Invasion of the Pod People

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")

First of all, the title of the movie is a clear indicator of what you are in for here. "Invasion of the Pod People" was very much a shameful rip-off of the classic "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", except it was just a horrible rendering of a classic movie.

I managed to sustain 42 minutes of the ordeal that is "Invasion of the Pod People" before I just gave up out of utter and complete boredom with the movie. Nothing happened throughout this time, unless you could women getting naked and making out and questionable acting as being worth mentioning of something happening.

The movie sounded like the audio was recorded from inside an empty metal barrel. The sound was just so annoying and poorly recorded. And more often than not that sound was serving as a nuisance and as an anchor around the movie.

Even the storyline was a blatant rip-off off the classic movie, but just don't less skillful. A meteor shower bring foreign celestial to Earth. And while the people see these objects as harmless, they harbor a darker purpose and a sinister ability to clone those in their vicinity.

The acting in the movie was wooden, rigid and questionable. It was obvious why most of the women on the cast list had been cast for this particular movie. Erica Kessler was actually doing a good enough performance from what I managed to witness, but then the script made her get naked as well. I am not a prude or anything, but the nudity in this movie was too excessive and didn't really serve the movie well.

"Invasion of the Pod People" was nowhere near to doing justice to the classic movie that the writers Ron Magid, Jay Marks and Leigh Scott so shamelessly had ripped off.

I have no intention of returning to finish watching "Invasion of the Pod People", and I would recommend that you watch the original movie over this at any time.

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.

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.

I watched the whole of Invasion of the Pod People with low expectations. Asylum makes rip-offs. But I didn't expect it to be this bad.

In terms of content, I can't figure out what we were supposed to see. Clothed humping? Naked women caressing each other? The movie was labeled (in a ten-pack) as a sci-fi movie, however it has elements of horror and random sex scenes thrown in, presumably just to appeal to the adult audience in the most effort-free way possible.

From a technical perspective, this movie is bad. The video looks decent but it's almost completely devoid of special effects. The audio is horrible -- the models' main office sounds like it's located right next to a loud washing machine. (And you KNOW it's the main office because the girls have nowhere else to go when they need to talk.) In outside scenes, people's voices are occasionally overpowered by the wind.

The dialog is horrible. Often I had to rewind and listen to the dialog again just to see if it made as little sense as I thought:

Zach: "I'm here to warn you. 'Cuz if you don't warn other people, there'll be nobody, like you, left." Melissa: "who?" Zach: "them."

Gun shop owner: "Maybe you should think about a shotgun, it only shoots in four directions... north, south, east, and west."

The girls' competence wavers drastically. One girl cannot figure out long-standing relational problems she has that are more than obvious to the viewers, and her friends. However she has a Sherlockian moment when she is able to accurately predict more about the aliens than even the audience knows.

But as the movie progresses, I start to wonder how horrible the pod people are (besides their tendency to constantly repeat "we just want to help you"), versus the regular people in this story. Before their transformations the men are hyperactive, the women are snobbish and whiny. Afterwards, everybody is extremely kind and easygoing. The Pod People seem to resort to violence only when absolutely necessary, feeling that gentle, kind coercion is the best option -- not bad for a race that's attempting to take over Earth.

Honest to goodness, after I watched that movie, I yearned for everyone to be a Pod Person -- no hammy acting, no annoying voices, no screwy dialogue.