Reviewed by Geno McGahee
Before I began filming, I rented a movie called “GALAXY INVADER,” a movie by filmmaker Don Dohler, combining rednecks with an alien invader. It was a can’t miss combo. When I rented it, I really had no idea what to expect and when I brought it home, it looked far different then anything I was used to. It was a micro budget film, filmed with ambition and talent, the two things that you need the most in this business. I quickly became a fan of GALAXY INVADER and Dohler.
We begin with some cartoonish special effects with the alien spacecraft coming to earth and landing in the woods. For some reason, the alien makes his way to the basement and kills a couple that attacked him with a lamp. I’m assuming that the alien was male although he had no junk to speak of.
Now we get to the fun stuff. The Montague family, headed up by good old Joe (Richard Ruxton), is rather dysfunctional, mostly due to the head of the family being a “drunken bum,” in the words of his daughter. At the kitchen table, Joe openly states his disapproval of Mike Smith, his daughter’s man, and when she rebuts, he slaps her across the face. She throws a drink in his face and the chase is on. Joe chases his own daughter with a shotgun, ready to kill her for her disobedience.
As he runs into the woods, he sees the Alien standing there, minding his own business. A shot to the gut forces him to drop a white ball that glows, which mesmerizes both Joe and his son JJ (George Stover). They bring in home and plan to make a buck with it, but Joe wants the advice of his smarter friend, Frank Custer (Don Leifert). He shows up with his abused girlfriend, Vicki and the plan is set: catch the alien and sell him to the money men that Custer knows.
In the meantime, Dr. William Tracy is called by one of his students, David (Greg Dohler) to investigate a crashed UFO sighting. Tracy drives and meets up with young David and they begin their hike into the woods in search of evidence.
Custer and Montague is an awesome combo. They are amusing apart, but together, they are unbeatable. When they go to the local bar in “Harleyville,” Custer talks like a big shot and when he says he as a proposal and is interrupted by a “what kind of proposal,” he gets irritated and replies “a business proposal if you’ll shut the hell up and let me talk.” Custer recruits a bunch of bad-acting townsfolk to help him and Joe take down the alien and make some money, leading to a shoot out with the alien clearly winning.
When the alien is pre-occupied, Joe, JJ, and Custer sneak up behind him and tie him up, while Tracy and David secretly watch. Tracy plans to help the being escape and teams up with Joe’s family that wants to do what’s right. When Joe’s wife voices her concerns to her hubby and says that if he doesn’t do the right thing, she’ll call the cops, he screams: “You do that and I’ll put your lights out for good!”
A battle ensues over alien rights ending in a bloodbath and life and death struggle at the end. From start to finish, I was incredibly amused and entertained.
GALAXY INVADER is one of the best micro budget movies of all time, by a great director in Don Dohler. You have to respect what Dohler did and was able to accomplish at this time, well before Adobe premiere and digital video. His heart was sunk deeply into this and his other early work (Before Joe Ripple came along) and it was a special production and micro budget or not, it’s one of my favorite movies of all time. I still watch it regularly after all these years.
Scared Stiff Rating: 8/10. Micro budget awesomeness.
