Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
LOOK TO THE SKIES, August 11, 2009
There is a certain member of movie fandom that loves old movies. And each genre has its own devotees. Classic musical fans love the MGM musicals. Horror fans the Universal classics. And science fiction fans love those bug eyed monsters invading earth from the stars. The film ALIEN TRESPASS pays homage to those films while placing a tongue firmly in cheek.
The story begins (in the extended version) with the grandson of the film's producer and the grandson of the film's star introducing the picture. Of course they carry on the fight that began with their grandfathers over the film and then allow it to begin. The film had been shelved for years and now they'd decided to release it.
The story begins with astronomer/professor Ted Lewis (Eric McCormack) watching the skies while cooking on the grill as a meteor shower begins. But when a large meteor lands nearby, he abandons his wife at home to investigate.
As we already know, the meteor was actually a spaceship crashing. And while we watch, an alien in space gear exits the ship and wanders about. When Lewis shows up, his mouth opens to scream but before we can hear the scene changes.
Cut to lovers lane where teens Dick and Penny are parked. They have seen the crash as well but think it was just a meteor. As Penny pushes away Dick's advances and encourages him to leave the area, they are confronted by a 6 foot tall, one eyed, tentacled creature. The care starts and they escape. But who to tell? No one will believe two teens in the 1950's.
The local police think it's all a prank when people begin missing and the teens tell their tale of a monster on the loose. But all the while Lewis, now possessed by the alien, hunts down this monster. With the help of waitress and aspiring artist Tammy, he tracks down the alien and explains what is going on.
It turns out the alien's name is Urp and he was transporting the Ghota to a prison planet when it forced his craft to crash. Now they have just a few hours before the Ghota divides and begins a quest for world domination based on its hunger. They only have a small amount of time to save the planet, but how can they do so with no help from the local law?
The movie plays it straight as if this actually was a film made during the science fiction craze of the fifties. Everything from the sets to the styles to the acting screams low budget B-movie cheese. The people who made those films truly thought they were making something special, which we now can recognize that they did. At the same time they were making some of the campiest messes ever placed on celluloid.
The movie doesn't knock those early films though. Instead it is paying tribute to the films that came before, giving a wink and a nod to film buffs along for the ride. The actors actually act as we recall the actors from that time period acting in these films. The monster is extremely low budget looking but functional. Amazingly enough the only thing that doesn't look lifted from that time period is the cinematography.
McCormack does a great job as grandfather/grandson. While the elder of the two spoke as if he was the greatest actor alive, McCormack shows his pompous side as is that of his grandson. Robert Patrick shows up as an obnoxious sheriff who takes the teens in town to task just for being young. Dan Lauria turns in a steady performance as the town sheriff who doesn't believe but begins to do so as the body count rises and pools of goo are left in the wake of the Ghota.
Directed by R. W. Goodwin who wrote several period piece episodes of THE X-FILES, the film shows his love of movies like THE BLOB and IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE with a touch of I MARRIED A MAN FROM OUTER SPACE tossed in. You get the sense he has a true admiration of the genre and perhaps can encourage a new generation to seek them out.
ALIEN TRESPASS isn't a perfect film. It also might not be for certain tastes. But it does offer an entertaining evening for rental that the entire family can watch together. Fun, homage and the confrontation between man and alien make for a film worth watching.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Enjoy It Coz We Won't See Many More Like It., August 20, 2009
Alien Trespass is a fun movie. It's a quirky film that playfully tries to pass itself off as a "lost" sci-fi epic from 1957 that has recently been discovered. Well, the bright color and limited use of computer effects blow that out of the water. Not to mention a character saying, "I gotta take a whiz". But this movie isn't trying to replicate a 50s film to the letter, instead it's done in the same style as far as the storyline goes, as well as the acting style.
The plot takes elements from classic 50s sci-fi films and puts them in a blender for an entertaining story. In the film, an intergalactic "federal marshal" named Urp lands on Earth to apprehend a Ghota, which looks like a large pickle with tentacles and one eye. Temporarily using the body of a pipe smoking astronomer, Ted Lewis, the spacecop clumsily makes his way through town, knowing practically nothing about how to interact with human beings. Meanwhile, the dreaded Ghota is going on a killing spree, eating everyone in it's path and leaving only slimy puddles behind. The disappearances get the police thinking the culprit may be Lewis, as his new and bizarre behavior is suspicious. Plus, there are various people including two teenage lovers, who have seen the Ghota and are trying to convince people. The only one who seems to believe the incredible story is a waitress at the local diner who teams up with Urp for the big showdown with the Ghota.
This film is a tribute and an homage, but it is not a parody or spoof exactly. I've never been all that fond of spoofs of this kind of material as they seem unnecessary. After all, you're trying to spoof something that was already funny to begin with. Since the acting and writing style here are in the vein of the 50s, the laughs don't come from wink-winks and nudge-nudges to the audience, but instead come from the same things that made you laugh at those old movies. The acting is impressive(especially from lead Eric McCormack) considering that trying to learn the acting style of this time period and genre can't be as easy as it looks.
It's not perfect by any means. I feel it should have been done in Black & White and eliminated the scarce computer graphics altogether, as it tends to go against the overall cheapness the movie is going for. Oh, well.
The disc has some nice extras with "vintage" interviews with the cast as well as legitimate interviews with director Goodwin and Eric McCormack.
Many folks are gonna walk away from this thinking it's terrible, especially if they have no clue what the whole thing was supposed to be. But to us oddballs that adore the schlocky sci-fi films of the 50s, Alien Trespass is a real treat.
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A very good homage to 50's sci-fi, July 27, 2009
When I saw that this movie was playing at a old time theater that my wife and I used to go to when we were first married in the 70's, sounds fun, lets go see it. Popcorn, drink, a real balcony and a 50's style sci-fi movie, what could be better. And for the actors, real "B" quality. For the most part, a real homage to sci-fi. Blob and It Came from Outer Space comes to mine. Unfortunately, Eric McCormack in trying to act like a 50's B actor, over acted his part. He seems to be posing. Look I'm Richard Carlson, no I'm Hugh Marlowe, no I'm Grant Williams, etc. Lot of fun at the theater. You can go back. Not sure if the prerelease price is worth it ($19.49).
Oh. For the story line see "It Came from Outer Space".
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