Invader

Plot synopsis:
In the opening sequence, four airmen from Clark Air Base in Washington D.C. frantically attempt to escape the base. A contingent of soldiers soon blocks their path. Most of the escapees are shot, but one sees a flying saucer which burns him to a crisp with its energy weapon.
Frank Mccall (Hans Bachmann) is an overqualified photojournalist writing about two-headed dogs and alien abductions for the sleazy National Scandal tabloid. When the airman's charred corpse is found, he is assigned to the story. When government agents try to keep him out, he resolves to sneak into the airbase, where a top-secret fighter plane is to be demoed that night. The plane is equipped with an experimental software system called A.S.M.O.D.S, which suddenly malfunctions mid-demo, crashing the plane. As the disappointed top brass go home, Mccall is intercepted by Captain Anders (A. Thomas Smith), who orders him taken into custody and his camera seized.
Sinister men in black wrench Mccall away, taking him to a storage compartment to be injected with a glowing green substance and brainwashed with an electronic apparatus. Anders and Colonel Faraday (Rick Foucheux) arrive in time to stop them, and the men shoot themselves. Anders takes Mccall into custody himself, while Faraday returns to the base. Suddenly, the flying saucer from the opening appears. Anders shoots it, to no effect, while Mccall photographs it with his backup disc camera. Powerless against the invader, they drive away, dodging more men in black on the way, and lock themselves in the base.
Mccall's camera is again confiscated, its photos to be developed as evidence. Mccall manages to secure the prints, and also spies on Anders conversing with the General. He thus finds out that the A.S.M.O.D.S. system uses alien technology recovered from a crashed spaceship in the New Mexico desert, and this technology seems to have a mind of its own. The men in black break their way in, so Mccall escapes with Anders in the F-117 stealth fighter. They have a brief dogfight with some F-16s out of Clark, which ends when they manage to secure air support from the Pentagon.
Mccall and Anders are questioned, and eventually manage to convince General Anheiser (John Cook) that A.S.M.O.D.S. has taken over the base computers using the intranet, and brainwashed all of the soldiers into its control. They agree to go investigate the next day. In between time, Mccall quits his job at the Scandal, realizing he is onto the story of the century.
At the airbase, the trio is greeted by a now-brainwashed Faraday. His troops destroy their helicopter escort, and he takes them down to the subbasement, which has been excavated into a gaping cavern. There Faraday reveals the alien's plan: it cannibalized the base hardware to build a giant robot, HARV, with which to conquer the world after nuking China and Russia. Mccall realizes that just as the alien programming seeped into A.S.M.O.D.S., so A.S.M.O.D.S. has seeped into the alien, arming it with a nationalistic impulse to destroy America's enemies.
The protagonists manage to shoot Faraday's guards. HARV tries to stop them, but only succeeds in killing Faraday. They search the basement for weapons with which to destroy HARV and avert World War III. They find a rocket launcher and two rockets; their first attempt misses, but the second is a direct hit, with one second to spare before HARV would launch the missiles. The ending sequence shows several newspapers honoring Mccall for his heroics, while the National Scandal claims the alien invasion was a hoax.

Tags: brainwashing

Review:
Alien technology out for world domination!.
Entering untrodden B-movie territory when in 1992 independent filmmaker Philip J.
Cook got legendary Israeli producer Menahem Golan to executive produce his sophomore outing Invader.
With a screenplay far too ambitious for its budgetary means, the result became an undefinable genre mixture.
An alien electronic intelligence is transforming the folks from a military airbase into mindless slaves.
Enter Frank McCall (Hans Bachmann), a tabloid reporter who gets entangled in the story of a lifetime.
Invader is one of the strangest alien conspiracy films ever concocted, as the ridiculous plot doesn't even try to take itself seriously.
Six words for the movie's finale: Giant philosophizing megalomaniac stop motion robot.
Dare we say this is a misunderstood masterpiece?.
The only thing impressive about this movie was the poster....
Having been impressed by the movie poster and the implied theme when I saw it in 1992, I rented the movie...
and it was the pits.
Ignore everything "sketchy" has said about the movie; it has no redeeming qualities.
Even by the standards of 1992, the graphics are horrible, the plot is predictable and plodding, the acting is one dimensional, and the miniature animatronics look like miniature animatronics.The movie's current score of 3.6 out of 10 is accurate.
However, as I said, the poster is very nice, and I recommend it to anyone.Movie: 3 out of 10Poster: 7 out of 10.
Cartoon-like and not a very good one either........
With a make up as you go plot, "Invader" loses all credibility, and believability by the ten minute mark, after which you will be wondering what is going on, or better yet, you won't care what is going on.
There is nothing endearing about a non-script micro budget film that tests your patience.
It is not strange, it is not a cult film candidate, what it is, is a mess of a movie.
The acting, effects, and everything else, reeks of "let's finish this thing", no matter if it makes any sense, let's just get it finished.
Beware, "Invader" will not meet your expectations for a low budget sci-fi, because there is really no story being told.
It is simply a mish-mash of bad acting, bad script, and marginal special effects.
- MERK.
No redeeming value.
This deserves at least Honorable Mention in the "Sylvester" awards for Worst Movie Ever Made.
The plot is so hackneyed and cornball it's hard to believe anyone would fork over good money to make the flick.
The acting is abominable with semi-profane wisecracks standing in for realistic dialog.
The production values and special effects are horrendous even by 1992 (the year "Invader" escaped...
ah, was released) standards.
At one point, a character hops into what is supposed to be a top-line aircraft cockpit and nearly displaces pieces of foam rubber that serve as head- and backrest.
At another point, two characters, one a reporter for a national scandal sheet, join uninvited and unannounced, a meeting on interference with a top-secret government weapons test and no one even questions it!
If those aren't bad enough, apparently, nobody bothered to do even cursory research into questions like, "What color are official U.S. Air Force vehicles?" If tempted at all to view this mess, do so in the spirit of laughing at how bad movie making can get, and how low the tastes of audiences (yourself excluded of course) can sink..
A small movie with big ambition.
this movie was made on a shoestring budget, at one point they had to stop filming because they ran out of money (and the leading man changed his entire hairstyle, leading to all sorts of Continuity Fun).I think it was trying to be a Science-Fiction conspiracy masterwork with a subtle play on politics of the day.
"New World Order" and so on.
What we got was a movie with very low quality acting, military guys who didn't really act like military guys, and some very cheezy special effects even for 1992.But still, it has some fun moments in it, in a MST3K kind of way.
Too many low-rent filmmakers are just happy to do Zombie Movie #345, these guys were willing to try to do something kind of interesting..
"Some kind of a subtext.
Like a computer virus.".
The plot of the film is....well I'm not sure of the plot.
It involves an air base, a stealth plane, a reporter from a scandal sheet, a captain from the Department Of Defence, a rogue computer programme, aliens, something called Asmodeus and several sinister soldiers in sunglasses.
These elements are combined to make a mainly dull film.
It goes from one silly situation to another until it climaxes with a stop motion robot hilariously quoting lines from the song 'As Time Goes By.' The acting is adequate.
Our putative hero is the reporter Frank McCall played by Hans Bachmann and he is very whiny and annoying.
One of the characters keeps telling him to shut up to which one agrees with hugely.
But unfortunately he doesn't.
The best character is Capt.
Harry Anders played by A.
Thomas Smith who gives the most entertaining performance and lifts the movie when he is on screen.
John Lamb plays 'Brain Dead Soldier' and Jack Weedon plays 'Wide Eyed Soldier' but I'm sorry to say I didn't notice their particular performances as there were a lot of soldiers.Asmodeus is described confusingly in one sentence by a character as "Some kind of a subtext.
An entity.
An entity.
An intelligence.
An intelligence.
Like a computer virus" which only reflects the film itself.
It doesn't make much sense.