Customer Reviews

The Galaxy Invader [VHS]

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

In my humble opinion, this is the worst movie I have ever seen, as far as special effects, acting, directing, and dialog. But....for some odd reason, I Love It! It's not bad in a Beautician and The Beast or Monkey Trouble sort of way, it's actually so bad, it's hilarious. There are so many classically bad sections of this movie, it's a waste to try and describe them here. If you can respect ludicrous movies such as "Redneck Zombies" and "The Man in the Iron Mask", you'll love this little gem. Do yourself a favor and rent it at a video store or spend the 13 bucks and buy it here, you won't be sorry.

Warning: Unfit for human consumption!

This movie should never be watched by anyone, ever. It has long been available on VHS, but until now most people were safe, but no longer: I am afraid to report that "The Galaxy Invader" is now available on two different compilation DVD sets, and my advice to you is this: run away as fast as you can. I am a very devoted fan of extremely bad films, but this film treads in an area rarely seen: the movie so bad that it is excruciating.

I have no idea who thought this was a good idea, and I have even less of an idea about who thought these people could act. The film starts with the typical 1980s synthesizer-laden credit sequence reminiscent of "Space Mutiny" though with less craft and panache. The plot is vaguely like "Pod People" only not as intelligent or coherent. The premise is that a spaceship lands on earth near Harleyville (really) and a lone green occupant wanders around the countryside for a while alternately getting captured by and escaping from the stupidest rednecks in history. In the entire cast there is not a single person who can act, but at least the characters make up for their thespian ineptitude by being thoroughly disagreeable and wholly detestable.

The alien (or as the idiots term him "the green man") has a glowing ball device that somehow powers a hairdryer-like taser weapon that the rednecks want. During all this there is back story about a drunken father and his relationship with his family as well as a geeky student and a professor ("Dr. Tracy") who not only has the ugliest clothes you have ever seen, and not only drives the most ridiculous car you have ever seen, but is without any question the very worst actor you have ever seen.

Please pay particular attention to the sophisticated plan for capturing the green man put forth by the redneck posse. (Hint: it involves a lasso made of clothesline cord.) After they catch the green guy, they put him in a garage. An actual garage. What I'm saying here is that much of this movie was actually made in someone's garage. Eventually Dr. Tracy and his young cohort free the green man in one of the least ingenious plans ever and a chase ensues. The tide turns when a girl with Leif Garrett hair brings the ball and hairdryer to the alien and there is gunplay in the woods. Please also note the hand-to-hand tussle in the woods, which features the very worst fight choreography ever. The conclusion is not to be missed, as the alien guy sustains some heavy injuries (we think he's dead but can't be sure as this has happened about four or five other times), while the chief redneck gets done in by a cunning plan involving his skull, a rifle stock, and a mountain. This action culminates in the most fake looking dummy in history being tossed over a cliff during the "redneck plunge of death" sequence.

This movie is relentless. It is not only painful, but boring. It really and truly is in a class of films that are reserved exclusively for battle-hardened veterans of other truly pathetic films. Any movie that makes "Chickboxer" look good has got to be bad, and I would rather watch "Chickboxer" one hundred times followed by the entire Coleman Francis catalog than ever sit through "The Galaxy Invader" again. It's that bad.

This movie is just plain awful. The acting is horrible, the plot is dumb, and the special effects are beyond cheesy. In the pantheon of bad movies, this one has little in the way of redeeming characteristics and much in the way of groans.

An alien lands on earth for reasons that the movie never discusses. The alien looks something like the "Creature from the Black Lagoon," except he has a skimpy costume, which I am sure is highly attractive to other similar aliens, and his skin is bumpier, which I attribute to too much time in tanning salons. Unfortunately for this alien, he has landed in the middle of red-neck hell, the capital of which seems to be Harleyville, Maryland.

Given that the people in Harleyville seem to have little to do, someone spotted the alien's spaceship landing. The next thing you know, the local rednecks try to play ball with the alien. Then the locals try playing hide and seek at night with the alien. When the alien appears to be winning, the locals try to shoot the alien. Unfortunately, the alien's weapon is much more powerful and accurate than those of the locals, and shoots powerful fireworks that zoom all over the place and yet seem to be lethal, like old guy farts.

We get several subplots in this movie. There is the relationship between Carol Montague (Faye Tilles) and Michael Smith (Cliff Lambert), which red-neck father Joe Montague (Richard Ruxton) disapproves. We frequently see Carol and David running about trying to help the alien. Then there is Dr. Tracy (Richard Dyszel, who has also played Bozo the Clown in some local markets) and his former student David Harmon (Greg Dohler), who first spotted the alien ship landing. Dr. Tracy and David Harmon are interested in the scientific aspects of what they initially think is a meteor. How can you tell Dr. Tracy is a scientist? Well, he uttered the classic line, "My sources in the scientific community," when he referred to the nature of the meteor. Real scientists talk like that. Really. I am not kidding. Really. Never mind.

Then there is Joe Montague and Frank Custor (Don Leifert), who initially want the alien's ball, and then later want the alien because they see a great opportunity to make a bundle from selling the alien to Asians who want to make the alien into an aphrodisiac. Okay, I made that last part up, but they did want to sell the alien, and it could have been to Asians. Frank Custor also has a really hot girlfriend, Vicky Johnson (Theresa Harold), who is in a three-way competition with Frank and Joe to see which has intelligence closest to a box of rocks.

There are a few moments in the movie where there are almost moments of tension, but I was groaning so much that I failed to be tense. Scenes of the alien skulking in someone's basement I found puzzling. The fight scenes where everyone was moving slowly enough to make sure they really did not hit each other was like something from an awful Kung Fu movie. The stupidity of the majority of the actors in combination with the terrible acting turned this whole movie into a joke.

The best part of this 1985 movie is the music, which is full of synthesizers and rock music that seems to struggle to be 70s or 80s music; the music never really decides which. I occasionally wondered whether the music was trying to escape this movie.

There is a class of movies that are mediocre, but worth watching. Then there is a class of movies that are so bad that they become a kind of classic, such as Ed Wood's "Plan 9 from Outer Space." Between these two classes of movies is a class of just plain awful movies that should be allowed to disintegrate into fertilizer; this movie fits into this category.

A spaceship (don't worry, it's never shown) lands in the woods outside of Harleyville, USA. A college student sees it crash and calls his science professor for help. Together, they seek to make contact with the alien creature that has come out of the ship. Alas, the visitor has landed smack-dab in the middle of hillbilly country! Soon, every drunken slob with a shotgun is after him, trying to either steal his weapons or take his life! Will the poor E.T. survive? Can he "invade" before this town-ful of dimwits annihilates him?? Watch and see for yourself. I kept hoping the creature would blast the whole town to smithereens! GALAXY INVADER has a cast of characters who definitely skipped acting school! Don Dohler wrote, directed, and "stars" in this stale pile of space-poo. Oh my...

They just do not build space ships the way they used to, so this one has to make a pit stop on earth. The occupant gets wrapped up in a local family squabble. More deadly than army tanks is a domestic squabble with rednecks (from Maryland). In the tussle the local baddy and a floozy just may get bumped off.

Will the visitor (green man not to get mixed up with our local green man) get away?
Or will Joe take a flying leap?

Ether ways we will be intrigued with this look in to domestic co-dependency.

This film was SHOT entirely on location in Maryland.

Some where out there is a torn T-shirt that was the key prop and possible the best actor in the film. I wonder what it would bring in auction.

Alien spaceman, who looks like a cross between Swamp Thing and the Sleestaks from "Land of the Lost", crashes in a backwoods Maryland forest and gets chased around by busch guzzling rednecks intent on selling him. To whom exactly? Typical disfunctional redneck family drama with an alien subplot thrown in. The middle of the film seems to drag forever. The music is cheesily dated and the acting is sub-porn level. GI is included on the Mill Creek Sci-Fi Classics package, and it's defintely one of the clunkers in the lot. Could be entertaining after eating mushrooms and drinking a bottle of sangria, but you'll get more out of watching the designs on the wallpaper move or trying to write the next great American road novel and taking off for LA, forgetting you have to work at McDonalds in the morning.

A alien crash lands it's spaceship on the surface of Earth and group of drunken rednecks find out that he exists so then the drunken rednecks keep pursuing this creature. They eventually capture it but then it eventually escapes. Also the dick of the group named Joe played by the not so talented Richard Ruxton finds an interest in the creatures weapon which is a gun and there is a white ball which makes it power up so it can shoot it. What the hell?! That creature looked like if you meshed together Swamp Thing with the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Not mistaken the Creature from the Blue Lagoon which was Brooke Shields but you get my drift. Mix in a little Toxic Avenger while you're at it and that's what the ridiculous creature looked like. It even took a pose when it shot someone! The music is classic but this isnt. It could be one of the worst films ever made and I'll jot that down in my book. Everything stinks in this movie. This was made the year I was born!! NO!!

Galaxy Invader is a home made movie written and directed by Don Dohler that I first heard about as a kid living in New England. The news had a piece on the movie, mostly because it was a movie made in Maryland by local people. I later saw it as the credits of Pod People, which was being shown by MST3K, and it made my memory jump. The scene where the crashing spaceship causes the car to stall is the same one the news casters showed AND was on the MST3K tape. But it wasn't till years later, when I saw George Stover in the movies Stakes and Vampire Sisters, both Don Dohler films, did it hit me. Also the fact that a few of the people, in the behind the scenes features for those DVDs, talked about the movie kind of helped me remember also.
So I went on a search. And found it on VHS. As of now it is also on DVD. Anyway the plot is simple. Alien crashes. Some people try to help him and some want to sell him for money. The fun is in the delivery and, boy, is it funny. Also the guy playing the college professor somehow reminded me of the guy who was Captain 20 when I lived in Virginia. Go figure.
Not only is it cool, in that cult classic kind of way, but because it was in the background of my life, dancing just out of the corner of my eyes, I feel like I grew up with this film even if I only saw it, from start to finish, this year.