User reviews

How can one write a script and produce a movie without one entertaining moment. Film is supposed to be visual in nature and this has people sitting around talking the whole time. And it's no "My Dinner with Andre." Something is killing the people of earth. It's spreading. Some people, trapped in some pretty cold environs (Canada?) are left to try to figure it out. That's all they ever do. Try to figure it out. They have no plan. They have no vitality. The aliens never confront them, to speak of, and so we don't even know what's going on. The outdoorsy scientist has a theory, but it could just be a bunch of hooey. The conclusion is about as stupid as anything I've seen in years. How could someone get the money to put together such a snoozer. If you can't compete with the big boys, at least tell a decent story. As with so many of these, there are long treks through the snow and a snowmobile trip that goes for about ten minutes with nothing happening.

INVASION FROM INNER EARTH is one of those "non-movies" made during the 1970s. A "non-movie" is a film that: A) can be described as regional filmmaking. B) no budget. C) no recognizable actor. D) probably made by students. E) it's a genre movie, usually sci-fi or horror, that's very ambitious (in this case, UFOs and invasions) even if it can barely afford to pay for film stock! F) the soundtrack is a collection of stock music (the main theme was good though). G) was probably released in one or two theaters somewhere in and around where the film was made (hence, the regional aspect of the flick). H) the advertising (or video box cover) is always deceptive. There's no mention in the script that the aliens are from inside the earth, which makes me wonder why did they bothered to give it that title.

There were a lot of "non-movies" made in the 1970s (and in the 1980s, they morphed into the "direct-to-video" category) and IFIE epitomizes these kind of obscure, regional movies few people saw when they were made. The film itself is not very good. There's just no story. And what story there is doesn't make much sense. The dialogue is at times painfully bad. The direction hardly creates any tension. And the ending is inexplicable. But as bad as it is, the film is totally harmless, and in a certain weird way, as some sort of quaint charm to it.

Apparently, after a worldwide search for the perfect script writer, director Bill Rebane happened upon a little known writer named Barbara J. Rebane to pen his vision. Where he discovered her is unknown to me, but the two of them created magic together.

She took two bold steps in this film, one original and one copied later with a much higher budget.

First, she broke the survivor-typecast protocol that most writers would dare not violate. Rather than give longevity to the handsome brooding Native American or the outdoorsy Canadian, she gives the nod to the chunky, bearded, bespectacled cretin in the Sherlock Holmes hat. Under normal circumstances, this type of character would be lighting his own gas in the corner of the room while the others formulate a plan and then meet with an untimely, yet slightly humorous death. Rebane, on the other hand, even gives this guy the girl.

The other place where she unwittingly deserves credit is for utilizing the aliens-under-the-ground scenario for a lot less money than Tom Cruise probably paid for his "War of the Worlds" travesty. I'd be curious to know whether she got a "based on an idea by" or an "inspired by" credit in Cruise's film.

PS - despite the fact that I consider these two areas worthy of compliment, I am in no way recommending anyone actually watch this movie.

A couple of people are trapped in a log cabin during an alien invasion of the Earth. They communicate with the unseen aliens and gradually make it back to civilization after much discussion. Every cliche in the book is used, and the low budget assures terrible special effects. Bad all around. Made in someone's back yard in Wisconsin.

Want a movie with no action at all? Here it is, another Bill Rebane (Monster-a-go-go, Giant Spider Invasion), schlock-fest, boring beyond the limits of human tolerance. I'm a big fan of "so-bad-they're good" movies, since they are at least enjoyable on the level of invoking laughter from the unintentional humor; however, this one does not even achieve enjoyable camp status. It just annoys you.

Any "action" in this movie occurs off screen, and is conveyed through non-stop dialog throughout this tedious sleep-inducing dud. People blab on radios, aliens (with booming voices) chit-chat on radios, characters drone on endlessly to each other (without saying much), and on and on it goes. The most "exciting" sequence involved some colorful smoke bombs, with people screaming and running (away from the smoke?). Also, there's a plague (again, we only are told this through the babbling characters). Oh, and there's some irritating, synthesized noises in the soundtrack to tell you that something happens (since it doesn't happen on the screen, like it would in other movies).

There's plenty of ridiculous dialog; here's a sample: when a know-it-all guy theorizes (ready?) that Mars and the Earth were once closer to each other than the Earth and the moon are. The planets were aligned this way for over two thousand years, he lectures. How the five planetary bodies (Earth, its moon, Mars, and its two moons) did not crash into one another due to the immense, mutual gravitation, was not explained in the lecture.

That's about all there is to this, except a bizarre ending reminiscent of another Rebane fiasco, Monster-a-go-go. I don't know if MST3K ever slammed this one; they certainly should have. Even their best salvos might not have saved it, however. This mess deserves a negative rating, but, as you know, IMDb's rules prohibit that; which, in the case of this movie, is a pity.

The premise for this movie was interesting enough, and there are some very developed characters in it like the TV talk show host, and his two guests. Unfortunately they only have about five minutes of footage. The main characters are believable and the acting competent. So what went wrong? It's almost as if they started making this movie on an interesting idea, but quickly realized that they had no idea where it was going, because by the time the movie concludes, you feel like you were played for a fool, and wished you never wasted your time. It seems like they made up the plot as they were making the movie. I know it requires a certain amount of cognitive dissonance to watch a movie like this, but this one is so awful you can't even enjoy how lousy it is. Here are a group of people in a winter wilderness with nothing but a ham radio to communicate with the outside world, but they start having a debate about what is going on by reading newspaper articles? What the....? Where are they getting this information about a situation that just started?, and in such an isolated place? By the end, if you don't get disgusted enough to just shut it off before then, it has to be one of the most idiotic movie endings you will ever see. It's like it is for some other totally different movie. I won't disclose it, but believe me, you will want to throw the DVD in the trash.

It's the end of the world with aliens invading and a mysterious plague spreading! But don't worry, Bill Rebane is here, he'll make sure things don't get scary or exciting or even interesting. You're trapped in a cabin with the most boring people in the world (maybe being dull is some kind of immunity?). Occasionally we'll cut away, once to a smarmy talk-show guy who prattles on cheerfully about the plague before introducing his befuddled guests, then to a bar with a comical drunk, and a couple of times to a bad DJ and some fleeing crowds. Most of the time, though, we're stuck with these terrible actors. The guy with the beard, seriously, he's just flat-out awful. When he tries to be romantic or funny, he makes the whole universe worse. Couple that with special effects that must have cost eighty-five cents, the most inappropriate music cues ever (I never knew one of those New Year's noisemakers meant "suspense"), dialog that makes you want to strangle your ears, and aliens who ask "How are you?" over the radio. There are two reasons to watch this: the first is the music over the titles. It's such a jaw-droppingly blatant rip-off of Ennio Morricone's "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly" theme that you'll be glad you heard it, just so you can believe it. The second is the ending, which is one of those "Wait, what?" endings that make you think you must have fallen asleep and missed something crucial. You didn't, though.

I saw this movie under the title "They" as part of the Nightmare Worlds 50 DVD collection released by Mill Creek. Easily one of the best sci-fi flicks filmed in Wisconsin circa 1970's I've seen this year, mostly because of the mention of Rhinelander, Wisconsin. I admit I was a little let down by the fact there wasn't a single Hodag (Do a Google search if need be) to be found.

Still, killer smoke bombs are without a doubt the most original villains ever. The film is only mostly terribly acted or over acted if you're a bearded cast member in this film and the snow mobile scenes are gratuitous if not plentiful. The scenery is white, the bad guys are red, and everyone owns a checkered flannel shirt.

OK, This is a painfully bad film, the soundtrack is off the wall, the actors are only actors in the sense that they are in the act of doing things in the snow that are (maybe accidentally)captured on film, and the special effects consist of smoke bombs and flashlights with red cellophane covering the lens. For me to sum this movie up in one word, it would be, AWESOME

Lovers of these types of films (Le Bad Cinema), like myself, will find this flick both charming and indispensable. If you got enjoyment out of such fine films as They Saved Hitlers Brain, Mano's or Curse of the Headless Horseman. You will love this...errr "They".

I accomplished my goal for this semester, I have found a movie which is absolutely god awful compared to everything else I have ever seen.

Troll 2, Space Mutiny, Hobgoblins,The Eye Creatures, Night of the Demons, Bogus Witch Project, C.H.U.D 2, Sleepaway Camp, Ghoulies, The Prey, Ghost House, Plan 10....I have seen all of these films and more that I can't remember but NONE come even close to this level of pure trash cinema.

The cover gave it away, an oversized box with a bad drawing of a monster and no description of the movie on the back whatsoever. With a one word title to boot, They. It took me a while to find this movie here on the IMDB.

The film starts out with people talking about a disease that is killing everyone on the planet. You see footage of people running around, then it cuts to a man walking to a cabin, he talks to his sister blah blah. Then the group lands at an airport after someone warns them not too and disappears.

The next hour of the movie is these people sitting in a cabin talking with random images spliced in here and there. The characters look like a bunch of hippies that got bored and decided it would be fun to make a movie.

The "action" sequences are just a plane flying and a guy riding a snowmachine. When the guy rides the snowmachine the music track cuts out for 5 seconds then just loops back to the beginning, several times bad editing makes peoples heads jerk around.

I have yet to watch Manos : The Hands of Fate, that flick is next on my list but unless you want to brag that you have seen the worst movie in existence do NOT watch this, its a real character building flick.

Oh yeah, there is one thing I can't understand, who in their right mind decided to order this film then stock it for rental? Yeesh.

Ok, this goes out to my friend Lou who said, "Hey, let's rent this and see if it's really as bad as it looks".

Lou, it was worse.

Good God, I've rarely seen a piece of crap this poorly written; and what was with that ending? Without saying too much, let me comment that the psychodelic tunnel ride in "2001: A Space Odyssey" made much more sense and could even be called "coherant" by comparisson.

Basically, the story is about a guy who looks like "Shaggy" from Scooby Doo, his two friends "Ed Grimly" and "Whiney-Boy", and their hosts in a winter retreat in Manitoba (read someone's hick town in Wisconsin) as they happen to miss out on a smoke-bomb and red-flashlight invasion that eventually catches up with them anyway.

They run around in the wintery woods, get frostbite, vanish one-by-one from a mysterious disease that disintegrates their bodies. Then, the movie ends. For no aparant reason.

AAAAARRRRGH!

I bought this movie for 99 cents, hoping that it might provide some entertainment to get drunk to. But it wasn't funny, just boring. So, rather than partying the night away with cheap-o aliens, my friends and I mostly just fell asleep.

I stayed awake through all of it, but man was it painful. I don't think anything actually happens in it. All I remember is a bunch of confused guys in a cabin, some echoey voices on the radio (that I think are aliens), some red lights, and at the end everyone falls asleep in the snow (much like my friends, but without the snow).

This movie sucks so much.

Okay, most of the film is pretty boring: people sitting around in a cabin, listening to an alian invasion, nothing much happening in terms of group dynamics. Special effects are beyond belief. That's something that would not have happened to Ed Wood, he would have made an awful film on the same budget but with much better special effects. However, the film does have its redeeming features. The idea of having radio/TV stations still running while earth is being taken over clearly influenced Romero in Dawn of the Dead. Some dialogue is reasonably funny and some shots are pretty atmospheric. like the deserted airport in the beginning. The final scene is really funny, the last survivors turn into Adam and Eve in a completely over the top scene, and it's not the hunk but the nerd who gets the girls. That's funny. However, the music takes the biscuit. The theme tune is a rip off of The Good, the bad and the Ugly and no one except for the great Ed Wood in Jail Bait has ever used music so completely clueless. 20 or 30 minutes less and the film would have been acceptable.

Talky, ponderous sci-fi is about twenty-minutes overspent in my opinion, and while it does a fair job in painting the isolation of a remote band of people discovering the human race may have become extinct in the wake of an alien invasion, it does little to fulfil the promise when action is needed.

Director Rebane has a solid concept, and his cast of amateurs do a creditable job (notably Bentzen and Holt) with a heavy emphasis on dialogue and building a sense of intrigue out of a flickering red light and interference on a ham radio. The landscape is attractive and while there are a couple of moments where the pace gets above ambling, it's an effort to reach the climax (which while unexpected, doesn't redeem the previous 95 minutes of hard-talking labour).

One of those films that promises much in its narrative build-up, dangling the juicy plot carrots, displaying an attractive ambition that is ultimately never realised; and when you discover that it was never on the negative and certainly never on the page, you become (understandably) quite aggrieved that you invested almost two hours of your precious life for such a blatant ruse. I wanted "They" to live up to its potential, and disappointingly, though it's picturesque and moody, it doesn't come to fruition.

This was REALLY bad and poorly made, and I'm being kinder to it than I should be, both because of its decent first half and the charm and beauty of the starring female protagonist, Debbi Pick (this seems to be her only film credit)--also it was obviously made on a super-low budget in my native country, Canada. There were some interesting ideas that would have made a decent film in much better hands (I have previously watched Rebane's later works, 'The Alpha Incident' and 'Twister's Revenge!', and this makes a 'trinity of tripe' that should best be avoided), and the cinematography is decent, simply because it's outdoors and shot in beautiful surroundings with natural light, most of the time. The low-budget special effects were abysmal, and incidents like plane crashes are simply off-screen and left to the viewer's imagination, so that Rebane doesn't have to show it.

I saw this under the title 'They', in my Mill Creek 50-pack, 'Nightmare Worlds'--this by far was one of the worst and least interesting of the bunch. Do yourself a huge favour and if you see Rebane's name on a film (at the very least, for these three mentioned), don't touch them with a ten-foot pole. They're neither worth your time nor energy.