THE PUPPET MASTERS

STARRING: Donald Sutherland, Eric Thal, Julie Warner, David Keith, Will Patton, Richard Blezer, Tom Mason, Yaphet Kotto

1994, 109 Minutes, Directed by: Stuart Orme

Description: Donald Sutherland leads a team of top-level government agents who make a chilling discovery: extraterrestrial beings have landed and are quickly taking control of the residents of a small midwestern town -- manipulating their bodies and minds like puppets! Faced with an escalating crisis as the creatures multiply and spread, the team must somehow eliminate the seemingly unstoppable aliens. — Amazon.com

Adaptation of the 1950s alien invasion novel by Robert Heinlein which we unfortunately never read. Familiar territory not only for Donald Sutherland (who coped with another alien invasion in the 1978 re-make of Invasion of the Body Snatchers) but for audiences as well. His shrewd and sardonic character is a toned down version of many an irritating leading character from a Heinlein novel — one should be glad that his character is toned down as Heinlein's literary characters can be pretty much know-it-all pains in the butt sometimes . . .

The alien parasites in this movie are much like the invaders in Body Snatchers, but is given a modern twist of sorts because they look like the face hugger in the Alien movies.

But nevertheless, this movie is so wonderfully archaic and reminiscent of 1950s alien invasion stories that one cannot help but like it - despite rather lackluster directing.

Sci-Fi Movie Page Pick: Based on the classic Robert Heinlein story about alien invaders taking over humans (which served as inspiration later on for the famous 1940s Invasion of the Body Snatchers novel by Jack Finney, which has been filmed three times!). Updated for the 1990s by the Blade scribe. Not fantastic, but serviceable.