Terminal Invasion

With the "near-great" Brucie, how can ya miss. Ok maybe he doesn't crack wise enough (Big Way my fave from another dud Navy spoof) but the scene near beginning in the men's room -- oh yes. Especially the religious slant. Gotta love it. Had this had an Aliens 2 style budget it would have kicked people better. But for FREE on Sci-Fi channel, what's to barf. Couple nifty twists offer a pleasant little ride. Grade: Gentleman's C. (C for Campbell)

Friday the 13th's Sean S. Cunningham directs The Evil Dead's Bruce Campbell in this entertaining piece of B-movie sci-fi/horror hokum. Although made for TV, 'Terminal Invasion' has its fair share of decent moments and Cunningham, no stranger to the genre, delivers a slick fun-filled film. Only the iffy editing and some dodgy scene transitions belie the movie's TV origins.

In a script that draws comparison with John Carpenter's (far superior) The Thing, a group of people, trapped inside a remote airport terminal during a severe blizzard, discover a malign alien presence intent on enslaving mankind. But with the extra-terrestrial creatures in human guise, paranoia and panic soon sets in.

Bruce Campbell, not the greatest of actors put possessing a strong screen presence, hams it up the only way he can, bringing a welcome familiarity to his role of Jack; this is basically Ash from Army of Darkness, minus his boom-stick! The rest of the cast give credible performances; a commendable feat given the cheesy lines they are forced to deliver.

The special effects are sparse, but effective; once out of their human form, the aliens are a creepy bunch of ugly critters, and there is even a tiny smattering of gore to keep horror fans happy.

Despite 'Terminal Invasion' being a made for TV offering, it is great to see Sean S. Cunningham directing again after a long hiatus-this is, after all, the man who gave us Jason Vorhees-and I look forward to 'Trapped Ashes', a horror anthology which will contain segments from four different directors (Cunningham directs the second segment) plus non-segment portions by Joe Dante. The film has been described as 'extremely twisted'. Sounds promising.

Oh dear. This reminded me of the kinds of films that I used to rent on VHS purely because of the cover.

I bought this because of Bruce. And to be honest, he is, as is usual, the highpoint of this film which has the qualities of a day time soap.

The average X files episode used to sweep this kind of stuff in 45 minutes and there is a high degree of stretch to the story. The acting is pretty poor as well with some fairly desperate stereotyping.

As a cable production Cunningham (Director) probably had little to work with budget wise but this looks and feels cheap from the opening scene.

Avoid.

Bruce kinda had a quiet roll (although he did Co-Star in the film) and it wasn't exactly packed with action but it was a decent flick by SciFi Channel standards. Bruce plays the strong silent type in this movie, would have been nice to hear a few more wise cracks out of him. If you like Bruce Campbell its definately worth a watch.

Bruce Campbell stars as Jack, a convict who is being transported during a blizzard, unfortunately the car crashes and the police and him must hike to a nearby private airport that is shut down because of the blizzard and has a handful of angry customers who want to get out of there. Things go awry when people start disappearing and who is blamed? Of course Jack is, he is a convicted murder after all, but was it him?

The movie is basically borrows most of its originality from John Carpenter's the Thing but it really doesn't do that bad of a job of it. One redeeming quality of the movie was that the director, who directed the original Friday the 13th by the way, doesn't show the "creature" very much, which a lot of directors of todays big-budget horror movies could really learn something from.

Overall, this movie is a lot better then most of Sci-Fi's premiere movies and nearly all made-for-tv movies. Fans of Bruce Campbell should really enjoy this movie, as some of his humor of previous appearances play through in his character in this one.

Overall : 7/10