From the depths of interstellar space... here comes a small selection of publicity/press kit stills from director Ed Hunt's Canadian tax shelter sci-fi mash-up of Star Wars space opera and Close Encounters UFOlogy, Starship Invasions, starring Robert Vaughn (Hangar 18) and Christopher Lee.
This one's still not legally available on DVD in the U.S. (as far as I know)...
Is this the one that has a housewife cutting something and she cuts her finger? There was some sci-fi flick my dad brought me to sometime after Star Wars had come out and it freaked me out.
ReplyDeleteYes
DeleteYes- this was the one where the bad aliens were subjecting the Earth to some type of Neuro-depressor field that caused people to commit suicide.
DeleteComplete with good guy aliens studying the primitives , sabotage, and our old SF b-movie friend Robert Vaughn - this time playing a good guy.
As others have said it was not very good but-while Robert Vaughn was a basic staple I always wonder how many people got their acting starts in these movies.
While certainly quite different than Close Encounters, it also borrows a lot from actual UFO lore, in this case more from contactees.
ReplyDeleteI just barely remember this flick, but I remember digging it :)
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/kqpZpuNqZEo
ReplyDeleteThis movie is one of those "it's so bad, it's good" flicks. If it didn't show up on MST3K, it certainly should have at some point. I don't know if I should call the production "ambitious" but it's definitely worth watching for Christopher Lee alone.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rxe6qI429F4
Ah, this film. This film made me very sad. It was the first time a film had had that effect on me.
ReplyDeleteNot for anything that happens onscreen, or in the story. I just felt sad for the people involved, like they'd tried their darndest to make a good film, or at least a decent film, or at least a not-terrible film, or at least a not-immediately-forgetable terrible film. And they failed on all levels.
There's a look of terror on the bit players in their badly-delivered lines that kinda' drove it home: This isn't an actor, this is someone's uncle, and he's really trying to to blow it for his nephew, and it's just making him blow it worse.
It truly is an extraordinarily poor film; and all the better for it. Originally distributed by Warner Bros. in North America, I contacted the Warner Archive earlier this year in the hopes that an original aspect ratio DVD might be offered, only to learn that they no longer own the rights to the film.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure who does, but somebody like Shout Factory or some other purveyor of unusual cinema needs to release this one. It's right up there with THE DAY TIME ENDED (aka VORTEX) as holy grail for me...
Christopher Lee also played the leader of a group of aliens trying to conquer the Earth in the Charles Band production, End of the World (also released in 1977), but I'm not sure which is the worst movie.
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