Search - The Sci-Fi Invasion! (Cosmos- War of the Planets, Assignment Outer Space, Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet, Warning From Space) on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 7/24/2023...

Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet - So bad that its not even worth watching on Mystery Science Theater 3000!

Hilariously cheesy collection of films all on one DVD

BENJAMIN MILER | Veneta, Oregon | 06/06/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The Sci-Fi Invasion is a very inexpensive way to obtain four obscure, low-budget foreign films, all on one DVD. The DVD disc is region free, meaning it should play on any DVD player, even PAL and NTSC. Of course, I live in America, so I have a Region 1 NTSC player, and this disc works just fine. The packaging simply says "This DVD is compatible with all DVD players" with no mention of regions or formats. Unfortunately the DVD don't have a scene selection feature, but you can skip to whatever film you wish to see.



Are you sick of all those overproduced, slick and hyped Hollywood films? Had enough of Star Wars, Close Encounters of the Third Kind and E.T.? Think George Lucas and Steven Spielberg are overrated? Want some cheesy low-budget fun that should have been destined to be ridiculed on Mystery Science Theater 3000? Then you come to the right place with The Sci-Fi Invasion, which packs four films on to one DVD, Cosmos: War of the Planets (apparently released in Italy in 1977, but not in America until 1978), Assignment: Outer Space (1960), Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet (1965), and Warning From Space (1956). Not sure where these films came from, other than Cosmos: War of the Planets from Italy and Warning From Space, which was Japanese. The first film, Cosmos: War of the Planets had me completely laughing. This movie looks so horribly dated even for 1977 standards. Here you get treated with synthesizer renditions of classical music throughout the film (as well as cheesy synthesizer sound effects) with really bad costumes, and a spaceship whose interior looks like the instrument panels of the TARDIS from Doctor Who and the Starship Enterprise, and the crew wearing uniforms with a triangle-shaped insignia that look like it was stolen from Star Trek. The crew of this spaceship explores a desolate planet and gets attacked by an alien that looks more like a truck than any alien you can think of. If it weren't for the very '70s sounding synthesizer music, this could easily pass for a real bad '50s sci-fi, with special effects that look more '50s than '70s. What's even more hilarious, as the planet they were exploring disintegrates, the producers of this film starts using stock footage of volcanoes erupting and even footage of a nuclear bomb test explosion. The acting, costumes, the computers and instrument panels are simply out of this world! This film has got to be seen to be believed.



Next one is Assignment: Outer Space. The acting is more believable here, but because the movie is from 1960, expect '50s type of special effects, with flames coming out of a rocket that look like Bunsen burners. I was really laughing at the hilarious inaccuracies of this film. Especially in regards to landing on Venus. I am certain that even back in 1960, astronomers, and the public in general, knew that Venus consists of heavy amounts of carbon dioxide and extremely thick clouds, and tempuratures around 800 degrees Fahrenheit, but on this film, they depict Venus to be as free of clouds as the moon. In real life, even if astronauts could visit other planets (which we still can't to this day), no one would dare attempt to land on Venus because the climate and the pressure is way too great, and only able to send unmanned space probes there.



Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet is another one of those flicks where astronauts embark on voyage to Venus, with nothing but inaccuracies. No mention that Venus is 800 degrees with thick clouds with virtually zero visibility. The skies are clear, but looking more like that on Earth. And there's monsters to be found too. There's also a robot, everytime it talks, it sounds like the instrument panel of the Starship Enterprise, but then the original Star Trek series did recycle sounds used on other sci-fi films and television for their sound effects at the time. Let's not forget that Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet did come out in 1965, a year before Star Trek.



Warning From Space, the Japanese flick, starts off deceiving you that this was going to be another alien invasion flick (with starfish-like aliens with one eye), it ends up being more of a Japanese version of When Worlds Collide (1951), as the aliens warn the people of Earth of an oncoming planet that's about to collide. The acting is cheesy and the overdubbing into English leaves a lot to be desired, but it's no more worse than the monster flicks that came from that country around the same time like Godzilla.



These films will guarantee to get you laughing at how hilariously bad films can get. Not recommended for those who want a professional Hollywood production on the scale of Lucas or Spielberg, but for those who get a kick off low-budget B-films."

Wouldn't Be Worth It Even At Half The Price

Gary F. Taylor | Biloxi, MS USA | 05/06/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This double-sided DVD offers four films: COSMOS--WAR OF THE PLANETS; ASSIGNMENT: OUTER SPACE; VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET; and WARNING FROM SPACE. And not a one of them is worth the cost of shipping, much less the expense of purchase.



Released in the United States in 1979, COSMOS--WAR OF THE PLANETS is a badly dubbed Italian film that has had as many name changes as a starlet in search of a career--but it hardly matters, because a weed by any other name still stinks. The plot is so horrifically disjointed that it more or less defies description; suffice to say that it involves a planet gone bad, crazy computers, and lots of Italians in skin-tight caps. Although the transfer is reasonably good, it is actually the worst of the four films offered, and that is saying a great deal indeed.



Like COSMOS, ASSIGNMENT: OUTER SPACE is a badly dubbed Italian flick; unlike COSMOS, ASSIGNMENT: OUTER SPACE isn't quite so horrendously bad. Released in the early 1960s, this time the story concerns a satelite gone bad, and while it's not going to win any prizes it does occasionally have an interesting idea or two--not that any of them go anywhere special. The transfer is pretty bad as well.



VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET began life as a Russian movie so bad that not even the Soviets would watch it. At some point in the 1960s, drive-in dreck master Roger Corman came across it, edited it, dubbed it, and then sweet-talked Basil Rathbone and Faith Domergue into filming a few scenes that he hoped would give the whole thing some coherence. It didn't. There are two interesting things about this movie: Faith's beehive hairdo, which completely defies description, and the robot, which is essentially a riff on Robbie from FORBIDDEN PLANET but with less personality and really big toenails. And the transfer is so awful you might well come away from it with a migraine.



As for WARNING FROM SPACE... well, it has to do with starfish-shaped creatures who descend on Japan to tell the world that we're about to have a collision with a rogue planet. No one believes them, of course, until the planet is actually visible to the naked eye. Throw in two very odd musical numbers (one of which looks like Ricky Ricardo and Carmen Miranda collided somewhere over Tokyo), plot devices that are an insult to the intelligence of a five year old, and lots of bad acting, and you'll find this 1956 flick drudgery in its purest form. And dare I say it? The transfer is even worse than VOYAGE TO THE PREHISTORIC PLANET.



This is the sort of thing you come across in the bargain-bin at your local superstore--but frankly it doesn't matter how cheap it is, it isn't worth it. Now and then a bad film is so awful that it becomes funny, but that isn't the case here. The warning from this particular space is to avoid the thing like the plague.



GFT, Amazon Reviewer"

Buy at WalMart for $1.00

Edward J. Boyle | Tulsa OK USA | 10/22/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"These movies are so bad, they are fun to watch. Go ahead and spend the money! Had more fun then some of the overhyped Sci-Fi movies that cost me 80 times as much. (I look at it as if I spent a quarter a movie."