I hope Aaron Eckhart knows what he is doing. After grabbing rave reviews for his performance as Harvey 'Two-Face' Dent in this year's mega hit The Dark Knight, he will be starring in Battle: Los Angeles.

It's a sci-fi actioner about an alien attack in which Eckhart will be on the frontline in our fight against them as the leader of a marines platoon.

I don't know, maybe it's just the title, but I keep thinking Battlefield Earth. You know, that horrendous pile of smouldering poo that was based on a book by Scientologist founder L Ron Hubbard and starring his love child (or is that Tom Cruise?) John Travolta.

Here's hoping Battle: Los Angeles is more along the lines of a Starship Troopers or even War of the Worlds, and not one of these ...





10. Teenagers from Outer Space

Released 1959
Written and directed by Tom Graeff
Starring David Love and Dawn Bender
Tag 'Teenage hoodlums from another world on a horrendous rampage!'

Oh God, the worst invasion imaginable. Aliens plan to use Earth as a breeding ground for giant lobsters from their home planet. Must love their seafood. Anyway, all goes according to plan until hormones get the better of one of the adolescent invaders. The horny little bastard falls in love with an Earth girl and then foils his coherts' attempts at world domination.
You'll tremble as you watch the trailer.






9. Evil Brain from Outer Space

Released 1964
Directed by Koreyoshi Akasaka and Teruo Ishii
Starring Ken Utsui, Junko Ikeuchi and Minoru Takada

Now, from an alien thinking with his you know what, to an alien thinking with his brain. This film was part of Japan's Starman series, and sees the 'superhero' battle the said evil brain and its evil monsters as they attempt to conquer not only Earth, but the entire universe. Watch this fascinating footage below from a meeting of the interplanetary Emerald Council, which sends Starman to save us.






8. Robot Monster

Released 1953
Directed by Phil Tucker
Starring George Nader and Claudia Barrett.
Tag 'Moon monsters launch attack against Earth!'

Again, love conquers all. The Robot Monster, or Ro-Man for short, has been sent to Earth to soften us up before a full invasion by alien leader The Great One. But, instead this helmeted gorilla-looking thing shows his softer side by falling for one of the last six humans he hasn't exter-minated. Ro-Man's not the brightest spark though, saying things like "Hu-mans, listen to me. Due to an error in calculation, there are still a few of you left". Check out more here. And he can't fight to save himself.






7. Independence Day

Released 1996.
Co-written and directed by Roland Emmerich
Starring Jeff Goldblum, Bill Pullman and Will Smith.
Tag 'These extraterrestrials don't want to phone home...They want our home'

Wouldn't you think aliens with this sort of technology, this much power, who are able to create massive spacecrafts capable of incredible devastation, not to mention travelling light years just to get here, would've been able to possess the latest Norton Anti-Virus so as to prevent the humans from downloading some sort of trojan into their mother ships' computer system? Ahh, I guess it was just a bit of fun. Plenty of corny lines (Pullman's President anyone?) and some great visuals.






6. The Green Slime

Released 1968
Directed by Kinji Fukasaku
Starring Robert Horton, Richard Jaeckel and Luciana Paluzzi
Tags 'The Green Slime are coming!' and 'The Green Slime is coming!'

After destroying a giant asteroid that was heading to earth, a group of astronauts unwittingly bring back a slimy green substance that later mutates into a horde of one-eyed monsters. No, it wasn't those horny teenagers from outer space again. The film was a Japanese-USA collaboration, and must've ruined relations between the two countries for a while after its release. It's amazing to think that 2001: A Space Odyssey (the greatest movie of all-time) was released about the same time. This film did have a great James Bond-esque theme song. Though, I think the producers may have been smoking something green.







5. Invisible Invaders

Released 1959
Directed by Edward L. Cahn
Starring John Agar, Jean Byron and John Carradine
Tag 'How can you stop what you can't see?'

Here's a great idea to save on production costs - make the aliens invisible. No need for flashy costumes. Well, in fairness, they do take over the bodies of dead humans, but even then ... why? So they can chase us really, really slowly I guess. Obviously not the brightest beings, they have been living on our own moon for 20,000 years and only choose now to attack - not a few hundred years earlier before we developed high-tech weaponary (well, 1950-style anyway).






4. Battlefield Earth

Released 2000
Directed by Roger Christian
Starring John Travolta, Forest Whitaker and Barry Pepper.
Tag 'Prepare to go Psychlo'

The bigest problem with Travolta's pet project was putting Travolta in it. Was based on Scientologist founder L Ron Hubbard's novel about fat dread-locked aliens, the Psychlos, who have enslaved humanity in the year 3000. The movie did win 9 awards - 9 Razzies, including for Worst Actor, Worst Movie ... you get the picture. It put a big dent in hero Pepper's career and obviously Travolta's. He's only got himself to blame. Oh, that laugh? Relive it below.






3. Killer Klowns from Outer Space

Released 1988
Written and directed by Stephen Chiodo
Starring Grant Cramer and Suzanne Snyder.
Tag 'In Space No One Can Eat Ice Cream!'

Oooh, these clowns are no laughing matter. They arrive on Earth in a circus tent-shaped space ship, and then go around killing the residents of a small town just for the fun of it. The movie doesn't take itself too seriously, with its tagline a take-off from Alien's 'In space no one can hear you scream'. There's been some scary clowns on film (It, Poltergeist), but these weren't among them. They're just plain weird. Check out this video and others.






2. Signs

Released 2002
Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan
Starring Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix
Tag 'It's Not Like They Didn't Warn Us'.

What a stupid bunch of alien invaders. They let us know they're coming from the far reaches of the galaxy, by leaving crop circles. And then despite possessing superior technology, once they get here can't seem to break through wooden doors. And then, the biggest slap in the face of all, they realise they have an intolerance to water which Earth is mostly covered in. What were they going to do, drain the planet? That is aside from the fact good old h2o supposedly forms the basis for all life in the universe. They loved birthday cake though, and scaring little kids.






1. Plan 9 from Outer Space

Released 1959
Written and directed by Ed Wood.
Starring Gregory Walcott, Mona McKinnon and Duke Moore.
Tag (For a 1980s video release) 'The worst movie of all-time is finally available on video for more laughs than you got from Monty Python!'

This infamous shocker from the infamous Wood, the Uwe Boll of the 1950s, features 'graverobbers from outer space'. A couple of aliens plan to re-animate our own dead and use them against us - because we humans are 'stupid, stupid, stupid!' It was horror legend Bela Lugosi's final film, and what a way to go out. It has some of the worst dialogue seen in cinema. Check it out.




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