The Galaxy Invader (1985) * 1/2 (out of 4)A spaceship crashes in a small rural town and pretty soon a green alien is stalking the streets. A bunch of rednecks decide it's a good idea to try and capture it so that they can make some quick cash.The third time wasn't the charm for director Don Dohler. He broke into the business with THE ALIEN FACTOR, which was about an spaceship crashing in a small town and doing damage. He remade that film a few years later as NIGHTBEAST, which was about a spaceship crashing in a small town and an alien doing damage. As you can tell, THE GALAXY INVADER is pretty much the same thing but it's not nearly as entertaining as the previous two films.It's funny to see that the director would basically make the same film three times within a seven years period. He would actually make ALIEN FACTOR 2 later in his career so I find it interesting to see the same person doing the same film so many times. THis here is probably the weakest of the original three because it basically takes away all the good stuff that made the first two films work.What is missing here? Well, there's the nudity that adds to the sleaze factor. This movie is also missing all of the violence and gore. This here is basically a watered down version of the first two movies and it's just not fun at all. I'm not sure if this stuff was cut out because of budget issues but it certainly hurt the movie and there's really no point in watching this when you've got the same movie out there in two better versions.

This film truly has the quality of a high school kid with a video camera operating out his garage. Or some school room production. The credits are a manually scrolled overlay. Many cast & crew names are family members. The characters are reminiscent of any small town of Okie rednecks or rural Arkansas, Tennessee or Kentucky. No joke. The uneducated, abusive, gun toting drunkards chasing a harmless alien to get rich and killing their own in the process.It is truly a hick cast & story which was surprisingly filmed in Maryland by some backyard or classroom amateur (whom the other reviewers say created several of these Amateur films). There was a huge demand for drive-in theater flicks between the 50's & 70's. The 70's & 80's video cameras also created home garage filmmakers & classroom productions. Some of our famous film directors began like this. Even the old B&W TV productions were amateur cardboard sets & primitive skits. I know. I worked in both TV & classroom productions. This production was actually a step ahead since it was color.But it is a watchable story & there are rural ignorant rednecks in our society who would behave like this IRL. So this story about rural hicks after an alien is not beyond the realm of actual rural hicktown behavior. It is curious to note that the characters always waited until darkness to take action & waste daylight opportunities. Yet, when they began the night scene shots, it turned into daylight within minutes. So no continuity of night or day filming consistency. It went from 9 PM to 10 AM in just a couple minutes.The alien performance was truly the best of the cast even though he had no lines or space ship. You did feel empathy when the gun toting, drunken yokels captured him. We were also delighted to see the abusive, drunken father who tried to shoot his own grown daughter get his just deserts as well. It is worth watching to the end just to see that.I'm surprised this film was actually included on the sci-fi 100 pack since it was such an amateur production. But I have seen worse and it was in color. It might be good enough for a high school student film competition. So it does have enough merits for 3 stars.

3 stars out of 10 is just about right for this low budget 80s release which features dodgy performances, a drunken walk of a screenplay, cheaper than cheap special effects and an overall low resolution vibe that makes you wish you'd queued up the next movie in the Public Domain DVD collection you found this in instead of this one.But "Galaxy Invader" isn't evil or vile or nasty or anything. Without knowing anything about Don Dohler other than that he made a lot of these things, I'd guess that he really WANTED to make sci fi and horror movies and did the best he could with the resources and budget he could get.If only he'd found a real writer to polish his dialog and plots, "Galaxy Invader" might have been a "5" or a "6". If he'd known how to actually direct his cast, "GI" might have even scored a "7". So anyway...this movie won't make you retch or throw the DVD away in disgust or anything. It'll give you something to look at for 80+ minutes and give you an excuse to sit in front of the TV drinking beer. If that's what you really want, you should go for it.

ET crash lands, but he's not in Roswell any more. It's Hicksville, USA, and the locals are, well; try to imagine a bunch of King of the Hill characters who hang out at a abandoned gas station in the backwoods: talking in phony forced hillbilly accents, forever slurping beer, all with village-idiot personalities. The lead freak chases his daughter with a shot-gun, and commits other random weird acts. About the only thing he doesn't do in this film is change his T-shirt, a ripped up rag that hangs off his belly in about five places. Capture the alien and sell it to the circus, or take delight in blasting it full of buck-shot, this nut doesn't care.Enter ET the misunderstood alien, except this nice visitor (who accidentally croaks the fist two people he meets) doesn't have a long neck, big eyes, and mumble "Home!" to himself. This one's green, rubber suited, has a mean looking face, and growls. He's also equipped with a toy laser that sets off firecrackers, and a Nerf bowling ball that glows occasionally.Further analysis is unnecessary; just kick back with popcorn and watch General Tornshirt Beerguzzler, Lieutenant Smokes-an-unlit Cigar, and their gang of stooges occasionally fight the creature while they laugh a lot in the process. The movie obviously puts on no pretenses; it's all-out silly chaos and knows it. Except for an offbeat "Who's the real monster?" premise, most of this is just an infomercial for Hick Beer Co., and people running around in a forest. Riotous fun that probably showed as a second feature at drive-in's.