We set our scene in outer space, where a brightly glowing meteor streaks toward earth, entering the atmosphere, streaking over a boy in a car, and crashing into the distant hills. The animated meteor crashing sequence is actually quite well done for a movie with as low a budget as this one must have had (considering the fact that at least 50% of the people in the credits share a surname with the writer/director, I imagine they pretty much just spent a few months’ beer money convincing their friends to make a movie with them). In a time before computers ruled the FX world, the meteor was probably hand-painted onto each frame of film, making the attention to detail all the more impressive. When it flies over the car, the car is surrounded by electrical sparks, and the meteor casts shadows and reflections on the car and surrounding area, which all would have to have been added by hand as well.

After seeing the meteor crash, the boy, David, runs to a phone booth to call his teacher Dr. Tracy, who is a major UFO buff. Dr. Tracy tells David to wait there by the side of the road, and he’ll come to meet him in about six hours. What the kid is supposed to do in the car by himself for six hours, I have no idea. I hope for his sake he had a stash of porn, lube, and Kleenex in his trunk.

Mr. Don Dohler wastes no time in showing the goods. The alien (which looks like the love child of Skeletor and Swamp Thing after being left in the microwave too long) immediately leaves the meteor, in reality its disabled craft (which the budget dictates we never get to see), and breaks into the nearest house, probably looking for spare parts. The owners of the house surprise the alien in their basement and attack it. It defends itself and kills the couple, although it never showed aggression until after it was attacked.

Next we’re introduced to the rest of the main human characters: Joe, a slovenly drunkard; Carol, Joe’s 25-year-old daughter who still lives at home; J.J., Joe’s even older son who still lives at home; Annie, the youngest daughter who’s old enough to be a grandchild; and Joe’s wife, whose name I couldn’t catch. Carol berates Joe for being a no-good drunkard, and a lovely bit of domestic abuse ensues, culminating with Joe chasing Carol through the woods with a shotgun. Carol runs into her boyfriend, Michael, who asks her to come away with him and leave her family to their fate. Joe and J.J., on the other hand, run into the alien. Joe takes a shot and misses. The alien runs off, but leaves behind a mysterious glowing sphere.

Joe calls up his buddy Frank, who arrives with his girlfriend Vicki. Joe shows them the sphere, flipping a switch which causes it to burst into flame. Frank is impressed, but tells Joe he’s thinking small and convinces him they need to hunt the alien instead so they can sell it in the big city. They head for town, leaving J.J. to guard the sphere. The alien shows up as soon as he’s alone, stunning him with some kind of cattle prod and taking its sphere back.

Enlisting a small redneck army from the local bar that night, Joe and Frank go into the woods where the alien is waiting. Now we find out what the sphere is for - it powers the alien’s gun. It does a pretty good job of mowing down rednecks left and right until some of them flank it and tie it up, choking it unconscious. David and Dr. Tracy see the whole thing, and follow Joe back to his house to free the alien, which has been locked in his garage.

After a series of chases and stealings and re-stealings of the alien‘s gun, Frank ends up shooting Dr. Tracy, the alien shoots Frank, and Joe shoots the alien and takes its gun yet again. He runs back to the house to celebrate by getting drunk, although how someone who is constantly falling-down drunk can get still drunker without just dying is beyond me. Vicki arrives looking for Frank, and when she refuses Joe’s advances he shoots her with the alien’s gun. After he passes out, Michael and Carol sneak in and take the gun yet again. This thing gets passed around like the only dildo in the convent. Joe chases them (good crikey, there’s a lot of fucking chasing in this movie) into the woods, where the final showdown sees the alien shot with its own gun by Joe and finally killed. Just as Joe is about to kill Michael, his wife whacks him in the head with his shotgun and sends him flying off a cliff. The end.

Now, up until that last bit, the movie was surprisingly good. Sure, the acting sucks, as is bound to happen when you only hire your family, but as far as the camera work, the pacing, the technical aspects are pretty solid. There’s some nice coverage during the alien/rednecks shootout especially, which is handled very competently and from multiple angles - something you don’t expect from a DIY project that probably cost less than ten grand to make. The story is also pretty good; a lone scout alien trapped on an unfamiliar planet and trying to be peaceful, but landing in redneck territory and having the worst possible luck, like having your car break down in Harlem. But at the end there, when ma whacks Joe, the movie absolutely abandons all its dignity. First of all, the windup is handled in a series of multi-angle slow motion shots, several of which reveal that they are in fact nowhere near a cliff, but in the middle of the woods. Once the shotgun connects (which it is painfully obvious is a VERY pulled punch), a floppy, goofy-looking straw dummy bearing only a passing resemblance to Joe goes flying off a cliff with no trees in sight, bouncing and flailing on the way down as only a boneless plush dummy could. Then there’s the complete disregard for thermodynamics, which would have caused ma to either break both her arms or go flying halfway back to the house. Coming at the end of an otherwise totally serious and fairly competent movie, this scene really undercuts what power and respect the rest of the flick had so far built up. Seriously, this one goes right alongside the scene from Zombie Holocaust where the mannequin falls out the window and its arm goes flying off when it lands.

So, all things considered, Galaxy Invader is a pretty good waste of 90 minutes. It’s not great, although it has little glimmers of greatness (or at least pretty-damn-goodness), and it certainly doesn’t suck, but the crappy acting, extremely bargain-basement budget, and absolutely retarded final scene do a lot to rip the legs out from under the finished product. Still, anyone who can honestly enjoy a flawed but well-meaning b-movie could find a worse way to spend a rainy afternoon.