Mark Honhorst So I was in the mood for a cheesy sci fi movie last night...and I got more than I bargained for. I found this movie on a 50 pack I'd had for awhile and popped it into the ol' DVD player. I remembered I'd tried to watch it before and gave up, but I decided to try again. I noticed the lavish opening credits sequence, with its fancy colors and real music. If I made this film, I would've just used white block letters and stock music to save time. It's obvious the filmmaker wasted his money on the expensive credits sequence, rather than saving it for good actors, non-blurry film, better editing...I think you get the point. The writer has written a fairly intelligent and thought provoking script, but a good script doesn't amount to a hill of beans in a movie with bad lighting, direction, editing... again, I think you get the point. I think this movie attempted to be sort of cerebral sci fi, but only ends up being dull. It would have made a much better book than movie. And boy, the movie looks terrible. At one point, a boom mike enters the shot. And stays there. And stays there. For a minute at least! And the ending! It looked nice considering what movie it was, but one gets the feeling that it was more than "inspired" by "2001: A Space Odyssey". Overall, I think this could've been much better. With a less cheesy title, better acting, etc, etc. Good for non bias sci fi geeks, but to everyone else, it's probably like sitting through a boring Physics class.

Michael_Elliott UFO: Target Earth (1974) BOMB (out of 4) Incredibly stupid and silly sci-fi flick about a dorky young man who starts to investigate UFO's and then hears strange noises coming from a local lake where it was reported decades earlier that a spaceship crashed. This is a really stupid and really, really silly little film that doesn't have a single thing going for it. The movie runs under 80-minutes and for the life of me a story never starts. The film opens with various locals talking about their encounters with UFOs but even these stories are boring and what follows just gets even worse. The acting is off the map bad as is the direction and I swear my 3-year-old cousin could have came up with better dialogue. And let's not even talk about the special effects. The one interesting thing is that the ending somewhat resembles Close Encounters of the Third Kind and knowing Spielberg loves these types of films I'm rather curious if he had seen this or been influenced by it.

Kenneth Eagle Spirit Which is why I rate it a 6. The acting? Not so good. The photography? Not as good as the acting. The bright spots? Well, if you like that smooth musical sound of the 60s and 70s the title song is really pretty good. Really. The plot is functional, and having someone with a less than scientific connection and more of a psychic one as a part of the scientific investigation is a plus. Said psychic connection is Cynthia Cline, who is pretty, the kind of pretty that you would feel comfortable taking home to Mom. This is, bluntly, just another one of those so so movies. Its not all that bad, its not really all that good. Its just ... OK. But the music, that theme song, is worth something by itself.

Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) Aside from a really cool title and a neato disco UFO trip movie opening titles sequence, this movie sucks. Ever hear of a movie called BOG about a swamp monster that goes on the rampage and starts tearing apart ply-board movie sets? BOG is a better movie that UFO: TARGET EARTH. Ever seen Larry Buchanan's ZONTAR, THING FROM VENUS? ZONTAR: THING FROM VENUS is a better movie than UFO: TARGET EARTH.I very fondly remember the UFO craze that gripped Amercia around the time of CLOSE ENCOUNTERS, and while a bit early (1974) this film is surely a part of that craze. There were a bunch of faux documentary films on UFOs & other worldly phenomenon at about the same time -- my favorite will always be IN SEARCH OF NOAH'S ARK -- and I was kind of hoping this would be one of them. It isn't, and the last 20 minutes of TV blending feedback color head trip space junk might be great free-form visual expression, but please.I wish I could be kinder on this film: The only UFOs you see are still photos used for the opening credits, which I come back to again as the high point of the film. I suppose if you were zonked out of your mind on blotter acid this might be somewhat engaging, it has a sort of naive earnestness about itself that is charming in a slack-jawed kind of way. I also dig the cheapo 70s interiors, editing room (literally) production design, and the idea of trying to make a movie about UFOs that essentially consists of people sitting around talking about them, followed by endless sequences of pre CAD or Apple Mac computer renderings instead of showing us space aliens. Kind of like the end of 2001 (complete with an ambiguous close-up of a star person's eye) but without all the fuss & bother involved with getting us there.Something tells me also that the three 8/10 votes dragging this movie's user ratings curve up to 4/10 are in on the plot to deprive target audience viewers of a film with a name like UFO: TARGET EARTH of 83 minutes of their life that could be spent doing constructive things like playing golf, masturbating, or strangling small animals.3/10; I did just raise it a point after reconsidering the movie. It's awful but then again like eating snails, awful movies can be an acquired taste. Try lemon butter sauce, or better yet a case of beer.