Invasion (2005) is Albert Pyun at his most experimental.
The entire film is supposedly shot in one continuous take using a car dash cam. I’m not sure I fully believe that, though, because there are white flashes throughout, suggesting multiple takes were stitched together with these flashes disguising the cuts.
As the title implies, Invasion is about an alien invasion, witnessed entirely through found footage discovered from a police cruiser’s dash cam. It’s a fascinating concept, but before diving into the film itself, some context is in order. Albert Pyun was an iconic B-movie director. Some compared him to Ed Wood, dismissing his work as bad yet prolific, but I think that’s unfair.
The fact is, he made several iconic films—The Sword and the Sorcerer, Cyborg, and Nemesis, to name a few. You could even argue that Jean-Claude Van Damme became a star because of Cyborg. Pyun also directed Captain America—not the Marvel blockbuster, but the obscure 1990 version. Over a 30-year career, he made 54 films, including one that remains unreleased.
By the 2000s, Pyun had almost no money left for filmmaking. He was entirely outside the Hollywood system. Many directors in his position would have simply given up. Pyun couldn’t. He had to make movies, even with almost no resources. Invasion is a product of that determination—his attempt to tell a story using nothing more than a single camera mounted on a car.
Whether he succeeded depends on your perspective. If you view it as a demonstration of what could be accomplished with a low-quality 2000s-era dash cam, it’s impressive. If this were a student film, it would probably get an A. But Pyun wasn’t a student—he was an established (albeit often derided) B-movie director.
The film has several flaws, the biggest being that much of it consists of a car driving through a forest, with long stretches of nothing happening. Because there’s only one fixed camera, key events often happen off-screen. This makes sound design crucial, as the film relies on audio to fill in the gaps where visuals fail. Pyun tries his best, and at times, he succeeds, but at the end of the day, this is supposed to be a movie, not a radio play.
Another issue is its runtime. The film is advertised as being 81 minutes long, but 11 of those minutes are just credits—one of the most extreme cases of runtime padding I’ve ever seen. In reality, the film is closer to 70 minutes.
It’s worth mentioning that Invasion was written by Pyun’s wife, Cynthia Curnan. She wrote several of his films, including Road to Hell, Cyborg: Nemesis, and The Dark Rift. In total, she wrote nine movies, one of which remains unreleased. She wasn’t a bad writer—her ideas were unique—but given the extreme limitations of Invasion, there was only so much she could do.
Albert Pyun passed away in 2022 from multiple sclerosis and dementia. It’s a sad loss, but his legacy endures, particularly in the realm of cyberpunk and cyborg films. In many ways, RoboCop likely wouldn’t exist without Pyun’s influence. That’s why I think calling him “another Ed Wood” is unfair. Say what you want about the quality of his films—at least he had ideas, and at least they were fun.
Is Invasion good? Is it bad? Honestly, I don’t find it particularly enjoyable to sit through. Conceptually, it’s an interesting experiment, but the execution leaves much to be desired. That said, I admire Pyun’s determination. Faced with no money, he asked himself, “How can I make a movie anyway?”—and then he went and did it.
I don’t recommend Invasion, but I applaud the ambition behind it.
@movies@piefed.social
