Alien Raiders

Judging by the title, the DVD-cover and the year of release, I would normally never even bother to watch this "Alien Raiders"… I'm a huge fan of old alien invasion movies, more particularly from the fifties and the eighties, because they feature crazy chaotic plots, outrageously cheesy special effects and a cast full of washed up B- movie stars. I don't like "new" alien invasion movies because they usually feature imbecilic plots and lousy computer-engineered effects. But a friend advised me to nevertheless check out "Alien Raiders", and I can understand why, because this is definitely one of the more inspired and entertaining low-budget Sci-Fi movies of the past two decades. The film is arguably derivative of the previous year's hit film "The Mist", as it copies the setting as well as a handful of other ideas, but there are plenty of aspects to guarantee an hour and a half of good old-fashioned and action packed Sci-Fi/horror fun. Two days before Christmas, in the sleepy little time of Buck Lake – Arizona, a troop of heavily armed militants invade the cozy Hasting Supermarket shortly before closing time. Everyone assumes they are robbers or terrorists, but in fact they are some kind of violent scientists in search for extraterrestrial parasites that are allegedly present here. The group's well-planned routing goes awry when their paranormal medium (a big-eyed freak that scans people's brains) gets shot and they have to conduct their alien identification tests via old-fashioned and unorthodox methods. Meanwhile, police forces and hostage negotiators gather outside the supermarket. What I like most about "Alien Raiders" is that it's 100% unpretentious and straightforward. It's clear that director Ben Rock and his crew don't aim to win any originality prices or cinematography Oscars, but at least everyone who was involved in this production does their job professionally. The acting performances are more than decent, without any big names in the cast list, and there are a couple of nicely gooey make-up effects and nasty slaughters. The last 10-15 minutes are rather dull, predictable and disappointing

ALIEN RAIDERS is a low budget alien-busting B-movie, set in a shopping mall of all places. It's an entirely derivative film that proudly wears various influences on its sleeve: the dark and shadowy after-hours aisles of INTRUDER; the single-location-under-siege set-up of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13; the mutating creature from SPLINTER; plus, most notably, the monsters and scenario from THE THING, of which a crucial set-piece or two are borrowed directly.

Still, this turns out to be an enjoyable little movie thanks to some strong writing and direction. Director Ben Rock makes a shadowy and atmospheric moment with some unsettling and in-your-face frightening moments when the aliens are exposed, all down to some creepy soundtrack noises. The choreography isn't quite as good, but the film does benefit from a crisp realism and some well-drawn characters. If you're a fan of the genre you might just consider this to be a little-seen gem.

I agree with a lot of the posters aside from one thing. The movie itself was good, they did a lot with limited budget. Nothing seemed cheap and the "gore" was well done. Blood looked like blood and not the usual red kool-aide on low budge movies.

The acting was good. Even the unheard of actors, maybe first film all did a bang up job.

Directing was good, aside from a little over use of the choppy action scene I had no problems.

The script was well written, it didn't leave you any big hole that for some reason most movie do not seem to care about.

The only and BIG problem was the ending. So cliché. One slight change and this would have been an 8 and not a 6.

In Buck Lake, Arizona, the Hastings Supermarket is apparently assaulted by a group of terrorists leaded by Ritter (Carlos Bernard) that takes clients and employees in a hostage situation. One of the team members, Spooky (Philip Newby), examines the hostages detecting who should be executed and releasing the others. When Spooky is killed by the security cop, the six last shoppers and employees are kept tied and submitted to a test in one finger. Sooner the abductors reveal that they are a team of scientists containing an alien outbreak and avoid an invasion.

The tense and claustrophobic "Alien Raiders" has a great concept and good story. The screenplay could have a better development of characters and situation, since the identity of the king was very predictable for me; but considering the simplicity of the plot associated to the low-budget, the result was a remarkable movie with a great make-up and few special effects that exceeded my best expectations. The cast has magnificent performances and it was great to see Rockmond "C-Note" Dunbar and Mathew "Keith Charles" St. Patrick again on the screen. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Refém do Desconhecido" ("Hostage of the Unknown")

A group of former rocket scientists (presumably, as they worked for jet propulsion laboratories) takes over a small town supermarket in order to find and stop the spread of an evil alien menace. Things go a bit off track when their spotter dies and they have to resort to secondary methods in order to determine who is or isn't an alien.

There is a message board thread for this film that bears the title, "Ruined by a Bad Name". I could not agree with this more. I was aware of the film's existence for months and was hesitant to see a film called "Alien Raiders", because it's frankly a really stupid name. Even when my review copy arrived, I was reluctant to give it a fair chance simply because I figured that creative people would be able to find a better name...

But judging a book by its cover or a movie by its title can be unfair. And this falls in that category, as "Alien Raiders" really isn't all that bad. It's certainly not great -- it went straight to DVD for a reason -- but nothing that's going to cause you to go brain dead or regret hanging out with your friends and enjoying some tasty Scotch and beer whilst the film rolls.

The special effects were pretty decent and should be highlighted. There were aspects I hated (such as the night vision, which isn't a shock if you realize how close the director was to "The Blair Witch Project"). There were aspects I disliked, such as the alien thrashing back in forth in strobe-o-vision. But other parts, such as the regeneration and the alien makeup, were quite good. Not as good as, say, John Carpenter's "The Thing", but few films are.

We are also treated to the high and low end of acting and character development. We are given two actors/characters who are polar opposites on the scale of enjoyability. Samantha Streets brings us "Whitney", the female protagonist. She's an important part of the film, and I suspect this may open some doors for Streets. But, we also have Rockmund Dunbar as "Kane", a gun-toting loudmouth who plays a very stereotypical "angry black man", and even pushes it a bit far. He's got no depth at all. I enjoyed Dunbar on "Prison Break", but if this is the sort of role he's going to choose for movies, just stay home.

I don't know that this is the sort of film you should run out and see right away. There are other fine options to choose from, including Raw Feed's "Otis" if you haven't seen that yet. "Alien Raiders" offers a nice "body snatcher" story, and held my attention firmly for its duration, so that's a plus. I'm torn -- don't go out of your way to avoid it, but don't add it to the top of your Netflix queue. This is more of a backup plan.