Alien Species

I have no idea why an accomplished actor like Charles Napier would sign on for something like this. It was like so many other alien invasion movies you've seen, but literally so much worse. Bad writing. Bad acting. Ironically, whoever made it spent a few bucks on special effects. It wasn't enough to save this stinker.

We start on two people apparently researching extra terrestrial life. Then we shift to some deputies and some bad dudes in the back of their truck. In an inexplicable bit of writing, when they come across a crashed car, instead of calling it in, they get to investigate, say they can't help, and they'll call it in.

The dialogue was bad. The acting was worse. They had one professional actor, and even he couldn't be bothered to put on his acting chops for this thing.

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.

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.

This movie has nothing going for it other than some adequate SFX; the alien ships are OK - about the level of first series Babylon 5. Other that that it is a total stinker with nothing to recommend it at all.

Why is it that, in utter crap movies like this...

...the aliens are capable of building faster than light space ship and zapping entire cities to smithereens in moments but are reduced to skulking in caves, shambling along at half a mile an hour and grabbing people's ankles?

... American cars explode so easily? You just have to sneeze on the buggers and they go up like a roman candle.

... nerdy boy college types when presented with an alien artifact he has never seen before, ripped from a dead aliens wrist, can "download its data" onto his laptop in seconds whilst under fire, when most of us have trouble working out which way round a USB plug goes in?

Where did that loaded bazooka come from in the last scene? Hunky hero ran to get it out of the car but it was nerdy boy's car. Do nerdy boy college types always just happen to carry loaded anti-tank weapons around with them? The dialogue is pathetic. The "plot" (hah!) is thuddingly obvious and paper thin, and to call the characters and acting "wooden" would be generous.

It does however contain a hilarious alien kidnapping. If you accidentally buy this movie watch it up to the point the girl gets sucked out of her bedroom window - then turn it off and put it on eBay.

(Some of the comments here are about a different film. "Alien Terminator" (a Troma 'Alien' rip-off) made in the same year was released as "Alien Species" in Britain).

Well what a load of rubbish this film was, a plot written by a 12 year old, wooden acting, a 'rubber' alien, in general a bad rip off of the classic space monster movie 'Alien'.