Following the failure of Lifeforce (at least commercially, I’m on the side of it being an interesting affair), Tobe Hooper turned to a remake of 1953’s Invaders from Mars. After several writers took a shot at the script, Dan O’Bannon (the USC film student who famously created Dark Star with John Carpenter, left for Europe in the hopes of making Dune with Alejandro Jodorowsky, then came back to the U.S. to write Alien, Dead and Buried and Total Recall, write and direct Return of the Living Dead and then die way too young from Crohn’s Disease) and Don Jakoby.

Instead of the adult oriented gore and sex that Lifeforce presented (which shows up here as a movie within a movie, main character David is watching the film and man, he’s super young for that movie), Invaders is a return to the themes of 1950’s science fiction. That said — whereas the originally intended directed Steven Spielberg would have focused on the sweetness with a slight edge, Hooper delivers plenty of edge. In fact, this entire film feels like a nightmare that the main character, David Garden (Hunter Carson, the son of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 writer LM Kit Carson and Karen Black, who we’ll get to in a minute) can’t wake up from. It’s unnerving the sheer torture that this kid goes through!

After watching a meteor shower, David sees a spaceship land behind his house. Throughout the film, the entire town gets taken over by aliens, including his parents (Timothy Bottoms and SNL’s Laraine Newman). It’s true terror — what child doesn’t have the fear that his parents will no longer love him? It’s even worse when they coldly plot your doom.

They’re not the only ones — every teacher is against him, none more than the meanest teacher in school, Mrs. McKeltch. She’s gone from that to something much, much worse — the human face of the alien invasion.

The only person who believes David is the school nurse, Linda Magnuson (Karen Black, The Pyx, Burnt Offerings, Killer Fish and so much more). Together, they rally the Marines, learn how the alien guns work, defeat the Supreme Intelligence and blow up the UFO.

Or do they? Much like its 1953 inspiration, David wakes up and the entire movie is revealed to be a dream. However, this isn’t a William Cameron Menzies film (the director of the original, whose name is given to the elementary school in this film); this is Tobe Hooper, who ends the film just like it began. David sees the UFO land again, runs to his parent’s bedroom and screams as an alien noise is heard. There is no resolution — just the return of abject terror.

This part is particularly interesting to me, as I’ve had the same dream of a UFO showing up outside my window since I was a child. I always wake up screaming, knowing that I’m looking at an object made from pure evil.

Invasion is an odd duck. Horror buffs wanted to see Hooper make another The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (they’d get their wish, but probably not in the way they’d want it within a few weeks). Moviegoers didn’t know who Hooper was enough to be a mainstream draw (Poltergeist was made three years before Hooper got his three picture Cannon deal). And fans of the original probably wouldn’t be pleased with the darker bent of this remake (despite original star Jimmy Hunt making an appearance as the police chief and the original Supreme Intelligence showing up on a warehouse shelf).

That’s not to say it’s a bad film. It’s packed with elaborate practical effects from Stan Winston (who was working on Aliens at the same time) and John Dykstra, including the amazing alien drones. The drones are literally two actors walking independently under a suit, so their movements feel more feel than today’s computerized creatures. The Supreme Intelligence doesn’t look silly; instead it’s a mix of menace and cartoony evil, like a Mars Attacks! trading card brought to life. And the film is replete with references to other films — it takes place in Santa Mira, home to Invasion of the Body Snatchers (and Halloween 3: Season of the Witch) and the house that the Gardners live in was built for 1948’s Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House.

This movie lost a lot of money — it made $4.8 million on a $12 million dollar budget. You know who did make money on this? Science fiction fan and sometimes writer/producer/director Wade Williams, who bought the original film in 1978. Airing the original film via television, cable and video releases made plenty of money. Add in the rights to this — Williams got a producer credit — and he may have made up to fifty times what he paid for the film. This isn’t the only film in the Wade Williams collection. He also owns the distribution rights to the films of Ed Wood, Robot Monster, The Killer Shrews, Bava’s Hercules in the Haunted World and a near infinite amount of other films.

Maybe that’s why Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, those insane masters of moviemaking that made up Cannon, hated the film. They claimed it was nothing like what they were promised. That said — Hooper often spoke favorable of his time with Cannon, comparing it to the old studio system days.

With two films down and his back to the wall, Hooper had to turn back to some old friends and his old neighborhood. Within a few weeks (he made the film in June and it was released in August), he’d make the film everyone wanted to see anyway — The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. But that’s a story for another time.

When you’re 14 years old, you can’t yet comprehend that a movie can be a total piece of shit. Seeing the Mandroid rolling around, knowing that a ninja was in this movie, I lost my mind and couldn’t wait to see it. But when you’re 14, you often are at the mercy of your family’s viewing choices (look, it was a different world in 1986. We only had one TV to watch movies on). I would have to wait 31 years to see this film and I can honestly tell you — it is a complete piece of shit.

It’s an entertaining piece of shit, though.

Written by Paul De Meo and Danny Bilson (Zone Troopers, The Rocketeer, Trancers), the film is a mashup of RoboCop and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Man. Let me see if I can summarize the wacky goings on.

A mad scientist, Abbot Reeves (Roy Dotrice, Father from TV’s Beauty and the Beast and Mozart in Amadeus) has invented time travel and intends to take over Ancient Rome. He also has a Mandroid (Patrick Reynold, the grandson of tobacco company founder, RJ Reynolds) who he wants to dismantle for some reason. Reeve’s assistant, Dr. Takada helps the Mandroid escape. Just before he dies, he tells him that Col. Nora Hunter (Denise Crosby, granddaughter of Bing and Tasha Yar from Star Trek: The Next Generation)  can help him stop Reeves’ evil plan. She also has a cute robot named S.P.O.T. for the kids to enjoy.

To get there, they’ll need a boat. And a captain, named Indiana Han Jones. Err, I mean Harry Fontana (Andrew Prine, The Lords of Salem, The Town That Dreaded Sundown, Amityville II: The Possession). They battle some other riverboat captains who seem like the cheapest villains ever, then some cavemen, then they meet a ninja who just happens to be Doctor Takada’s son because there are no coincidences, then they battle Reeves, who has a new set of armor that is even more advanced than the Mandroid. He looks like a centurion and wants to go back and destroy Caesar, but Mandroid sacrifices himself and they send him hundreds of millions of years into the past (which seems like a horrible idea if you think of all the things he could do, like just randomly smashing every amphibian that tries to walk out of the water).

Boom. The movie ends. Smash cut to credits.

Obviously, this film inspired 2011’s Manborg, which was created by Steven Kostanski and Jeremy Gillespie (the same team that crafted the insanely wonderful The Void).

It’s on the same blu ray Shout Factory release as The Dungeonmaster. Again — if you have enough beer and other substances that I will not judge you for having, you’ll probably enjoy this. Or have to explain to your wife why you like it so much.

The director of A Dolphin’s Tale and A Dolphin’s Tale 2, Skippy from Family Ties and one of the stars of A Chorus Line made the most metal film ever. Let that sink in.

I grew up a fat, bespeckled child in a small town with crushing self esteem issues, a love for gore movies and a sarcastic mind that loved the way people treated me when I started dressing all in black. Every single situation that Eddie Weinbauer (Marc Price, the previously mentioned Skippy) endures in this film…I lived it. If a monster Glenn Danzig (Verotika) could take over shop class and kill my tormentors, I would have gladly welcomed such mayhem and menace.

Eddie is a big fan of Sammi Curr, a superstar who went to the same high school Eddie is in, was tormented and bullied the same way Eddie is, became a big star and then died in a mysterious fire. Radio DJ Nuke (Gene “inventor of the devil horns*” Simmons, who played a great transgendered bad guy in Never Too Young to Die while wearing his girlfriend Cher’s clothes) gives Eddie the only vinyl copy of Sammi’s satanic masterwork “Songs in the Key of Death.”

Eddie does exactly what I’d do: he listens to the record and falls asleep. He has a crazy dream about the fire that killed Curr and awakens to the album playing backwards, telling him how to gain revenge on the bullies that torment him.

Eddie chickens out though — he doesn’t want to kill the jocks who have made his life so rough. Sammi takes matters into his own hands, creating an electric surge that allows him to escape the record and come back to our reality. Eddie responds by smashing his stereo. Sammi’s response is as fucking perfect as it gets: “No false metal.”

Sammi’s friend Roger gets involved and unwittingly plays a cassette — fucking metal — at the school dance, causing Sammi to leap out of a guitar amp and take the stage. The crowd goes wild before Sammi starts killing audience members, shooting lightning at them and revealing his burned face. Holy shit — I saw this scene at the drive-in this year and the exuberance of hearing Fastaway blasting from car stereos in the fog at 5 AM is an experience I recommend to every single person reading this.

Can Eddie stop Sammi from being played on the radio and attacking everyone that hears it? Of course. It’s an ’80s horror movie. But man — I’m all from more Sammi Curr (sadly, Tony Fields died of AIDS in 1995).

Oh I forgot – Ozzy is a preacher in this that Sammi attacks. It’s a small cameo, just like Gene Simmons’ role, but that doesn’t stop my DVD cover from claiming they starred in this.

If you’re an 80s metal fan (and if not, man, thanks for reading this far), there are so many band logos and posters to spot in this, from the expected like Anthrax and KISS to the out of left field like Raven, Exciter and Savatage. You’ll also be much more likely to not dismiss this film as a piece of shit.

Me? I quote from this film almost every day. “The bait is you. Let the big fish hook themselves. You’re the bait. The bait is you.”

BY THE WAY…check out my friend The Eccentric Owl over on You Tube.

If you like what I write about, you’ll love what he has to say. Plus, you can always join a great Facebook group, Cult Movie Utopia for more of the same.

Update: Upon the August 14, 2020, death of UFO and ex-Fastway bassist and founder Pete Way, we reposted this review with a career tribute-forward to Pete. So, if you’d like to learn a little bit more about Pete’s brief “supergroup” tenure with Motorhead’s Fast Eddie Clark and Humble Pie’s Jerry Shirley, do check it out.

*Dio has always claimed that he got the gesture from his Italian grandmother, who claimed it warded off the evil eye.

The trailer for this film had appeared in a few compilations and every time Becca and I saw it, we thought, “That movie looks so much better than the title.” Well, we were sort of right.

Sorority House Massacre is the only film Carol Frank ever directed. Before this, she was the Assistant Director on 1982’s The Slumber Party Massacre. Both films are incredibly similar, with young women partying all alone in a house until their boyfriends — and an anonymous male killer — show up. They even barricade a door with a dressed in both films. The influence goes so deep that the characters in Sorority are watching Slumber Party as the film within the film.

Where this film really becomes a carbon copy is its near worship of Halloween and Halloween 2, down to our heroine, Beth, being stalked by her brother, Bobby. There’s an attempt at style here, with match shots and cuts between the two of them to show how they are linked. There’s a definite Elm Street vibe here, as 1986 was late for the slasher genre. But without the awesome look of The Shape, it’s boring. I was half waiting for the scene where Bobby is knocked out the window for them to look outside and his body to be gone with a music stinger.

If you like 80s fashion, then by all means, seek out this film. There’s a great scene where the richest girl leaves the house and everyone tries on her clothes. It’s a moment that gives the film some nudity for the producers, some horrible library music for those that love 80s schmaltz and plenty of sweet, sweet shoulderpads and pantsuits for those that like that sort of thing (Becca).

I felt like there was a movie in here yearning to break free, to reject the urge to copy and become a strange American giallo of its own. It gets close, but if you have the same wish as me, prepare to be frustrated. My theory is that there are two budgets in life: money and time. You can get this movie relatively inexpensively, but you’d be better off watching any number of better constructed slashers.