An embarrased looking Christopher Lee stars alongside an equally embarrased looking Robert Vaughn (although arguably Vaughns role is less embarrasing) in this B-move romp about an alien invasion.
The people of the planet Alpha, situated in the constellation Orion arrive in our solar system and begin abducting people to perform experiments on. The abductees are then returned to Earth, but as the Alpha people (who call themselves the Legion of the winged serpent) are powerful telepaths, the abductees have been implanted with a post hypnotic suggestion to commit suicide shortly after their return.
Professor Duncan (Vaughn) is a UFO researcher who takes an interest in the sudden spike in UFO sightings and abductions, and believes an invasion is coming, and he is right!.
The aliens leader Ramses (Lee) explains that their secret mission is to find a new homeworld for their people, as their solar systems star is about to go nova.
Earth suits the aliens needs, however as it is already occupied by humans, the Intergalactic league of races, represented mostly by large headed aliens originating from Zeta Reticuli, will oppose them, so Ramses must deal with them before he can put his evil plot to make all humans commit suicide, via the use of a telepathic dommsday weapon, into action.
Despite this film being obviously filmed on a low budget, it somehow manages to be enjoyable in a "I turned off my brain" sort of way. I quite liked the way the story included various bits and pieces from UFOlogy and stories from alledged abductees.
Overall - 7/10
In the year 1985, glorious Communist revolution taken over world!, and with petty things such as capitalism put firmly in the past, mankind works toward make benefit for glorious planet Earth!.
During a project to irrigate the Gobi desert, an alien artifact is found, which proves that the Tunguska event was actually the result of an alien spacecraft crashing on Earth.
The worlds leading scentists find that the artifact contains some sort of message, and originated from the planet Venus, so, the scientists embark on a mission into space on the spaceship "Kosmostrator" to make contact with the Venusians in the hopes of establishing a peaceful relationship.....however, they get a bit more than they bargained for....
Even amongst all this communism and speculative fiction, the films main message is an anti war one, told via a simple "fantastic adventure" type storyline.
Overall - 7/10
David is a film archivist who finds that his wife is having an affair, his initial reaction is one of anger but he seemingly refrains from carrying out his violent urges and returns home to his son Billy.
In the course of his work he finds out that the house he lives in was connected with some unsolved murders for 100 years ago. When his wife doesnt return hime, he calls the police, and, sure enough, her body is later found at the bottom of the local canal.
Overwrought with grief, he embarks on a series of erratic behaviours, including claiming to have seen ghosts in the house and at the canal, and blames his wifes death on the haunting.
The question is, was it ghosts who killed his wife?, or is he insane?
Yeah, this isn't a half bad film, albeit a little slow paced, and figuring out what has actually happenned keeps you guessing right to the end.
Overall - 7/10
This failed TV pilot takes place in some unspecified future time where the Earth has become so overpopulated that the human race has began reaching out into space and colonising planets.
Several years before the film begins, one of the first colonies, Cynosura, declared its independance from Earth and began its own aggressive expansion (we are helped to realise that the Cynosurans are definitely the baddies because they dress in black uniforms and behave like nazis, whereas the good guys generally wear white or blue uniforms).
The story introduces us to a group of six eager space cadets, who are assigned to the Democratic Republic of Earth corvette "Surprise" for their training cruise. The cadets are drilled by a tough veteran space captain and his equally tough executive officer, however when they begin what they think is a training exersize in the Maraz system, they find themselves under attack by a Cynsuran attack fleet, which has been sent to exterminate the colony on Maraz so they can claim the planet for themselves.
The Captain and the XO are killed in the battle, and it is left up to the cadets ingenuity to defeat the bad guys and save the colony.
I can see why this TV pilot failed, as it borrows a hell of a lot from other sci-fi shows of the time, and has a lot of mid 90s cliches. the special effects are of poor quality for the time, and the acting is terrible, with the good guys being whiter than white saintly figures and the bad guys being little more than comic book villains.
The series itself, had it been picked up, could have gone on to be an interesting drama along the lines of something like "Space: Above and beyond", but only if it shed its "young adult" type of writing style, but alas, the pilot failed to impress, and the series never happenned.
Overall - 5/10
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