Galaxy Invader (1985)

Cast:

Richard Ruxton is Joe Montague
Faye Tiller is Carol Montague
George Stover is J.J. Montague
Greg Dohler is David Harmon
Anne Frith is Ethel Montague
Richard Dyszel is Dr. William Tracy

What the box says:

An alien is forced to crash-land his spaceship on the Earth's surface, somewhere in a swampy rural area of the Southern United States. Some local rednecks encounter the alien and get the idea to pursue it and either capture or kill it. What they don't realize is the alien is armed with advanced weaponry and can defend itself.

Plot:

A meteor crashes through a starfield until it crashes into Earth.

Shame Indutrial Light & Magic refused to do the effects for low budget movies in the mid-1980s... Something gets out and wanders into the woods.

David driving around spots the meteor crashing. He calls his teacher, Dr. Tracy.

Elsewhere, a couple looks through there basement for a suspicious noise when the alien attacks them.

How'd I get talked into this movie, should have been a wookie..

A redneck family is having breakfast.

Came to breakfast wearin' a shirt. IT's mah best un, innit that good nough fur ye... Joe, the drunken dad, is mad at his daughter, Carol. She gets chased out of the house with her dad and his rifle. He spots the alien, shooting it. The alien drops some sort of orb and runs off. Carol meets her boyfriend, Mike. (No Brady Bunch jokes implied...)

David and Dr. Tracy reach the crash site.

Joe is convinced that the orb is going to worth a lot of money. He shows it to his friend, Frank. They realize the green man who had the orb would be worth more. However, they've got to get the alien alive. They head off to gather a posse.

The alien is able to knock out JJ, Joe's son, and retrieve the orb.

Joe and Frank head to the local bar.

It's true. I saw a Green Space Man which thankfully didn't probe me... They're able to talk a number of drunken guys interested in a mysterious hunt. Later, Joe learns that JJ lost the orb.

David and Dr. Tracy decide to call it quits for the night and head to the bar. They hear about a couple of locals on some sort of strange hunt from Frank's wife, Vicki, and head back to the woods.

Frank, Joe (ok, Hardy Brothers jokes are hard to ignore...), and the posse ready to search the woods in the night for the alien. Things don't look so good once the alien starts using his blaster rifle which starts the posse to open fire. Frank and Joe are able to lasso and capture the alien.

I'm never going to heard the end of this from Klatuu The heroic duo decide it's better to bury the dead hunters and not pay their families. David and Dr. Tracy are able to trail where the alien is being kept.

Frank and Joe are able to test the alien's gun. Greedy and drunk shouldn't be allowed to fire laser pistols.

The next day, David adn Dr. Tracy are able to free the alien. Frank and Joe chase them in the woods. Carol grabs the alien's pistol and is able to return it to the alien. Frank is able to kill Dr. Tracy. Afterwards, the alien is able to blast Frank. Joe shoots the alien and regains the laser pistol.

David runs into Carol. They meet with Mike and plan to regain the gun and return it back to the alien, again...

The next day, back at the house of drunken redneckness, Joe finds his wife and all the kids are gone.

Maybe, I should be on that bachelor show... Vicki, stops by wanting to know what happened to Frank. Well, Joe isn't quite the most romantic guy when he tries to put the moves on Vicki. She runs from him but he is able to shoot her with the alien gun.

The family is meeting to get the alien weapon away from Joe. The great plan requires the family to stall Joe while David, Carol, and Mike grab the gun to return it back to the alien. Well, the family isn't able to stall Joe for very long who almost starts chasing after those that took his gun.

He catches up to them in the woods and holds them at riflepoint. The alien shows up and gets shot and disappears. The big battle, Joe versus Mike. For a drunken middle-aged guy, Joe, he is able to overpower a guy half his age. Things aren't looking good for Mike, until, Ethel, Joe's wife, clubs him in the back of the head with a tree branch and is knocked off a cliff. (Can see the dummy used...)

Don't even get the evil Hans Gruber throw from Die Hard

What I say:

A direct to video movie that used to fill the shelves of video stores since it was dated as 1985. However, the video's color is so washed it looks like something from the 1970s as few copies of copies down the video generation line. Want a movie with an alien that pops up a few times and more arguing family than a Jerry Springer episode about a family reunion? First off, this is not meant to be any sort of insult to any part of the Southern part of the country especially since the movie was made in Maryland. Insult to rednecks, hillbillies, or those at the trailer parks that get dragged away from the trailers on COPS.

When the main character is drunker than a frat boy on Spring Break, you can't expect much from such an intellectual juggernaut. Wearing a t-shirt with a hole torn in the front the entire movie that is implied to be over several days doesn't exactly create the idea of any suavely dressed gentleman. A shotgun-wielding guy chasing his daughter around isn't going to win "Father of the Year". What can be said when the strategic and tactical genius of Larry the Cable Guy would make the movie more believable?

OK the idea that some may be curious enough to see what captain Torn T-shirt might be rambling about some thing that will be worth big money...A group of guys wander around in the woods at night without any flashlights and starting to shoot might make some sense if they were as drunk. Well, they were...

Just to debunk any idea that I'm a total negative person let this be my attempt at optimism. Can anything good be said about this movie? The characters are better than those in Cabin Fever. Drunk-Joe's way of keep talking about money gave a Stephen King as Jordy Verill in Creepshow (the hick who finds the meteor with his own terrible conclusion) vibe. This may have been the only movie where the main female character, Carol, didn't fall hopelessly in love with the hero, David, or dump her boyfriend for hero-boy.

The 1940s and the 1950s had all the jungle movies with the gorillas. The effect was a guy in a gorilla suit. Later, sci-fi movies with the aliens took over and those lame alien suits came around. Think it is safe to say that the alien suit is no-where as memorable as H.R. Giger's Alien. This alien isn't as memorable as Ro-Man from Robot Monster or even Trumpy from Pod People (Strangely enough some footage of Galaxy InvaderPod People).

A dummy tossed off a cliff with it's limbs flailing in every direction sort of takes away any thought of realism. The alien's laser gun looks less realistic than a 1970s Star Wars storm Trooper rifle. What am I saying? Any Crash Test Dummy would look more realistic than what was used in this movie. However, 80 previous minutes of an alien being caught tied up and losing his blaster should have already disconnected one from the mere concept of reality...

The movie is awfully repetitive to just pad the run time and when the run time has to be padded just to get to 80 minutes, that's pretty bad. If an alien that is able to lose its power supply and laser pistol repeatedly, no wonder its ship crashed into a planet, Earth. The main characters either free the alien or attempt to return its gun twice. Was the alien some sort of scout for a military invasion? That might explain why it got rid of the first couple. Yes, I'm trying to read too much into a 25 year old sci-fi movie that is only remembered for showing up in the 100 sci-fi movie DVD sets.

Quotable Dialogue
"Don't think it was any kind of man, JJ?"
"None of your business, punk."
"I'll bet he came to see that thing from the green man."
"Anne Montague, I've told you - there's no such thing as a green man!"
"This green thing came down and touched me!"
Morals of the Story
Torn t-shirts are stylish.
Energy orbs must be activated with pointy sticks.
One must get boozed up before night-hunting.
Don't bring flashlights with you when chasing extraterrestrials at night.