Once E.T. made sci-fi cinema safe to leave your kids in front of again, Hollywood fell over itself to present extraterrestrials as the kind of cuddly, benign creatures you could quite happily enjoy a product placement fast food meal with. But unlike Mac and Me, Howard the Duck et al, Spaced Invaders made its alien beings malevolent, reckless, and with faces only a Martian momma could love.
Like many of its family-friendly counterparts, the cable TV staple was still slated on its 1990 release, with Roger Ebert slamming it as “appallingly unwatchable.” While it certainly can’t compete with the Amblin classics of the era, there’s plenty to admire about its ramshackle approach 35 years on, most notably its surprisingly meta hook which may well have given Galaxy Quest’s screenwriters an idea or two.
