Occupation 2018 * 1/2 Stars

Director: Luke Sparke
Year: 2018
Rated R
Rating: * 1/2 Stars
Cast: Dan Ewing, Stephanie Jackson, Rhiannon Fish

Extraterrestrials that look like your paint-by-number extraterrestrials, invade a small Australian town. It's up to said townspeople to go military, defeat them, and save the human race. Time to put another burnt shrimp on the barbie and give blokes and sheilas a bad name. That's the gist of Occupation, my latest review. Oh and I almost forgot, what the heck does this flick's title mean anyway? It's balderdash I tell you. Pure balderdash!

Anyway, Occupation while never lacking in energy, brute villainy, and a tonally inconsistent musical score, is one of the cheesiest and worst movies of 2018. At a convoluted and overlong 120 minutes, Occupation strives to be Independence Day meets War of the Worlds meets The Walking Dead meets Red Dawn meets Signs meets Arrival (uh talk about copycatting). Instead, director Luke Sparke fashions something in the vein of Battlefield Earth meets Planet 9 from Outer Space meets Saturday the 14th Strikes Back. Sparke as Aussie's version of Ed Wood, shoots Occupation as a jerry-built, show-and-tell project. Like I said, cheesy.

Along with cheap special effects, sloppy editing, some laughable slow-motion shots, and the tired adage of documentary-style footage, Occupation's school play acting is pure abomination with its stock characters appearing one-dimensional and childlike. They bicker in cliche as they reside in their prescribed, Army state. As for the parodied aliens involved, well they're no prize either. Do you enjoy E.T.s dressed up in tacky Judge Dredd costumes and spouting off poor man's, Evil Dead jibber-jabber? Neither do I man. Neither do I.

All in all, I faithfully deem Occupation as a modern day, drive-in theater turd or the kind of pic that's a legend in its own mind (a sequel to Occupation is in the works and that scares me). Bottom line: Occupation is a bad, cinematic "line of work" mate. My rating: 1 and a half stars.

Written by Jesse Burleson