Terminal Invasion

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.

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

There are lots of other relevant comments here. The only reason I tried this movie was because I enjoy Bruce Campbell and Chase Masterson. Bruce did great considering what he was given to work with. I don't find Chase a very effective "Alpha Female" here -- I think I would like her to stick with comedies.

The suspense of the movie is good, but most of the story is predictable. The thing that drives me nuts is when so many of the characters are acting just plain stupid.

The idea of stumbling into an invasion is an appealing plot. The story is intriguing with a touch of "First Wave" and "The Thing", but there were times I almost had enough. I hung in until the end, but I wouldn't bother watching this a second time.

In a stormy night, while transporting the criminal Jack (Bruce Campbell) to the death corridor, the officers have a car accident nearby a private airport. They bring the prisoner to the place where clients are arguing the owner of the charter services and pilot Cathy Garrett (Chase Masterson) because she refuses to take off with the bad weather and the communications are down due to the snow storm. Jack asks to go to the toilet being escorted by the guards; however, in the bathroom, a preacher attacks and kills the guards and when Jack kills him, his body vanishes. Jack returns to the lobby and when the security guard holds him, he accidentally shots a passenger, but the woman does not die until Jack shots her head and her body also disappears. The survivors conclude that they are trapped in a place with aliens and nobody is trustful.

"Terminal Invasion" has a good concept, where the viewer shall guess who are the aliens among humans, but there are many flaws in the story. But considering the extremely low-budget of this movie, with few locations, special effects and unknown cast (with the exception of Bruce Campbell), the result is an entertaining B-movie. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Ataque Alienígena" ("Alien Attack")

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.