Review: Starship Invasions

Telepathic aliens led by Christopher Lee come to Earth to conduct breeding experiments on humans. A kind of alien United Nations group tries to stop them, getting in touch with astronomer and sceptic (Robert Vaughn) for assistance.

 

Poverty-stricken Canadian sci-fi garbage from writer/director/co-producer Ed Hunt (the somewhat OK horror pic “Bloody Birthday”) from 1977. The same year that his long-time friend and co-star Peter Cushing was appearing in “Star Wars”, future Count Dooku himself Christopher Lee was barely containing his lack of give-a-shit whilst wearing black pyjamas with an oddball hoodie. I think this might just be his worst-ever film, even worse than “The Keeper” (another bargain-basement Canadian turd), “End of the World”, and “Police Academy: Mission to Moscow”. The film’s other star, Robert Vaughn is clearly bored shitless, too. Vaughn was a very fine actor like Lee, but when Robert Vaughn was bored and collecting a paycheck, it wasn’t difficult to detect. This film makes “Superman III” look like…well, “Superman II” at the very least. Yeah, it’s that bad. The funny thing is that Vaughn’s half-hearted performance is still better than the film deserves (For once I can’t say the same about Lee. He’s giving the film exactly what it deserves: Nothing).

 

It’s so cheaply done that you’d almost suspect it was a colourised Edward D. Wood Jr ‘classic’ from the 50s. Although some of the interiors look kinda interesting, the flying saucer looks like a fucking frisbee, and is clearly not very large. If you can’t afford anything more than Z-grade 1950s FX and it’s 1977, don’t make an alien invasion movie. Meanwhile, the aliens never open their mouths so all of Lee’s dialogue is looped. It’s absurd and the man looks miserable. So was I.

 

The annoying thing is that there are elements of the plot here that could’ve made for a fun sci-fi film in better hands with more funds. Here those ideas go entirely to waste in a film with a budget seemingly cheaper than an episode of “Thunderbirds”, “Blake’s 7” or “Dr. Who”. We also get a bizarrely inappropriate jazzy music score by Gil Melle (“The Andromeda Strain”, “Embryo”, “Blood Beach”) that sounds like something out of “The Streets of San Francisco”.

 

Utter garbage, it’s “Troll 2” in quality but minus the unintended laughs. An unqualified bottom-of-the-barrel stinker from an era of some pretty damn fine science-fiction films. From the point of view of a Christopher Lee fan, this humourless, joyless film is a disheartening experience. Were incriminating pictures involved in getting him and Robert Vaughn signed on for this shit?  

 

Rating: F

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