Beach Ball - Dark Star (1974)
It’s essentially an acne-ridden beach ball with a pair of scuba flippers for flimsy feet that coldly dry humps its foes to death.
It looks like the prop boys got caught short on the way to the studio and stopped off at a Brighton newsagent five minutes before they were due to deliver the alien.
The Saving Grace
It’s the alien in a low-budget sci-fi comedy, so it’s supposed to look rubbish. We hope.
Psychlos - Battlefield Earth (2000)
These enormous ETs have shit hair, massive leather codpieces, body armour that seems designed more to accentuate middle-aged spread than block bullets and idiotically massive moon boots that’d make a Lilliputian look 8 feet tall.
They look like 50-year-olds who’ve bought Harleys to recapture their youth. Not aliens.
The Saving Grace
This film has done more to ridicule the allegedly alleged (possibly) totally bonkers cult religion Scientology in the minds of right-thinking folk around the solar system than a hundred Tom Cruise sofa-leaps. Allegedly.
H20 Avoiders - Signs (2002)
Everyone that sees Signs utters the ironic fact that a bunch of aliens who are allergic to water try to conquer a planet mostly made of the stuff.
But so far, we’ve never seen anyone point out the even more ironic fact that the film spends most its runtime building up to a reveal of an alien that looks remarkably like a slippery turd.
The Saving Grace
It might be the least memorable alien character design ever unleashed upon the cinema-going public, but at least we don’t have to look at it for long. They’re only around for about five minutes.
Building Destroyers - Independence Day (1996)
They’re an advanced civilisation with amazing technology, but they haven’t taken the time to invent a hand (tentacle?) gun.
It's a mistake which allows them to get taken out by a swift punch to the whatever they’ve got instead of a nose by a one-liner barking Will Smith.
Also, they look like Chinese food, which makes them about as scary as a cardboard pot of chicken chow mien.
The Saving Grace
They’re good at exploding things. That’s about it.
Max Rebo - Return Of The Jedi (1983)
Yep, we went there.
Jar Jar Binks might be rubbish, but at least he didn’t tell his mates to sign a contract that kept them in the palace of a psychotic gangster for the rest of their lives, insisting that the only payment they required was food.
We promise we’re not making that up, that’s exactly the backstory of this blue-faced elephantine fool.
The Saving Grace
He plays a mean whatever-that-is.
Small Spaceship Things - Batteries Not Included (1987)
Originally intended to appear in an episode of a fantasy anthology TV series, Steven Spielberg decided they were so brilliant they deserved their own film.
Or, at least, they deserved to occasionally appear in a film about a bunch of old people trying to save a tenement building from being demolished.
The Saving Grace
Aw, they sort of help old people and they’re really cute. That makes up for the fact that they should be conquering earth, not saving a bunch of idiots the hassle of moving house.
Dog Xenomorph - Alien 3 (1992)
“Okay David, good work so far on the script, we’ve just got a couple of notes for you. Aliens who burst out of humans look a bit like humans, right?
So aliens that burst out of dogs would probably like dogs, okay? Have you ever thought about that? Well, get thinking about it, buddy, we want one in the movie.”
The Saving Grace
That bit in the corridors was good, wasn’t it?
The Planners - Plan 9 From Out Of Space (1959)
No crap list would be complete without Plan 9 From Outer Space, even if we do all hold a soft spot for it deep in our hearts.
Still, it would be wrong of us not to acknowledge the startlingly shit titular plan, which sees a handful of alien invaders raising a zombie army, without being able to actually control them. Oh, and threatening to use a weapon that destroys everything that sunlight touches, believing that would destroy the entire universe. Er, no.
The Saving Grace
They’re hilarious.
The Twins - Tranformers 2 (2009)
When Transformers 2 was announced, most people were expecting a sequel to the original film. Instead, it seems Michael Bay decided to attempt to put race relations back 1000 years by positioning Barack Obama as the offscreen villain and inventing these two idiots.
The Twins are a whirring blend of racist stereotypes that speak in dialogue constructed entirely from what your granddad thinks hip hop sounds like.
We absolutely hate them.
The Saving Grace
Nope, we’ve got nothing.
Jar Jar Binks - Star Wars: Episode I (1999)
Despite a sterling effort by Michael Bay to create the worst accidentally racist alien characters of all time, Jar Jar Binks still holds that dubious crown.
Though he’ll probably drop it on his foot in a minute, before mumbling something like “Issa messa hurtsa my footsie woot, masser!”
That’s because he’s an absolute tool.
The Saving Grace
He was pretty groundbreaking effects-wise. He's still a tool, though.
