Lifeform (1996)

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

Lifeform (AKA Invader) 1996 RThis film is about a team of scientists and military yahoos that end up fighting an alien creature. It's that simple. It's yet another film like Alien or Leviathan (which itself was a direct rip-off of Alien) or Species. In this one, intelligent life that reproduces asexually sends a Viking probe back from Mars (because Mars is new territory in the world of alien encounters you know), and that probe has been modified to carry this creature along with it. Of course, the alien gets out and gets hunted and gets killed. Overall, the acting isn't too bad, and the special effects are competent. The alien is intelligent, so of course, the one woman in the film feels sorry for it. The design of the alien itself is kind of like those half-human, half-horse creatures. You know, a centaur. It looks all terrifying on the outside, but then it extends it's little alien body up (the part where the human part of the centaur goes) out of the normal trunk (the part that is the horse), and it looks all benevolent. The military base they're on is rather bland, and of course, Big Brother shows up and spoils the show. The Army folks saunter about trying to kill the alien and they're all afraid it may have some contagion that it's spreading around.The atmosphere isn't bad, but the film is somewhat shallow—it's just a straight-forward science fiction/horror flick with some decent gore and a humorous kill (guy is stabbed with the blunt end of an M-16). Nothing really special, but nothing really horrible. Recommended to hardcore SF/horror buffs. And that's about it.5/10

Invader starts in a restricted military zone somewhere deep in the Californian desert as the 'Viking 2' space-probe comes crashing down to Earth. What's so unusual about that you might ask? Well, Viking 2 was a probe sent to Mars & should still be there, scientist Dr. Cate Montgomery (Cotter Smith) & NASA man Michael Perkett (Leland Orser) are baffled as to how it ended up back on Earth. Montgomery calls in state biologist Dr. Gracia Scott (Deirdre O'Connell) to examine the probe to determine whether it was ever on Mars in the first place, taking samples from the probe Montgomery & Scott discover a strange circular object & an unidentified stringy slimy spiderweb type substance. The tests prove that Viking 2 has indeed come from Mars, then the military show up. Colonel Jessie Pratt (Robert Wisdom) takes total control on behalf of the military which displeases Mongomery & Scott, as they argue & try to outdo each other the strange pod like object on the probe breaks open & a slimy alien life-form emerges. Does it come in peace or does it have more sinister intentions...Written, co-produced & directed by Mark H. Baker I thought Invader was a decent film that with a few minor tweaks could have been so much more. The script at heart is basically Alien (1979) & Aliens (1986) on a much smaller budget. Having said that there are some really unusual ideas & it at least tries to do something a little bit different with the standard 'slimy alien on the loose' formula. For instance Invader gives us an intelligent alien rather than just a motiveless 'killing machine', it tries to leave the aliens motives to the viewers own interpretation, the scientific & military teams have conflicting opinions as the alien seems to have intelligence as it lays traps, takes parts of computers & gunpowder from bullets. Both sides have theories as to what the alien is up to & the filmmakers presumably leave it all pretty vague on purpose. The character's are decent, the dialogue is better than you would expect & it would appear that a fair amount of effort was put into Invader. Unfortunately it becomes bogged down in this dialogue which slows the pace down too much & begins to grow tiresome when we all want to see some alien action & the ending is terrible, as things are moving along nicely bang, that's it film over with a deeply unsatisfying conclusion & a clichéd 'something survived' final shot.Director Baker does his best on a low budget, the action scenes are reasonably well staged but there aren't enough of them. While he tries to give his audience something to think about he just doesn't give us enough to get excited about, it's a shame as Invader could have been a really neat sci-fi horror film in the Alien mould. The alien itself has an unusual design & I'm not sure about it, it's different & original but not that menacing or scary. There is a gooey alien autopsy, a makeshift appendix removal & a scene when a soldier is impaled with his own rifle but apart from that it's fairly tame.Technically Invader is pretty good, the abandoned military facility makes for a forgettable & bland location. The limited special effects are good & it's generally well made throughout. The acting was OK & soon to be star Ryan Phillippe makes an appearance.Invader had potential & some it fulfilled & some of it wasted. In the end the best way to describe it would be like a talkative Alien clone which does it a bit of a disservice as it's has certain credibility & intelligence about it. Hard to recommend because of the awful climax & a pace that is just too slow, definitely worth a watch but I couldn't help but feel disappointed by it overall.

A mysterious object enters the airspace of a military base in California going at a tremendous rate of speed. A team is sent out to investigate. It turns out to be one of the Viking landers from that we sent to Mars. How did it get back to Earth? Why is it here? Is there a big nasty alien that's going to end up popping out of our chests if we touch it? While the last question is a bit of a joke relating to the obvious Alien (1979) influences on Lifeform (aka Invader), it's no secret that the film involves, well, an alien lifeform. What seems to be more of a secret is the film's existence and the fact that it's pretty good.An obviously low-budget affair, writer/director Mark H. Baker overcomes this limitation with a smart, well-constructed story, plenty of sci-fi horror tension, and fine performances (including from an amusingly young Ryan Phillippe). A lot of the budget appears to have been spent on building the Viking replica, the costumes/military accoutrements for the human cast, the creature costume and special effects. It was money well spent. The effects are amazing for such a low budget film. The creature costume is as good as most big studio efforts, the Alien-style cocoons and eggs are well done, and there is a great, visceral autopsy scene.Except for exterior location, Baker wisely keeps all of the action in a nondescript government facility. "Nondescript" may not sound very attractive visually, but it's believable. That's how government facilities look. Besides, Baker is skilled enough to make it interesting visually. The bulk of the plot is divided into two modes: (1) figuring out what the Viking lander and then the alien are doing there, and (2) "monster" chase and attack scenes.Baker gives us fantastic sci-fi writing for both. We have a team of bright, multi-dimensional scientists examining the lander from a "hard science" angle, with dialogue that's not gobbledy-gook yet that's easy enough to understand. They propose intelligent theories and make intelligent moves. As the military becomes more involved and we begin to enter more of an action/horror sci-fi mode, Baker doesn't have his characters leave their brains at the doors. They develop an Alien-like sulfur detector to find the monster, and they have insights into its behavior that help them.Still, the material is very suspenseful at times, and it is consistently captivating. There are clever subtexts. One is keyed to an important piece of dialogue--"Why are we exploring space if we're just going to blow-up every lifeform we come across?" Even though there is little reason to believe that the alien has ill intentions, most of our protagonists assume that it does, and they all assume that it at least poses a great danger to them in the form of unwittingly transmitted viruses, for example. They go so far as to issue a quarantine and consider drastic worst-case-scenarios and options. Baker seems to have a pessimistic view of human tendencies in the face of the unknown, and probably deservedly so.Although there are some flaws with the film (otherwise I wouldn't have subtracted two points), including strange moves by characters, such as one wearing a face mask to guard against biological contamination and another standing a foot behind and not wearing a face mask, Lifeforce is unusual (such as its strange but refreshing nihilistic ending—apparently, fortuitously precipitated by budget limitations) and well worth watching.

If you like smart Sci-Fi you will like INVADER aka LIFEFORM. A Viking probe satellite mysteriously returns from Mars and like a Trojan Horse has a surprise in tow. A strange pod resembling an armadillo spawns a creature with a taste for blood and the curiosity to gather intelligence of Earth's inhabitants. The curious visitor takes on the form of an armored ape... albeit angry and clever with the ability to transform its shape. The story line is well thought out, but too similar to most "alien" movies. Is the Martian hitchhicker trying to prevent an invasion of the red planet? An abrupt twist at the finale leaves a few questions unanswered. The cast includes: Deirdre O'Connell, Cotter Smith, Leland Orser and Ryan Phillippe.