Trailer—Invasion of the Pod People

source: Invasion of the Pod People

I don't know what movie these other yoo-hoos were watching, but this film is cinematic gold. Storyline is flawless, acting is top notch, and production value is through the roof. Truly one of the great films of 2007, I would highly recommend to any serious movie enthusiasts. Grab your popcorn, a box of tissues, maybe even a clean pair of underoos, and strap yourself in for one wild ride, start to finish. I expect big things from this director coming down the pipeline. Titanic. Lawerence of Arabia. Avatar. Invasion of the Pod People. Mark my words people, this flick is a nonstop thrill ride. Spoiler alert, fast forward to 42 minutes for some frontal nudity and heavy petting. If you're in to that kind of thing.

Shame on anyone who gives this more than one star! (And that's generous.) This film is so cataclysmically dreadful that if the doctor tells you that you have two weeks to live, watch this film. You'll want the two weeks to end quickly. The first couple of scenes start off well. Girl watches TV news report about mysterious meteorite shower, girl goes outside to see meteors blazing across the sky... nice. Then the camera cuts to her face and her reaction is precisely what I'd expect from someone who opened a carton of milk and found milk in it. That was a clue to the standard of acting throughout. But it's still better than the lighting and audio. As for the story... well, let's just say that what we have here is a * script, complete with * direction, but without the scenes you really paid your money for. Oh, there's soft *, but it's as inept as everything else about this film. And then there's the mysterious alien plant that's key to the pod people's invasion. Surely someone could have found some modeling clay and a bit of paint. But no, our prop is a piece of ginger. Not one character in the film recognized it as a piece of ginger. I'm not sure what offends me more: the fact that the prop is so dismally unimaginative, or the fact that no one on the production team seems to recognize a popular grocery item. How do films this bad get made? It may be low budget but someone still had to put up the funds for this tripe. Did it make a profit? I need to go for a lie down.

Invasion of the Pod People (2007) ** (out of 4) The Asylum's "mockbuster" is a take on THE INVASION with Nicole Kidman, which of course was a remake of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS. In the story a meteor hits the Earth and soon afterwards a woman begins to realize that everyone around here is acting weird. If you're seen the previous movies then you know what's going on. If you don't know the story then I'd recommend to stop reading this and go check out the original film with Kevin McCarthy. A lot of people attack The Asylum for their really bad movies that are usually void of any talent or imagination. I really understand because they've made some awful movies but there are times where I find their "work" to be interesting simply because as a film fan I'm interested in seeing their take on a familiar piece of work. Yes, they could try doing something "original" but why should they when these things keep making them money? This film works "best" the same way their I AM OMEGA did and that's that the source material is simply so good that it's hard to mess it up too bad. Yes, this film has an ultra cheap budget and yes the story is a rip-off and yes the performances aren't that good but I think the central story is interesting enough to where the film kept me slightly entertained in a cheap, "B" movie way. There are some updated elements here, which are pretty funny and the biggest seems to be the fact that the female pop people all turn into lesbians. This here leads to some rather erotic sex scenes where new women are "taught" new things. Again, this movie is cheap on every level so it's clearly just going to be for those looking for some very light entertainment. I think this type of thing slightly worked for me because I enjoy bad movies and I can't help but compare this to the countless rip-offs that hit drive-ins after the original INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS was released.

INVASION OF THE POD PEOPLE (aka INVASION: THE BEGINNING) is a straight-to-DVD horror movie produced by The Asylum - a low budget producer who produce such movies regularly. The Asylum productions are generally hit and miss. Some like THE BEAST OF BRAY ROAD are great gems. But there are movies like HILLSIDE CANNIBALS that are really, really awful. It is best that you keep an open mind when viewing any of their works. The plot is essentially a clone of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS but with the setting transposed to a modeling agency. For those unaware, the story sees people being replaced by exact duplicates but who behave differently from their original selves. In this incarnation, each character concerned receive a mysterious plant. Several days later, the said character is seen to be behaving strangely with her colleagues. Because the plot of the movie is a clone of a more famous production, people will knock it and on this site they have done. If you find the idea of a clone of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS too unappealing, read no further. If however you are curious, keep reading and I will try persuading you of how it attempts to differentiate itself. With the budget of this movie being very low, The Asylum have been wise to limit special effects. There are no transformation scenes, no silly monsters, no CGI, no rubber masks or prosthetics and no excessive amounts of fake blood here. The direction throughout is very restrained, with no camera tricks or usage of angles to generate tension. Background music is also very limited. But these factors do not hold it back as I shall demonstrate. The movie starts off slow but progresses very well. It relies upon the sinister nature of the "altered" characters to drive the story. This works like a charm. Well-written, simple dialogue combined with great timing of delivery by the cast build up suspense and maintain interest in the key scenes. There is also a very sensual nature to the "altered" beings that holds interest. Without giving away too much, I can reveal that there are sex scenes here and some nudity. Having said this, the nudity is limited and does not come across as tawdry. The sex scenes are intended to be erotic. There are no "silicon babes" here. I am biased in favour of the natural female form so the nudity is appealing to me (and I am very fussy). The twists in the story are predictable but this does not make them any less interesting to watch. The script does not demand Oscar-worthy actresses but the actresses in this movie give surprisingly good performances. In a surprise but highly welcome move from The Asylum, overacting is kept to a minimum. Erica Roby is incredibly lovely and gives a particularly good performance in the lead role. And Jessica Bork plays her sensual role to perfection. I would definitely like to see other movies with these actresses in. And it pleases me to confirm that there are no - repeat no - annoying moronic teenage guys or hysterical teenage girls here. This is strictly an adult-oriented affair and would most likely not appeal to teenagers at all. There are a few unintentionally funny moments to appeal to fans of the "so-bad-it's-good" movies. As a fan of such movies myself, I did not view this movie as a whole from that perspective because it wasn't silly enough to appeal to me on that level. The short running time ensures that the movie doesn't outstay its welcome. It surprisingly didn't drag at all for me. The only major problem with this movie is the ending. It was too abrupt. I would like to have seen this story taken further. Overall, this is a great movie. It is a clone of INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS but has enough qualities to differentiate itself. I recommend it to fans of straight-to-DVD horror movies or fans of other movies from The Asylum. Others would most likely be disappointed.

...was because my brother gave me a used DVD copy he mistakenly bought. I can understand why. It's awful, despite the sporadic appearance of female mammalian protuberances, an exploitation staple that is, I'm sorry to tell you, kids, highly over-rated. The unattributed blurb on the back of the DVD case should have been warning enough: "In the tradition of The Body Snatchers and Species, a horrifying and primal descent into paranoia!" You know you're in trouble when blurbs start off, "In the tradition of..." That's a given. The only paranoia I ended up feeling was the unsettling realization that there are people out there who make really bad, derivative movies. And they do it over and over again, because somehow there seems to be an audience for this sort of thing. I'm not sure which is more disturbing, the idea that people spend good time and money making junk like this, or the idea that other people do the same thing watching it. Needless to say, "Invasion of the Pod People" is cash-in trash of the lowest order, mundanely shot, unevenly edited (no fault of the lovely young editor herself, given the inordinate lack of good footage to work with), a script even a high school film student would disown, indifferent-to-no direction, bargain bin production values, mostly uninvolved actors (whom I also can't blame, given the obvious lack of aforementioned script and direction), a * movie score (and sensibility, come to think of it), and whatever else you might look for in a film---it wasn't there. This is desperation viewing only, despite the pretty perkies that elevate it beyond a one-star rating. Should you, gentle reader, persist in killing time with it, just remember: the fast-forward button is your friend. This movie is not.

After a meteor shower in California, Melissa feels that her co-workers and her boss Samantha that work in the agency owned by Vickland are acting differently after receiving a weird plant. This film has terrible sound, weak visuals, abysmal acting. I cannot even say there was any direction involved. As for the story, how do the writers sleep at night claiming they wrote this? The story was already written (a few times)... all they had to do was steal the credit. This sinks even below the low standards that The Asylum usually holds itself to. Rather than be released, it should have been just been erased and burned in a bonfire. They could not even do the soft-core scenes right (of which there are far too many).

This movie had all the qualifications of a bad, bad movie; bad acting, bad dialog, poor plot progression, terrible soundtrack quality, bad set selection, scenes of people talking on cell phones, scenes of people in cars, stock footage and really bad special effects. When I see films like this I think, this was someone's film school project. The truth is it was probably an independent film festival project or made for Showtime. To describe the acting as bad is using creative license on my part. There wasn't much acting in the film but there was a good bit of reading of cue cards or TelePrompter. The people in the film look at the side of the camera in every scene. The soundtrack had a lot of unexplained noise in a few scenes. The noise, which I figured out was supposed to be the pods multiplying, was so loud that the dialog was unintelligible. The plot of the film would have been difficult to follow if I hadn't read the description on the DVD cover. The characters of the movie supposedly worked for a modeling agency. The story the film presents is; There's a company named Blockthorn that does something and one guy, the boss, wants something done and yells at his employees about getting it right. Then some of the employees become obsessed with a strange plant. One of the employees is attacked by a pod from the plant and then keeps sharing the plant with her coworkers. Yes, this movie was so bad that I wanted to turn away. But we suffered through to the end which left the plot open as if they intend to make a sequel. Then there's the sex. Of course these pods from outer space know about seduction and use it to acquire their pod victims. There where at least four sex scenes with topless ladies. But these scenes were bad too cause only in low budget films to folks have sex without taking their pants and skirts off. Invasion of the Pod People is just bad. I wouldn't recommend that anyone watch this film.

Yet another remake of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", this one featuring a mostly female cast who are overtaken by the foul pod people. That just about sums this turkey up in a nutshell, as it has very little in the way of plot and apparently even less in the way of a budget. Of interest mostly for the lesbian sex scenes, but of these scenes the only one that emerges as truly erotic is when Melissa (the lovely Erica Roby) is seduced by the pod person version of Samantha; Pod-Samantha takes great pleasure in stripping Melissa completely naked and having passionate sexual intercourse with her, placing great emphasis on licking Melissa between her legs until she achieves *; the next morning, Melissa wakes up with just a wee hint of feeling sexually humiliated and asks herself aloud "What did I do last night?" The Pod-Samantha/Melissa sex scene is also quite possibly the only truly disturbing scene in the film, as it is sexual intercourse between an alien and a human (some may even go so far as to say the human Melissa was raped by the alien Pod-Samantha). All in all, not sure I can recommend this unless you're a genre fan and/or a fan of watching beautiful women make love to each other.