Invasion of the Pod People

Picked this up in a 10-movie pack for five bucks at K-Mart.

Is it classic sci-fi? No. Is it a very good movie? Hardly.

But I look at it this way: 50 cents for a flick about an alien ginger plant that turns mean girls into sex-starved, naked lesbians? Oh, yeah, K-Mart, here's my four bits. Can't buy me a Hershey bar for that anymore.

Gotta admit, I find a certain charm to The Asylum's "mockbuster" movies. They remind me of my childhood, when I'd read "Cinemagic" magazine and make my own "Star Wars" films on Super-8. Terrible, to be sure, but made with a modicum of love and reverence for the source material.

In rare cases, Asylum's movies are actually better than those they're aping. I'll take "Allan Quartermain and the Temple of Skulls" any day over the incomprehensible "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull." And while the first "Aliens Vs. Predator" was good in a comic book sort of way, "AVP: Requiem" didn't make a lick of sense. Asylum's "AVH: Alien Vs. Hunter," starring aged stoner William Katt, was far more enjoyable. And who'da thunk Asylum's martial arts version of "I Am Legend" -- titled "I Am Omega" and starring that dude from "Iron Chef" -- would be as charming as it is? Not me, brother. But it's now my second favorite version of the story, next to Vincent Price's classic "The Last Man on Earth."

For the record, I'm not some Asylum company suit posting fake positive reviews, and I acknowledge the vast majority of Asylum's output is crapola. I'm just some guy who appreciates bad movies, and The Asylum tends to make more of those than anyone else.

And as long as K-Mart keeps selling them for 50 cents, I'm gonna keep buying them.

This movie had all the qualifications of a bad, bad movie; bad acting, bad dialog, poor plot progression, terrible soundtrack quality, bad set selection, scenes of people talking on cell phones, scenes of people in cars, stock footage and really bad special effects. When I see films like this I think, this was someone's film school project. The truth is it was probably an independent film festival project or made for Showtime.

To describe the acting as bad is using creative license on my part. There wasn't much acting in the film but there was a good bit of reading of cue cards or TelePrompter. The people in the film look at the side of the camera in every scene. The soundtrack had a lot of unexplained noise in a few scenes. The noise, which I figured out was supposed to be the pods multiplying, was so loud that the dialog was unintelligible.

The plot of the film would have been difficult to follow if I hadn't read the description on the DVD cover. The characters of the movie supposedly worked for a modeling agency. The story the film presents is; There's a company named Blockthorn that does something and one guy, the boss, wants something done and yells at his employees about getting it right. Then some of the employees become obsessed with a strange plant. One of the employees is attacked by a pod from the plant and then keeps sharing the plant with her coworkers. Yes, this movie was so bad that I wanted to turn away. But we suffered through to the end which left the plot open as if they intend to make a sequel.

Then there's the sex. Of course these pods from outer space know about seduction and use it to acquire their pod victims. There where at least four sex scenes with topless ladies. But these scenes were bad too cause only in low budget films to folks have sex without taking their pants and skirts off. Invasion of the Pod People is just bad. I wouldn't recommend that anyone watch this film.

Can you remember "Debbie Does Dallas"? Well, the acting in this one is almost as good. Remember "Plan 9 From Outer Space"? Well, at least Ed Wood managed to make it so bad it's good. No such luck here.

I wouldn't even want to slur first-year film school by comparing this to the efforts of any beginner.

If I had to guess, I'd say somebody bought a HD camcorder, invited all his friends around for the weekend and let's see what happens when you press and hold the red button.

David Latt seems to be in the business of churning out no-budget video productions with non-actors, negligible plots and spaceships-on-strings special effects.

I beseech you, do not dignify any of these by contemplating watching them. Go watch some paint dry, or a game of cricket. Oh, wait. Same thing.

After a meteor shower in California, Melissa (Erica Roby) feels that her co-workers and her boss Samantha (Jessica Bork) that work in the agency owned by Vickland (Michael Tower) are acting differently after receiving a weird plant. She shares her fears with her colleague Billie (Danae Nason) and with Detective Alexander (Marat Glaer) that are the only persons that she can trust.

"Invasion of the Pod People" is another remake of the classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", actually an awful rip-off. Erica Roby is the best in this flick, showing he lovely breasts and naked body and having a good performance with the poor script. This sci-fi – horror movie is so bad that the best scene is the lesbian party promoted by Samantha, especially when she seduces Melissa. The actors have lame performances in this forgettable crap. My vote is two.

Title (Brazil): "Devoradores de Almas" ("Souls Devours")

Shame on anyone who gives this more than one star! (And that's generous.) This film is so cataclysmically dreadful that if the doctor tells you that you have two weeks to live, watch this film. You'll want the two weeks to end quickly.

The first couple of scenes start off well. Girl watches TV news report about mysterious meteorite shower, girl goes outside to see meteors blazing across the sky... nice. Then the camera cuts to her face and her reaction is precisely what I'd expect from someone who opened a carton of milk and found milk in it.

That was a clue to the standard of acting throughout. But it's still better than the lighting and audio.

As for the story... well, let's just say that what we have here is a porn script, complete with porn direction, but without the scenes you really paid your money for. Oh, there's soft porn, but it's as inept as everything else about this film.

And then there's the mysterious alien plant that's key to the pod people's invasion. Surely someone could have found some modeling clay and a bit of paint. But no, our prop is a piece of ginger. Not one character in the film recognized it as a piece of ginger. I'm not sure what offends me more: the fact that the prop is so dismally unimaginative, or the fact that no one on the production team seems to recognize a popular grocery item.

How do films this bad get made? It may be low budget but someone still had to put up the funds for this tripe. Did it make a profit? I need to go for a lie down.