Review: ZARKORR! THE INVADER (1996)

If you're just joining us, my son and I decided some time ago to watch as many man-in-suit type films as we could before the new Godzilla film opens in May.  So we created a big list of about eighty movies (HERE).

Today's movie is Zarkorr! The Invader (1996).



My son, James, will go first:

Well, this one is bad because the monster isn't in it that long. This movie is starring Crazy postal office guy, the stupid believing cop, Cryptozoologist girl, and Zarrkor. 

So, rating wise, i'll say 1.5 out of 5 Atomic Farts of Awfulness!!

My turn:

What can you say about this piece of direct-to-video detritus that isn't derrogatory?  ...  Not much. 

An alien monster is beamed into a California mountain and begins a rampage.  Meanwhile, in Newark (with an establishing model shot that looks like that old HBO intro from the '80s), a postal worker is visited by a dimunitive "mall tramp," as he puts it. 

In a scene that half-reminds one of the Cosmos from Mothra, the aliens contact the postal worker via direct stimulation of his brain (meaning, she isn't there ... yet she can toss a pencil at him?).  She tells him there is no afterlife, the girl he likes doesn't like him back, oh, and he has to save the world. 

Why?  Because he is utterly average.  Of all the people on Earth, he is in the dead middle when it comes to their ability to take on the giant invader.  It didn't seem clear during this scene, but Kevin (?) later tells us that the aliens are testing mankind. 

After the fifteen-minute long brain visitation scene, the postal worker goes to a TV station to kidnap a cryptozoologist, leading to a fifteen-minute long hostage situation.  A police officer improbably believes Kevin, turning on his partner, and helps in the abduction.  Then there's a ten-minute long scene with one of the cryptozoologist's old college friends.  Then ten minutes in an Arizona café where an alien artifact fell from the sky.   

Add all of that up and it's a lot of time spent with humans.  Humans who are pretty bad actors.  With pretty bad dialogue. 

The scene wherein our average hero finally confronts Zarkorr consists of him walking down a street and saying, essentially, "Come at me, bro!" 

 

And he's not holding up that alien shield-thing he found, either, for some reason. 

Altogether, giant Baphomet-like Zarkorr itself isn't in the movie more than five minutes.  Tops.  (And the special effects guy?  Richard Elfman, brother of Danny.) 

Looking for logic in this movie is folly.  It's clearly designed to be fun.  My problem?  It's not. 

Zarkorr! The Invader ... the suit looks pretty cool.  1 out of five stars.

Here's the trailer:



And here's the "whoa" end-credits theme song:



Next, Rebirth of Mothra.

(GIFs from DestructionMode.)