This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

It is both painfully honest and laugh-out-loud funny at the same time.

Unshakable, witty and deeply felt, the film will be paying emotional dividends for a long, long time.

TARGET EARTH sounds like an epic sci-fi movie on paper: see! Earth attacked by an army of killer robots with death rays! Sadly, as is usually the case with these things, the real story is far more prosaic, and a dearth of money means that this is a typically cheap and plodding sci-fi pic with more in common with ROBOT MONSTER than WAR OF THE WORLDS.Cult producer Herman Cohen delivers us a tale of a quartet of survivors trapped in a deserted city and at the mercy of a robot seemingly made out of cardboard boxes. A few scenes of military speak are interspersed with the main narrative, no doubt to pad out the running time a little. Whit Bissell plays in support.Nothing much happens here. There are a few cheesy death scenes and attempts at suspense that will disappoint all but the smallest child. Needless to say there are few effects. I like 1950s B-movies but this really doesn't have much going for it, although Robert Roark is fun as the human villain of the piece, Richard Denning is the likable everyman hero, and Kathleen Crowley certainly fills out a form-fitting sweater. What more could you want?

A group of people wake up to find their city deserted due to an invasion of alien robots from Venus. While the military tries to figure out a way to fight back, these people hole themselves up in a hotel where they are safe. That is, until a psychopath shows up! After an impressive start, it drags some as they sit around the hotel room scared of the robots outside. The cast is decent, with stars like Richard Denning and Virginia Grey leading the way. Both were somewhat successful but should've been bigger than they were in their respective careers. Beautiful Kathleen Crowley and character actors Richard Reeves, Arthur Space, and Whit Bissell are also good. Robert Roark, however, is another story. According to the trivia section here on IMDb, he got this part because his father would only invest in the film if they cast him. I can believe that as he's the weakest part of the cast and seems to be imitating characters he saw in other movies.The interactions between the group are pretty clichéd and cheesy but somehow I couldn't help but like them (except Roark) due to the charisma of the actors. It's kind of funny to watch Denning deduce the invaders are from Venus because of stuff he learned from reading his friend's sci-fi magazines in college. The inevitable romance between he and Crowley comes on super fast, with them falling for each other hard within hours of meeting. This is made all the more implausible when you see how much of a jerk he is to her in the first part of the film.As others have pointed out, the special effects are limited. There's one rather silly-looking robot that they keep filming yet they tell us there's supposed to be a whole army. Look, '50s sci-fi was the best but sometimes its charm was in its goofiness. The robot here is pretty goofy. The actual invasion stuff takes place off-screen and stock footage is used a little too much. Still, despite its shortcomings, it's an entertaining movie.

Four people (Denning, Crowley, Grey, and Reeves) meet by accident on the streets of a city that has been emptied overnight of people, except for a few dead bodies. They learn from a newspaper that the city has been invaded and evacuated by everyone else. The cars have been disabled, so the four refugees hole up in the suite of a hotel, making do with candles, beer, and canned food. There WAS a fifth member of the group, a witless little character, but he ran out into the street and was rayed to death by a wandering robot. The invading army, as it turns out, consists entirely of these robots with their death rays. They're impervious to bullets and can destroy airplanes, presumably with the same rays. A gun-toting evil murderer invades the hotel sanctuary of the survivors and puts moves on Crowley (who has fallen in love with Denning after knowing him for only a few hours). The resulting fight sees Grey killed and Denning wounded before the burly Reeves manages to strangle the killer.The scenes of the survivors are inter cut with scenes of the requisite military and scientists trying just as hard as they can to devise a means of disabling these robots. They finally succeed -- surprise! When the robot army is exposed to sound waves of a certain frequency, it "cracks their cathode ray tubes." (Your television set is a cathode ray tube.) The army comes to the rescue at the last moment, too late, alas, to save Reeves but soon enough to whisk off Denning and Crowley.A cheap and boring movie, I found it almost impossible to watch. Well, sometimes the cheapness can't be helped. A budget will stretch only so far, as we all must know. But this thing could have been written and acted by members of the robot army, who look like they're made of Lego's or like unusually angular Gorts, although we only see one of them at a time.The dialog sucks. The plot is unoriginal. The special effects might better have been suggested than put on display. The logic of the plot is terribly flawed and the direction careless. (Carefully pruned, it might have been a decent episode of The Outer Limits.) I'll give just one example of a jarring lapse of common sense. The vicious murderer is holding the others at gunpoint and Grey suddenly remembers where she saw him before. He's the guy that murdered that hooker on Skid Row! That's right, admits the evildoer. His picture was all over the papers. They'll be looking for him on every street corner, Denning observes. Not if I slip out through the sewers and get out behind the enemy lines, the murderer sneers. The entire city has been evacuated and is now occupied by indestructible robots who kill people and repulse the military with unknown rays -- yet they'll be watching every street corner for some nobody who killed a hooker! Santa Clause could waltz past the army without interference under these conditions! Well, another example. At the very beginning, Crowley wakes up to find the city empty and she wanders the streets. She stumbles across a dead body and Richard Denning at roughly the same time. They introduce themselves and explain where they spent the previous night. Minutes of frippery go by while neither asks the question: WHAT HAPPENED? It could have been good, even with the inexpensive sets and the second-tier (but seasoned) actors. As it is, it's rather a painful experience except for those who really enjoy cheesy SF movies, and there seem to be legions of those.The producer, the late Herbert Cohen, provides an audio commentary on the DVD and he seems like a good-natured guy. He's generous with his credits and he didn't mind if people laughed at the crummy effects when the picture was released and he still doesn't mind.

I am a robot fan. I bought this film just for that. I had not seen this film in many many years and wanted to get a film of the EARLY 50's B/W era. After seeing the film again, I was struck that many of the plot elements were 'no budget' copies from 'The Day the Earth Stood Still'. They say, 'if you are going to steal, steal from the best'. The robot use was too limited and sparse. The two couples lost in the city were very one dimensional and boring. Only when the two 'Redshirt' characters showed up did the bland lead actors had to add some real drama to this story. The scientist and military scenes needed to be pumped up more and interlaced better in this film story line. I am really sorry to point out, one robot is not that menacing. This film could have been more with some fine tuning. On the back of the film box: A large city is ordered to be completely evacuated as an army of robots, believed to be from the planet Venus, organize a city-wide attack in search of planetary domination. As the army and a group of scientists seek means of destroying the robots, the few people left in the city run for their lives. Nora(Katheen Crowley) and Frank(Richard Denning, governor of Hawaii 5-0) are two strangers who happen to later meet Vickie(Virginia Grey) and Jim(Richard Reeves) having a private party in an abandoned café. The two couple manage to escape the robot patrols and take refuge in a large hotel. There they confront a new danger, in a psychopathic killer Dave(Robert Roark). Our hearty group of survivors must now dodge the alien robot threat while avoiding the earth-bound maniac killer. All the while, scientist are racing against time to save the Earth from annihilation.