Wednesday, April 30, 2014

Top 5, Bottom 5: Alien Invasion Movies

Last week I watched my 20th political drama, and this week, with Ender's Game, I watched my 20th alien invasion movie. So, out of those 20, here are my top 5 and my bottom 5, out of 2118 movies in my Flickchart at the time I wrote this.

Top 5
1. The World's End (2013, #222). This is also one of my top 5 films of 2013, and probably my favorite of the Cornetto Trilogy. A wildly funny take on the idea of an alien invasion.
2. Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, #259). Old horror movies can feel very dated, so I was surprised at how tense this movie was when I first watched it. It does a great job of building the suspense.
3. The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, #320). This one does seem very dated, but I grew up on it and still really enjoy it. The characters are interesting and the story is a good one.
4. Mars Attacks! (1996, #460). Totally flips around the trope of well-meaning aliens that America gets way too aggressive about. Every time the aliens promise it'll be different and then just start gleefully shooting everyone for no reason, I start laughing.
5. Signs (2002, #709). Though this movie really does kind of fall apart once the aliens are seen, I think the build-up throughout creates a nice atmosphere and I enjoy the religious themes explored.

Bottom 5
5. Chicken Little (2005, #1740). A lame, unfunny attempt at retelling a kids' story.
4. Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (1964, #1920). Not nearly ridiculous enough to enjoy on its own as a so-bad-it's-awesome movie. Thank goodness for MST3K.
3. Men in Black II (2002, #2004). I enjoy the first and third in this series, but this second one is painfully awful with absolutely no jokes that work.
2. Prince of Space (1959, #2089). This is probably unfairly low, as I seem to remember one or two unintentionally funny moments, but mostly I just remember it being boring and bad.
1. This Island Earth (1955, #2092). Also probably unfairly low, but the fact that I can hardly remember anything about it certainly doesn't speak in its favor.

How about you guys? What are your favorites and least favorites?

1 comment:

  1. My favorite is the 1978 Invasion of the Body Snatchers, and I recently loved film Attack the Block as well. Great article! Love the blog title lol

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