Execrable: Terminal Invasion

Terminal Invasion (2002)
Directed by Sean S. Cunningham
Written by Lewis Abernathy, John Jarrell, Robinson Young
Produced by Derek Rappaport, Geoff Garrett, Paul M. Leonard, Sean S. Cunningham, Chuck Simon
Starring Bruce Campbell, Chase Masterson, Kedar Brown, Sarah Lafleur, C. David Johnson, Andrew Tarbet, Chuck Byrn, Marcia Bennett, Jason Jones
Fans of The Chin may be floored to find him underplaying a laconic convict en route to death row when an automotive crash during a blizzard diverts him and his police escorts to an aviatic charter service’s small airport, where its grumpy, grating pending passengers are attritively slain by brainish extraterrestrial impostors bereft of strategic forethought. Cunningham shot this endearingly stupid, suspenseless thriller with all the deftness of a film student, and its shoddy production design, dismal digital effects and exteriors, goofily morphing and zooming transitions, and overacted, doltish dialogue are as antically amusing as prototypic of most D-fare broadcast via the Sci-Fi Channel, where it made a splash by virtue of Campbell’s cult distinction. His criminal’s chemistry and romantic intimations with a justifiably peevish pilot (Masterson) are cute enough to compensate for unsavory inanities and pronounced illogic abounding in a script by Abernathy, Cunningham’s authorial DeepStar Six collaborator. If nothing else, this preposterous pic may be unique for one histrionic singularity: in what else has Campbell starred as the only thespian who wasn’t hamming?
Instead, watch The Thing From Another World or John Carpenter’s The Thing.