Alien Species

I love movies where I can honestly say that I would have done a better job directing. Seriously. I'm not Mr. "Oh, I can do better than that" usually. But I think my dog could have directed this movie better, and I don't have a dog. Doesn't make sense, does it? Neither does the director's strategy for making this movie.

This is one of those movies that must have a budget of about $10,000 and you wonder "where did the money go"? I can only assume that the explosions in the film were an accident, since nothing else in the movie works, especially the plot. I also think that the actors in the movie were not only not trained in the art of acting, but deliberately taught wrong as a joke.

In this movie, you expect a hard-core sex scene to come on at any moment, not because of any sexual tension that has built up, but because the movie looks like it was shot by the same people who brought you anal whores volume seven. They should have paid the actresses an extra $50/day to score some crack and act while high. At least that would have been interesting.

To sum up, only see this movie while drunk with friends. Recommend this movies to none but your worst enemies, and see a good movie directly after this to avoid having the badness of this movie contaminate you.

Alien Species is a very cheap knock-off that was clearly surfing the wave caused by the massive blockbuster hit Independence Day (1996). This one was also released the same year as that one so that gives you an idea how fast it must have been devised, filmed and distributed. The speed of production shows, as this is a very shoddy and cheap effort, whose title also alluded to the previous year's sci-fi hit Species (1995). Well, it cannot be accused of not covering its bases that is one thing for sure. I quite enjoy rip-off films though so this was, if anything a slight plus point for this one and, in truth, Independence Day was a monumental load of gash and this minuscule budget movie was no more painful to watch. Just horrible in a different way.

Huge alien space-crafts arrive in our orbit and attack immediately. Various human survivors wind up taking refuge in a cave which turns out to be the base of these extra-terrestrials. Lots of alien-invader based stuff happens off the back of this, including explosions and cow theft.

Despite the budget, this one actually stars Charles Napier in an admittedly uninteresting role but it was still good to see him here nevertheless. It also sports some effects of the giant spaceships that were half-way decent. But in all other regards this is bargain basement stuff to the max. Its soundtrack was so tinny and awful it is hard for me to believe that this could have sounded remotely acceptable back in 1996. Sadly, this music is pretty relentlessly played throughout the movie as well. Its director is Peter Maris who I was already aware of on account of his debut movie being the sleazy thriller Delirium (1979) which made the infamous British video nasty list back in the early 80's. It was a good film though, quite significantly better than this one that is for sure. This one is also notable for ending on a very strange and ambiguous bit of dialogue that frankly posed more questions than it did any answers but, really, that's the least of this movies problems.

This is NOT that bad of a sci-fi flick. Certain aspects of it are OK. Charles Napier is a good actor, but comes across as a bit over the top in this role. Hoke Howell is OK in his role. The rest? So so at best. Although I do give Jodi Seronick extra points for at least being able to act when she screams or cries and for being a fox. Now, as for whats left ... Plot? Its there, kind of. Earth is invaded. Continuity? Well, there was that horrendous storm that they all had to contend with during the first part of the movie that I never really saw any good evidence of. Special effects? They run from being pretty good and reminiscent, I think, of the last season of the original "Battlestar Galactica" and the TV mini series "V", to being REALLY bad. Certain shots of the galaxy look more like an out of focus photo of popcorn and juju beans laying on the theatre floor. And there is that one explosion involving an alien fighter/saucer in which the use of Fourth of July fireworks, literally, is evident. Dialog and scripting? OK for the most part, terrible in spots. Example: Max, when asked how he found them, replies that he jumped in the car to look for them. Cool. The next time I'm looking for someone and I don't know where they are I'll know exactly what to do. Jimmy Hoffa will be so proud. Sound track? Again, so so. Plausability? OMG! Examples: Max, when asked where the bazooka in the back of his vehicle came from, says he found it on the side of the road and picked it up in case of an emergency. AND he downloads alien info onto his laptop from an alien contraption that must've been in some way compatible in less than a minute! Maybe Mircosoft has outlets in spots I'm unaware of. Anyway, with all it's bad points I still found enough bright spots in it, principally the special effects and the passable action sequences, for the thing to be mildly entertaining.

Release date is Germany January 23, 1998(video premiere) Nightmare Worlds 50 DVD collection has the date at 1996.

This is one of the crumbiest movies you will come across. It is too cheap to be campy. Very low budget and it shows from the beginning. They Borrowed the Sleestak suits from "Land of the Lost" a 1974-1976 TV series. You can see the zippers.

Who are these actors? Surly not good ones that just need a little extra money. Name one that you have seen before. Maybe they are relatives of the producer or director.

A tad of blood, but mostly running, running, screaming and screaming.

The world is being attacked by aliens for nefarious purposes. The poor aliens never dreamed that we would shoot them down with an old-style anti-tank weapon that just happened to be available.

Man, this is a bad one, except sometimes when it's one of them 'almost' good ones. But mostly bad.

Basically aliens invade the US in really bad CGI spaceships (almost as bad as the CGI in Alien Blood!) and it's up to some scientists to...well they don't do much at all except avoid getting killed.

Also, Charles Napier's here as a cop for a change and two of his buddies are transporting prisoners and then pick up some other folk and then everyone ends up in a cave where all the aliens are. That's the plot.

After that we're in standard nineties Alien rip off territory where out characters try to remain alive while rubber suited monsters (and zombies!) try and kill them. To be honest this actually improves the film as we can stop watching those awful UFO effects and the actors stop bickering and get to fighting some aliens.

This could have almost been on those enjoyable bad films due to the poverty of the production (it looks shot on video!), the bad acting and the daft effects, but there's an air about the film of it all being a bit half-arsed, which is reflected in the non-ending.

You'll know if you'll like this within about ten seconds of it starting.