How sad is this?

Don't Believe the Hype

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Billy Dee Williams gets all morose in space while his band of recruited convicts hook themselves up to virtual reality machines that play out their fantasies. Why are they heading to the mysterious G-Sector? To see what happened to another ship that went out there. What happened to the other ship? Well, some sort of alien took the form of a female and everyone went crazy and killed each trying to win her affections. We see this happen in the first five minutes of the film, and then the film decides to take things nice and easy, which will test the patience of most folks. Billy Dee's recruits/victims agree to leave the comforts of jail and head off into the unknown due to a machine where they can live out their dreams. They do this every weekend after working on the ship, each with their own little worlds. The demolitions guy lives in the wild west as cowboy, the computer geek is a fifties biker, the other guy lives in a black and white Casablanca world, and our hero shows no imagination whatsoever as he just goes surfing with a chick. Strange, though, that the same mysterious woman has showed up in each of their fantasies, and why is Billy Dee spending all his time staring at a picture of the same woman? And why have a cyborg in the film when he's just going to stand around doing nothing? And one other thing - if you had a virtual reality machine that acted out your fantasies, would you waste it by surfing or driving about on a bike? Or would you be sandwiched between two Czech BBWs? I think that's the option any sane person would pick. Now, I thought, with the introduction of these separate realities, that I'd have something similar to Waxwork 2 on my hands, but I was wrong. Once the evil alien woman thing (or Ariel, as she's known) 'kills' all the convicts virtual women, we just end up back in space where they find the other ship and end up bickering and running around corridors like a million other films. Maybe it was the budget or something that stopped them from going full throttle with the virtual reality thing, but to spend so much time on it just to have the film settle into the usual conventions seems like a waste of time. Additionally, the woman playing the alien seductress is noticeably less attractive than any other actress in the film, so I wasn't quite getting why everyone was so bowled over by her. This was a tepid PM production and while it was pretty rubbish, the cheesy effects and infrequent nudity at least kept me from hating it.

When a friend gave me a boxed set of "12 Amazing Scifi/Horror Movies!" I was understandably a little cautious. But, since the item was a gift, I really didn't truly pay my common sense much heed. After all....movies for free! So what if they are a little ropey. After much consideration, Alien Intruder was the first of those movies. Ironically, it was first choice because it looked the best of the bunch. All I can say is, if this is the best of them, I shudder to think what the rest are like.On the surface, it had some good things going for it. Four (count 'em!) actors that I was familiar with. Billy Dee Williams, Tracy Scoggins, Maxwell Caulfield and Jeff Conaway. I told myself..."Billy and Tracy have been in some good scifi (Star Wars and Babylon 5, respectively) so they wouldn't sign up for a turkey. Max is a veteran soap actor who never really managed to break into film....but not too shoddy an actor. An Jeff....well...he's done the good and the bad as far as films and TV go." I was soon to discover that Jeff had decided to add "the ugly" to his repertoire of movies.The first clue was in the opening scenes. Jeff mugs his way with gusto through an "I'm mad" scene before finally killing himself. An amusing cameo performance, really. Unfortunately this is, without much exaggeration, the highlight of the film. It goes downhill from there.Next up we have the commander of the mission (Williams) who is being sent out to see what happened to Jeff and his crew busy picking his new shipmates from among the ranks of the criminal element. But this assortment aren't so much the Dirty Dozen - more like the Unconvincing Foursome. Plus, one of the crims, a computer hacker, is shown in his cell working away on a laptop computer. Isn't that a bit like letting a murderer run a gun shop in the slammer? Pretty lame prison, if you ask me.When they finally take off the effects are truly horrible. It looks like the spaceship model was knocked up in an afternoon by some bored 8 year old who had parts left over from his Airfix kits.But the horror doesn't stop there. Whilst on route to the area where Jeff's ship vanished, the criminal crew are rewarded for their good behaviour by being given weekends of virtual reality, in which they indulge their male fantasies. All well and good, and the use of scenes from their fantasies serves as an introduction to the "Alien Menace" which begins to appear there. But did they have to drag it out for quite sooooo loooooong? Alien Intruder? Alien Boring, more like.Finally they make it to G-Sector and the alien presence makes them fight against each other for her affections until only good old Max is left. The ending, in truly optimistic rubbish film vein, hints at a sequel - as if! Also making an appearance in this movie is a character I'll nickname the "Sweatdroid". He's supposed to be an android, but apparently that fact was lost on the make-up crew, who provided him with sweaty features at any opportunity. But don't worry, he's just there to make up the body count numbers at the end.Williams and Scoggins, to be truthful, do very little in the film. They only just barely stay awake, let alone act. And, as I mentioned earlier, Jeff gets an early trip to the showers, so his manicness isn't allowed to enlighten much of the film. Max tries his best, as do a couple of the other cast members, but the movie is just direly atrocious, to be honest.The one, and only, half-way imaginative thing this movie offers is the ship naming convention. They are all named after musicians - Holly, Presley, Joplin. The rest of the film is bland and uninspired.Made in 1992, I had thought, on initial viewing, it was one of those 80's straight-to-video jobs. Looks like they still made crap movies well into the 90's, it seems.It's best avoided. Even as a beer n chips movie this film is a stinker, but at least you can fast forward it, I suppose.

Although the idea of aliens using computer viruses to attack terrestrial computers is almost old hat, here the aliens use the viruses as a siren to lure men to their deaths through their computer stimulated libidos. This is a very interesting twist that held a lot of promise when I first heard about it.The movie fails on one account. The seductress should be the sexiest chick in the movie! Apparently because of miss Scoggins star power, she wore nothing sexier (that could be easily seen) than a one piece bathing suit, while other fantasy women bared all (Tracie did a very dark love scene, where you could barely make out her darkened breasts). The first question that comes to mind is: "Even though Tracie is a fox, how could she lure the guys from the other gorgeous women that were baring way more skin"? I know she was the virus in control of the men's minds, but I need visual justification for her control over men.

Hurrah! Rejoice! More madness from the PM (Pepin-Merhi) duo! ALIEN INTRUDER is notorious for being one of the PM duo's first ventures into the sci-fi (more like science-fantasy) realm. While ALIEN INTRUDER is an entertaining flick, it fails to offer enough nuances of elegance to help make this trip memorable and worthwhile...Welcome to the grim future. The year is 2022. Aboard the U.S.S. Holly in outer space, mild mannered crew member Borman (Jeff Conaway) has apparently gone berserk. For no logical reason, Borman has callously slaughtered his own men...Back on Planet Earth, Commander Skyler (Billy Dee Williams) has recently received a desperate call for help. The call has requested that a rescue mission must be dispatched into outer space to find any survivors of the massacre aboard the U.S.S. Holly. So Skyler decides to arbitrarily select four losers to accompany him on this rescue mission. Nick (Maxwell Caulfield) is an intransigent navigator who has almost instigated a space mutiny once... DJ (Richard Cody) is a computer hacker charged with embezzlement. Lloyd (Gary Roberts) is a woman-loving mechanic. Peter (Stephen Davies) is an expert at engineering.As a reward for their hard work and services, the crew members of the U.S.S. Presley are allowed to relax and indulge in their own lovely gratification. The convicts are allowed a chance to vicariously live out their own pleasures via virtual reality.Now, meet Ariel. She is every man's dream. She wants to become your playmate.An alien virus, cleverly disguising herself as a femme fatale named Ariel (Tracy Soggins) has decided to enter each individual program...and turn these people's greatest fantasies into their worst nightmares. Ironically, these petty prisoners and thugs may become entrapped in their own fantasies... Meanwhile, unbeknownst to the daydreaming space travelers, Ariel is intent on luring them to their ultimate doom by forcing one of the crew members to navigate towards the forbidden "G-Sector." While these travelers are distracted by their own illusions, Ariel revels in seducing each victim as she appears in each virtual reality simulation. As a result, tension is created among the crew members themselves...In space, there is no escape. In space, no one can hear a person die screaming in agony...ALIEN INTRUDER has a unique premise, even if it is derivative of probably every other science-fiction thriller ever made. The idea of having an attractive but deadly seductress as the prime adversary is an unexpected turn for a science-fiction film.Every science-fiction cliché ever manifested exists in this potboiler. It features lots of erotic love scenes, interpolated with sporadically violent action sequences. There are lots of gung-ho action in this flick. Along the way, the viewer is treated to a collection of beautiful women! What about the *special* effects? The special effects are not quite so special. Especially staring at that spinning spaceship...what a sizzling special effect. This film is all showmanship and little innovation. Most of the special FX, from the explosions in space to that dizzying space shuttle in distress are far from impressive, but it is allowable, considering the limited budget.The visual sets, even the Wild West, are utterly depressing. All of the visual settings in this movie are just so murky and dismal. I guess that it kind of reflects the mood of the film in general. One of the virtual reality segments though, shot in black and white, is a sly homage to the "film noir" of the 1950s. The Wild West backdrop is sufficient as well. ALIEN INTRUDER has a really horrendous production, but it is sort of interesting to watch.The performances in this movie are deadpan with Conaway acting way over-the-top as a psycho on the loose. Billy Dee Williams (whose payback for his supporting role in BATMAN was observably not high enough) seems to know how to have fun here as for the rest of the cast. Tracy Soggins is cute in this movie, especially when she plays mind games with the male cast. It is a joy to watch everyone acting paranoid in this movie...ALIEN INTRUDER is sort of predictable because the viewer is always one step ahead of the characters. For example, we all know that Ariel will make herself an obligatory part of each of the space convict's dreams. It is just a matter of when she will show up which adds to part of the fun...ALIEN INTRUDER is a decent but tedious sci-fi film. There is enough sex, violence, and eye candy to appease connoisseurs of sleaze, but this film has immensely restricted appeal. Despite this movie's flaws, it is still admissible. The film does move relatively fast enough, I suppose. At least Pepin and Merhi have managed to delete those dumb, poorly made (and sung) theme songs. Overall, think of ALIEN INTRUDER as a cross between "Playboy" and THE OUTER LIMITS...just without any sense of reverence... RATING: ** out of ****.