Today I’m watching Don Dohler’s The Galaxy Invader from 1985, which the video box claims to be “Science Fiction Gold,” and is pretty much guaranteed not to be. The fullest synopsis I could find is the following:
“When an alien is forced to crash-land his spaceship on the Earth’s surface, he finds himself relentlessly pursued by a bunch of drunken rednecks.”
It was a tough call to watch this one, honestly, when I had such a large selection of movies promising “beautiful women,” “a clan of beautiful women,” “a stone-age beauty,” “wild women,” and “lost women,” and all this has to offer is drunken rednecks and one alien. Nevertheless, it promises to be brain-stompingly stupid.
00:01: Cue ‘80s synth score during opening credits.
01:00: A car is driving through the desert when a cartoon meteor-like object flies across the sky and strikes the ground.
02:00: We’ve got the alien’s perspective as it walks through the forest after crash landing.
02:30: A redneck that saw the hand-drawn meteor/UFO is calling another redneck who apparently is a redneck expert in these matters and also a horrible actor. It’s hard to tell, but no one appears to be drunken yet.
The expert is heading out to the site.
04:00: Alien-POV in some redneck house. Redneck husband gets a knife to protect his wife, enters basement. 80’s synth chords make it tense.
05:00: We keep getting POV’s but I’m not sure whose. Alien? Redneck? Knife? I don’t know.
7:00: Alien pops out! Synth chords go crazy! He kills both redneck and his wife, meanders out of house.
7:30: Cut to redneck dinner. Rednecks arguing about coffee and the social life of the daughter. Father is definitely drunken, and slaps the daughter when she points it out.
Father chases daughter with a shotgun, wears torn white t-shirt. Now things get all Shining as Dad hunts the girl through the woods for way too long. He stumbles to accentuate his drunkenness, and — op, there’s the alien. Just standing there.
Dad shoots the alien and it runs away, leaves some kind of pulsing egg. The rednecks (Dad and son, JJ) are far too casual about this very close encounter.
10:00: We learn that this is the fourth time the father has chased the girl with a gun; her boyfriend is mildly perturbed by this.
13:00: Redneck UFO expert shows up, talks to kid that saw the crash. These two don’t seem prone to drunkenness.
16:00: My attention wanders for a moment, but a car just pulled up to redneck house and a couple got out. Not sure what their deal is. I think the girl is supposed to be an east-coast city gal, but her accent is horrible. They’re there to check out the egg thing.
They claim it has a button and does something incredible, but you can’t be near it when it’s on. So they poke it with a stick. Turns out it’s a smoke bomb, or something.
18:00: Drunken rednecks begin to hatch a plot to catch the alien in order to make money off of it. City girl, Vicky, is hesitant, but easily swayed by the prospect of money, like all city girls.
20:00: JJ has the egg thing and — there’s the alien again. It attacks him and takes the egg.
21:00: Bar scene. Everyone gawks at Vicky. Rednecks wax hillbilly and practice wearing trucker hats. Guy with Vicky recruits them all to hunt the alien. Drunken father still hasn’t changed out of his torn white t-shirt, and chances are he won’t.
24:00: Cut to drunken father running around hilariously for no apparent reason, looking confused. The children express for the third or fourth time how much they hate their father.
Father yells at JJ for losing the egg, seems to be unsure of whether the camera is rolling or not.
25:00: Remember when I said Santa Claus Conquers the Martians may be the worst movie ever? God, was I wrong.
27:00: The rednecks gather at night, drunken, to hunt the alien.
27:30: I lose interest and wander to the kitchen to talk with my roomate about the tiramisu coffee creamer she just bought. I’m skeptical. French vanilla is about as crazy as I like to get with my coffee creamers.
30:00: I come back and haven’t missed much. Kid and UFO expert are in the bar, and so is Vicky, who doesn’t seem to be wearing pants. She’s flappin’ her mouth about the alien-hunt and UFO expert is interested; I’m not. She tells them about it and they head out. I get some cold pizza.
Sometimes the camera doesn’t even have the characters fully in frame. It’s like this movie was actually made by drunken rednecks. Or aliens. Let’s see what else Don Dohler has made, because that’s sure to be more interesting than this movie:
The Alien Factor
Fiend
Nightbeast
Blood Massacre
Alien Factor 2: The Alien Rampage
Dead Hunt
40:00: Now there’s a shoot-out with the alien and the rednecks, who are hootin’ and hollerin’; also drunken.
But ya know what would be more fun? Trying to make porn titles out of Don Dohler’s movies:
The Alien Factor is Sex
Sex Fiend
Nightbeast
Blood Massacre (After several traumatizing attempts, I refuse to do this one.)
Alien Factor 2: The Alien Factor is Still Sex
Dead…oh, come on now
It seems I’m horrible at writing porn titles.
45:00: The rednecks have captured the alien and have the egg thing again, as well as the alien’s gun. They plan to sell it to the Russians?
50:00: Kid and UFO expert are trying to save the alien, I think. They break into redneck’s garage, where the alien is tied up. As they study the restrained alien, it strikes me that this character is really lacking depth. Why did it come to earth? Where did it come from? What are it’s motives? Why does it wear suspenders without pants? All questions that demand answers.
Now they’re friends with the alien, and they run, again hilariously, out of the garage. This may have just turned into the best buddy movie ever. Redneck father still refuses to change out of his torn white t-shirt.
55:00: Oh my. A drunken redneck just shot UFO expert. Oh! And he tries to shoot the kid, but the alien pops out and shoots the redneck. Then another redneck shoots the alien, steals all his shit, and scampers into the woods, as rednecks are wont to do. That was intense. But not to the kid, however, whose level of dismay and trauma is at about “dropped my ice cream on the ground,” as opposed to the more appropriate “my friend was shot by a redneck as we were escaping with an alien, who was then shot protecting me.”
65:00: I think the movie should end now. I just don’t see it getting any better than this.
I’ve now tried the tiramisu creamer, and it’s a bit much for me, as expected. I heard some screaming from the television while I was in the kitchen, but couldn’t care less what happened. Redneck father is still wearing his torn shirt, still drunken. He’s wandering around for no good reason, much like the plot of this movie.
75:00: Do these people even know they’re in a movie? Is this just home video spliced with footage of a guy in an alien suit? Are rednecks really that drunken?
78:00: Vicky is such a hoochie in her hot pants and shiny shirts. Drunken father starts making moves, and by making moves I mean near-raping. She runs away and—oh god. He just shot her. He shot Vicky. What the hell. And now he’s drinking more.
You know, with the alien dead, I’m really not sure why this movie is still going. Now it’s just rednecks drinking, fighting, and shooting each other to the sweet atmospheric chords of a synthesizer.
Don Dohler porn titles, round two:
The Alien XXX Factor
Fiend Who Has Sex a Lot
Nightbeast, Naked
Blood Massacre (Still not doing it.)
Alien XXX Factor 2: The Alien Sexcapade
Hed Hunt
85:00: Daughter, boyfriend, and kid have stolen the egg thing and are being chased through the woods by drunken redneck father. They’re on the edge of a cliff, and he forces them to drop the egg. They back off whi— the alien is back. It shoots redneck father and redneck father shoots it, fights with JJ.
87:00: They fight while redneck family watches. Father has JJ on the edge of the cliff, strangling him, when—oh sweet moses—redneck grandmother, in slow motion, picks up a rifle and, in slow motion still, swings it, in very very slow motion, with double, triple, quadruple takes, and knocks redneck father off the cliff.
A dummy, apparently made of sticks and clothing, falls off the cliff and the father is dead at the bottom. He goes out of this world as he came into it: in his torn white t-shirt.
And it’s over.
There was just no reason for that movie to be made. I feel a little sick. Here are Don Dohler’s movie’s as Christmas specials:
The Alien Toy Factory
Tinsel Fiend
Santa Claus, the Nightbeast
Blood Massacre (There’s nothing I can do with this that isn’t horribly disturbing.)
Alien Toy Factory 2: The Alien Egg Nogg Rampage
Elf Hunt
-Kyle Adams
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