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INVADER
Produced by Jon R. Ellis
Directed, Written, Edited, and Photographed by Philip CookFrank McCall - Hans Bachman
Capt. Harry Anders - A. Thomas Smith
Colonel Robert Faraday - Rick Roucheux
General John Anheiser - John Cooke
Harvey Briggs - Robert Biederman
It's long since been a cliché of science fiction that the first people to greet an alien culture are the military. One never knows if the aliens are hostle, so screenwriters work using the logic that it's better to be safe then sorry. What happens if the aliens target the military first? What if the aliens invade the minds of military men in efforts to stage a quiet coup in their plan to conquer the world (or at least the United States)? When the conspiracy gets too deep it's up to that most stalwart of second-tier sci-fi heroes to step forward - the ever-reliable tabloid reporter.
The tabloid reporter is the most likable of all smart alecks since they know they're the punch line to their own jokes. Not able to get a job at a better paper, they realize that they are on the bottom of the journalistic food chain. They know that if they take themselves too seriously it would just be a matter of time before they climb a clock tower or snack on the business end of a shotgun. To make it through the day then need to retain their sense of humor. It's that playful charm that makes fans out of the local ladies and enemies out of the police. It is also what holds the cynicism at bay and keeps the tabloid reporter hopeful that the next story will be "the big one" that catapults them from the scandal sheets to "legit" newspapers.
Frank McCall is just that sort of tabloid reporter. He's spent the last few years chasing vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and aliens - oh, my. In Washington D.C.-area filmmaker Philip Cook's INVADER, McCall finally lucks into "the big one." The Air Force recently discovered an alien craft and went about rebuilding it; trying to rewrite the advanced software code in hopes of creating the new jet fighter called the F-23. All they really did was anger the artificial intelligence that controlled the craft. Now ASMODS (pronounced "as-moe-dee-es") is turning the most powerful military in the world into its own force of totalitarian thugs and enforcers.
McCall writes for The National Scandal, and like Cook, knows that all the best conspiracies originate in and around D.C.. In one central location you have politicians, military, and prominent science organizations all ready to push their own personal agendas rather than unite for the common good. Well, at least until everyone's posteriors are on the line. When alliances between the primarily male cast are finally formed to stop ASMODS, it's as if Cook has channeled the directing sensibilities of Howard Hawks and John Carpenter. It's men being men, doing their jobs like professionals, and staring danger right in the eyes. If they have to pay the ultimate sacrifice, so be it. That's what manly men do.
Despite the fast-paced testosterone storytelling style, Cook keeps things light thanks primarily to his clever script and witty dialog. Even when characters are at odds, they still come across likable and good-natured. I'd go far as to say that even when at their worst, the human characters never come across as anything other then deeply flawed. There is only one bad guy in INVADER, and that's ASMODS.
As villains go, ASMODS is a memorable one. Initially, ASMODS is shown as a living, thinking UFO, flying around the military base. During the final moments of the movie, it has grown into a giant mechanized biped, ala Mechwarrior or Patlabor. It's in these final moments where Cook won me over. An old-school filmmaker, Cook and his partners handcraft all the miniatures for their stop motion effects. One could call it nostalgia, but I prefer bad stop motion to mediocre CGI. Please don't interpret that as me stating that the stop motion here is bad, far from it. There are some helicopter effects that are so convincing that I wouldn't have known were fake had I not read the trivia page on IMDb.
You might be wondering why in today's day in age would Cook even be using stop motion when desktop programs can animate far more economically, especially considering that Cook is widely held as one of the best computer animators that D.C. has to offer. The answer is simple; INVADER isn't a new production. It's a re-mastered re-release of a 1992 film. For the DVD, Cook has gone back and cleaned up some of the flying effects, but for the most part he's kept the original film intact. Never having seen the old VHS release, I can't compare the old scenes with the new, but I will go so far as to say that the newer animated effects are perhaps too clean. They are missing the film grain that would help the footage blend more easily. It would have been nice to see the original footage as an extra on the DVD.
It might seem like I'm lathering it on Philip Cook a bit thick. Where I sit, he is to science fiction what someone like Brett Piper is to horror. They're both old-school no-budget veterans from a time when there was more to backyard productions than simply setting up your video camera in front of your friends and yelling "action." Both men build their own sets, effects, and miniatures as needed; both have a flair for well-paced witty dialog; and both men have a very apparent love for their respective genres that shines through as a sort of good-natured charm.
Regular readers might remember Cook's name from previously reviewed efforts including OUTERWORLD and THE DESPISER, a film that's easily one of the most imaginative microcinematic efforts I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying. While INVADER might not be as emotionally moving as THE DESPISER, it's as every bit as entertaining.