines... and some bizarre characterizations (the way-too-friendly brother and sister, the town policeman who goes around singing his own jazzy theme song). If you're in the mood for something silly you could do lots worse than this. Choicest lines: "An atomic scientist's life can be very lonely. There aren't many atomic lady scientists, after all." "I got backbone! Matter of fact when I was born I had a tail, too! That's just MORE backbone only it's furry!" "A genetically engineered band of devil worshiping serial killers... or a Sasquatch type thing? I don't like the sound of that!"

I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical at first, but after it started I found myself laughing my ass off throughout the whole movie.

It's as B as a movie can be, it's cheesie and it's awesome.

If you liked this, I'd check out Psycho Beach Party and Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter.

Top of the Food Chain (A.K.A. Invasion!) is a very wacky film, but I recommend it to anyone with a good sense of humor, especially if you like parodies. The humor is delivered deadpan but takes turns you'd never guess. There are all the clichéd characters you could expect in a B-grade horror movie - the religious nut, the pompous scientist, the surly policeman, various suspicious characters, and the smart and spunky love interest - but each of them deviates from the norm in their own way. This is a low-budget film but that actually is a strength for a parody of other low-budget films. This is one of the funniest films I've seen in a long time. It reminds me of Airplane, although it's more subdued and yet more daring in its humor. Rent it if you get the chance.