Aliens have done some damage to us earthlings over the years in cinema, and with Chunkblower's review of DARK SKIES just in, let's consider which horror film did alien invasion best. To allow for more spots for other movies, remakes and sequels have all been consolidated into the original film. So if you want to vote for Body Snatchers (1993) just vote Invasion of the Body Snatchers. If you want to vote Critters 3 (why, god, why??) then vote Critters. Just specify in this thread what version you've picked.
While The Thing, Species, Slither, and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) are favorites, I have to give some love to Evil Aliens. No other alien invasion movie I know of features motivational farm music, so there's that.
I voted for Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978). On its merits as a film alone, I enjoy The Thing (1982) more, but to be honest that one feels more like a monster movie than an alien invasion movie to me. So within the parameters of the poll question, which one is a better alien invasion movie? I go with Invasion of the Body Snatchers.
I went with The Thing, but Invasion is a close second. I was surprised to see in the Top 100 thread, that not too many others feel the same as it just barely squeaked in the list. I agree with you though, even though I picked The Thing, Invasion is probably the better alien invasion movie. Fire in the Sky is probably the creepiest alien abduction flick though.
Agree, I see The Thing as more of a monster film than an alien invasion. I picked Body Snatchers too but also really enjoy They Live.
Signs pretty much blows the rest of these out of the water. Such a great movie really wish the director hadn't become such a douche bag.
Wow, I love Signs too but I don't really think it can hold a candle to Carpenter's The Thing. Signs featured great chemistry between Gibson and Phoenix, was suitably spooky, and more complex than this usual type of genre offering (certainly better than Dark Skies), but I don't see it as a standout film. I do think it was M. Knight Shamamamaramram's best film though, no doubt.
The Thing and Predator are two of my absolute favorite films but neither really feels like an alien invasion movie to me so I voted for War of the Worlds.
I tend to differentiate between alien invasion and alien infestation, the former requires intelligent intent to both arrive and take over, the latter just involves presence by accident/incident and doesn't even require any intelligent design when they get here. I also don't consider visitations to be invasions. Even ignoring the nit picking criteria above, for me the list clearly stops at the Quatermass series, a set of tales undeniably about alien invasion (well, the first film might be just infestation). Apart from Invasion of the Body Snatchers (especially the 1978 version), the original Village of the Damned, a qualified nod to the miniseries Invasion Earth, and tongue in cheek props to They Live, few films have done thought provoking alien invasion like Quatermass and the Pit. While the film franchise was nothing special, I have to admit the basic premise of Species (invasion by sending DNA sequences and letting gullible humans create their own destruction) was clever in its devious low effort nature. It’s like alien invasion via Spam email attachment - lazily write the thing, click send, then wait and see if anyone is dumb enough to open it.
Kaufman's Invasion Of The Body Snatchers for me. Never again will we see that kind of cast in a legitimate horror movie. Today you could only assemble that level of talent for PG-13 mass market-friendly drivel.
I think the net was cast too wide here. I'm not sure how to qualify it, but pitting Dark Skies against The Thing or Predator seems unfair.
Yes, I've seen and own the movie. Unless you mean Illegal Aliens, which would even be stretching it there, I don't see how it's really an alien invasion or sci-fi film.
Killer Klowns from Outer Space. It's not vastly underrated in terms of people liking it but I think it's a little underlooked at as having a lot more substance underneath. Symbolically. I'm sure a lot of aliens used disguises. But how many of the disguises themselves were intentionally manipulative? As a means of engaging a pre-existing trust to lure in victims? Making them hunters, in some cases sport. And how many had a face that was like a product itself? The movie's incorporation of fast food restaurants from Frame #1 (post title sequence) is a silent recognition of Ronald McDonald as Clown Mascot for an industry which brightly colors and attractively packages their dangerous product that slowly kills you (the same as cigarettes, alcohol, and harmful chemicals; ala- Tim Burton's Batman). Throughout, we have scene after scene of the clowns killing people but we always see their faces close up with dead expressions as they gather in groups forming an army which again goes totally unspoken of in the film's dialogue. The movie kind of found a way to creatively depict a genocide and Home Invasion in the most horrific sense it could ever happen: we actually watch a platoon of them swoop in and raid houses like a vacuum sucking up ants.
