Galaxy Invader, The |
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 • USA • 1985 • 79m •   • Directed by: Don Dohler. • Starring: Richard Ruxton, Faye Tilles, George Stover, Greg Dohler, Anne Frith, Richard Dyszel, Kim Pfeiffer, Theresa Harold, Don Leifert, Glenn Barnes, Cliff Lambert, Jerry Schuerholz, Paul Wilson. • Music by: Norman Noplock.      An alien spacecraft illuminates the night sky as it plummets to Earth in a fiery crash. The ship's lone occupant: a scaly creature from beyond the stars. A band of leering rednecks discover the alien and see its capture as money in the bank, but these backwoods bruisers soon find themselves locked in mortal combat with the creature.
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Review:
The film centers around the Montague's, a highly dysfunctional, not entirely clever redneck family, who live in an isolated, farm house out in the wooded, rural, regions of Maryland. This family of five is dominated by the ever-affable, on-the-verge-of-dying-from-liver-failure, Joe Montague; a loathsomely, detestable, full-blown, alcoholic, country bumpkin. Joe's the kind of surly drunk who gets his jollies by yelling at and threatening his family on a daily basis - often with shotgun in hand. However, at the same time, it's also due to Richard Ruxton's incredibly entertaining performance, as the inimitable Joe Montague, that The Galaxy Invader really bring's home the laugh's! Joe's just a riot in virtually every scene he's in and time and again -with a supreme omnipotence- proves himself to be an A-rate scumbag; so much so in fact, that I've come to this conclusion - rarely, if EVER, has a more vivid depiction of a foul-tempered, red-neck been seen in the movies.
As Joe Montague, Richard Ruxton simply takes his role to the next-level and I very much wish he played nothing BUT roles like this, as the entertainment-value of his acting is through-the-roof! And then there's Joe's T-shirt... well, just watch the film, then you'll see what I mean; and while I'm on that note there's another thing you could bet on and that is had this movie taken place 100 years earlier old Joe would've been sporting a coon-skin cap. Betcha' money. Aside from Ruxton, there is another notable acting performance, Don Leifert's performance as the shady and scheming Frank Custor, whose almost as detestably smarmy as Joe - but not quite; both of their characters are prime examples of wretched red-neck's in-the-movies. The rest of the cast, whose acting is passable at best, is filled out by a familiar stable of regional actor's who had worked with Dohler before - including Dohler's son and daughter.
The plot of this movie involves an "alien being" (aka some very average-sized guy, clumsily running around in a TERRIBLE looking rubber suit) which landed it's ship (which we never see), in the woods, close to the house that Joe built. Predictably and considering the type of people it encounters shot's are fired, with little in the way of thought put behind their action's and well the first round goes to the humans - I must say it's a bit sad to see the Monatgue's representing the human race. Because of their instinctual irrationality and underlying greed things quickly get complicated, especially when Joe's friend and business partner Frank Custor comes onto the scene. After that, the next we see is hillbilly hi-jinks and a hootin' and hollerin' good time erupts out yonder in the woods; as a hunting party, put together by Joe and Frank, start their hunt for the alien. However, because of interference caused by a second party, Joe's plans don't pan out quite as he had hoped.
The effects seen in this movie, just like the suit, are dismal, in fact there even worse then some other Dohler flicks I've seen - and that's saying something. There is the cheap, plastic, alien gun and the glowing white orb, that acts as the guns power-source and then you have the pyro-technics (if that's the word you want to use here) used by Dohler's elite crew, which pretty much look's like fireworks to me - in any case whatever they used they look quite weak. This movie whether it was to save money or for the sake of convenience, was shot-on-video, which I can assume means either Beta or VHS tape - whichever, the films sub-par image quality is certainly suggestive of vintage, low-res, video as it's source - which is evidenced in every frame of this movie. This invariably means a grainy low-resolution image, combined with extremely poor contrast levels and because of that The Galaxy Invader looks unmistakably 80's to the max and not the better half of the 80's, either.
In the end The Galaxy Invader most definitely IS a cheap and crappy movie that, despite it's humble origin's, is quite entertaining - much more so than it has any right to be.
P.S. - I highly recommend the Rifftrax version, but either way this movie really brings the laughs, because oh it's bad!
Review by Idiot-Deluxe from the Internet Movie Database.
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