#10. UFO: Target Earth - 1974

Do I have to do this one?

Beginning as a documentary covering UFO sightings by locals talking about getting probed, the opening credits roll with some accompanying folk music, and a collection of famous UFO photographs.


Alan Grimes. Communications student and frequently troubled by childhood memories of alien encounters. While making a phone call, he amazingly taps into a government call. General Gallagher was talking to someone about tracking some lights that were seen in the area recently. It becomes his mission to discover whats going on - similar to me discovering what's going on in the movie.

"E.T. man-handled me"

He meets Dr. Whitham, who looked remarkably like Ronnie Barker and.... you know what? Can I just say that this movie is more of a sequence of random events with a very loosely woven story line. There's so much drivel coming out of Alan's mouth and random scene cuts, that it's almost impossible to track the sequence of events. The script is woeful and, hey check out the boom mic in this shot:


It moves around and everything. There is a few shots of people talking with their backs to camera to.

To give you the briefest of outlines, this is what happens: Grimes hears talk of UFOs. Grimes meets girl who is somehow tuned in to the aliens. Grimes meets Ronnie Barker, the scientist who adds nothing to the movie. They both meet a crazy old lady who talks of a flying saucer landing in the lake when she was a child. They go camping with some other scientists. They detect alien signals:


Then, it turns out that Alan Grimes is actually needed by the aliens as a power source. He gets hypnotized by the alien's signal on the screen and walks towards the shore, aging as he goes. This is all happening while the alien voice over is crapping on about rubbish. He walks into the water. The other scientist guy swims after him only to discover that Grimes aged so much, he turned into a skeleton:


Then we are treated to a few minutes of psychedelia and an alien voice-over explaining that they'd waited for a thousand years for Alan, before the movie ends to the music from 'The Onedin Line.'

Thank god that's over. UFO: Target Earth - Done.

Gadgetry: You thought I was going to say "UFO" right? Sorry.

Favorite quote: I'd like to change this category to, 'Worst line/s'. Here it is.

Ronnie Barker: "Curiously, what the hell do we know about electricity?"
Alan: "We know it's a power source."
Ronnie Barker: "So is imagination..."

Others include:

"When did you discover your awareness?" - A. Grimes

"Possibilities... is anything possible? Our minds conjure up such fantasies. Can they become reality?" - A. Grimes

"It's almost here... with us..." Ten second pause. "Dreams." - Grimes again on discovering the UFOs are real.

Favorite bit: Absolutely none at all. Maybe a few songs in the sound track, although they do tend to play them at full volume over the dialog at times.

Bottom line: Unbelievably poor. Grimes' introspective rhetorical clap-trap is unbearable, as is the film's confusing direction and bizarre script.

Some films are so bad that they're just plain hilarious. This one makes you angry.