Shame on anyone who gives this more than one star! (And that's generous.) This film is so cataclysmically dreadful that if the doctor tells you that you have two weeks to live, watch this film. You'll want the two weeks to end quickly.The first couple of scenes start off well. Girl watches TV news report about mysterious meteorite shower, girl goes outside to see meteors blazing across the sky... nice. Then the camera cuts to her face and her reaction is precisely what I'd expect from someone who opened a carton of milk and found milk in it.That was a clue to the standard of acting throughout. But it's still better than the lighting and audio.As for the story... well, let's just say that what we have here is a porn script, complete with porn direction, but without the scenes you really paid your money for. Oh, there's soft porn, but it's as inept as everything else about this film.And then there's the mysterious alien plant that's key to the pod people's invasion. Surely someone could have found some modeling clay and a bit of paint. But no, our prop is a piece of ginger. Not one character in the film recognized it as a piece of ginger. I'm not sure what offends me more: the fact that the prop is so dismally unimaginative, or the fact that no one on the production team seems to recognize a popular grocery item. How do films this bad get made? It may be low budget but someone still had to put up the funds for this tripe. Did it make a profit? I need to go for a lie down.
... View MoreI watched the whole of Invasion of the Pod People with low expectations. Asylum makes rip-offs. But I didn't expect it to be this bad.In terms of content, I can't figure out what we were supposed to see. Clothed humping? Naked women caressing each other? The movie was labeled (in a ten-pack) as a sci-fi movie, however it has elements of horror and random sex scenes thrown in, presumably just to appeal to the adult audience in the most effort-free way possible.From a technical perspective, this movie is bad. The video looks decent but it's almost completely devoid of special effects. The audio is horrible -- the models' main office sounds like it's located right next to a loud washing machine. (And you KNOW it's the main office because the girls have nowhere else to go when they need to talk.) In outside scenes, people's voices are occasionally overpowered by the wind.The dialog is horrible. Often I had to rewind and listen to the dialog again just to see if it made as little sense as I thought:Zach: "I'm here to warn you. 'Cuz if you don't warn other people, there'll be nobody, like you, left." Melissa: "who?" Zach: "them."Gun shop owner: "Maybe you should think about a shotgun, it only shoots in four directions... north, south, east, and west."The girls' competence wavers drastically. One girl cannot figure out long-standing relational problems she has that are more than obvious to the viewers, and her friends. However she has a Sherlockian moment when she is able to accurately predict more about the aliens than even the audience knows.But as the movie progresses, I start to wonder how horrible the pod people are (besides their tendency to constantly repeat "we just want to help you"), versus the regular people in this story. Before their transformations the men are hyperactive, the women are snobbish and whiny. Afterwards, everybody is extremely kind and easygoing. The Pod People seem to resort to violence only when absolutely necessary, feeling that gentle, kind coercion is the best option -- not bad for a race that's attempting to take over Earth.Honest to goodness, after I watched that movie, I yearned for everyone to be a Pod Person -- no hammy acting, no annoying voices, no screwy dialogue.
... View MoreInvasion of the Pod People (2007) ** (out of 4) The Asylum's "mockbuster" is a take on THE INVASION with Nicole Kidman, which of course was a remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. In the story a meteor hits the Earth and soon afterwards a woman begins to realize that everyone around here is acting weird. If you're seen the previous movies then you know what's going on. If you don't know the story then I'd recommend to stop reading this and go check out the original film with Kevin McCarthy. A lot of people attack The Asylum for their really bad movies that are usually void of any talent or imagination. I really understand because they've made some awful movies but there are times where I find their "work" to be interesting simply because as a film fan I'm interested in seeing their take on a familiar piece of work. Yes, they could try doing something "original" but why should they when these things keep making them money? This film works "best" the same way their I AM OMEGA did and that's that the source material is simply so good that it's hard to mess it up too bad. Yes, this film has an ultra cheap budget and yes the story is a rip-off and yes the performances aren't that good but I think the central story is interesting enough to where the film kept me slightly entertained in a cheap, "B" movie way. There are some updated elements here, which are pretty funny and the biggest seems to be the fact that the female pop people all turn into lesbians. This here leads to some rather erotic sex scenes where new women are "taught" new things. Again, this movie is cheap on every level so it's clearly just going to be for those looking for some very light entertainment. I think this type of thing slightly worked for me because I enjoy bad movies and I can't help but compare this to the countless rip-offs that hit drive-ins after the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS was released.
... View MoreInvasion.Of.The.Pod.People should not make it to DVD. The plot has major problems, the script couldn't get a D- in a high school film class, the camera had the finesse of a single chopstick, direction was completely absent, and the costumes made our heroine look like she just entered the third trimester. The dramatic tension came only from knowing it wasn't over yet. The effects consisted of a ginger root in a flower pot. This is not a B movie, there is not one redeeming feature in this work, even the titillation, that started halfway through, was not erotic and the actress giving cunnilingus may have been asleep during filming. I could go on, but please don't watch this film. It could made you feel like a pod.
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