Xenophobia

I picked up a copy of this one from a local Dollar Tree a few weeks ago with a few others and finally gave It a watch, and I gotta say it's by far the best horror movie from the dollar store that I've seen so far.

This is not a good movie, I'll put it bluntly. But there is enough going on throughout to keep your attention and to entertain the right people. Things don't slog much is the main thing, and it doesn't get too boring ever. The practical effects aren't fantastic, but there are a lot of them and they're charming enough. Plenty of cool aliens and monsters.

As a review has already mentioned, the title and plot add up to a seemingly kind of Xenophobic message. Which is a bit off putting, but as someone who ingests nothing but low budget films constantly I'm sort of used to it.

I must admit that I had my doubts when I sat down to watch the 2019 movie "Xenophobia" from directors Joe Castro, Thomas J. Churchill and Steven J. Escobar. Why? Well, because I was about to embark on a sci-fi anthology with alien abductions.

While the movie's cover/poster does seem interesting, it just doesn't really have that convincing touch to it, given the synopsis of the movie. But still, I sat down to watch it, as I believe in giving each movie a chance.

"Xenophobia" wasn't exactly a masterpiece in movie history, nor was it really as bad as I had initially expected it could turn out to be. The movie and the different segments were definitely watchable, but not likely a movie that you will be watching more than once.

The segments were of very various quality and contents, I will say that much. Of course you need to watch them yourselves to pick which one you like the best.

As for the special effects, well let's just say that "Xenophobia" was coming off as being a very ambitious low budget project with the filmmakers having their hearts and intentions in the right place. I actually think the special effects worked out well enough for the movie. Sure, they were not overly great and even had be breaking out in chuckles from time to time, but it just added that low budget and classic sci-fi feel to the movie.

All in all, your life is not going to be incomplete if you miss out on watching "Xenophobia". But if you have an unhealthy interest in sci-fi, alien abductions, and what not, then you might actually find something enjoyable in this 2019 alien abduction anthology.

Am I the only person out of the ten people who watched it that caught a really funny goof. The college student was studying for her doctors in "astrology". Bwahahahaha. Dumb movie. Laughable special effects. Worse acting than on infomercials.

Technically it looks pretty good. The effects are damned good for a low budget movie and I liked the music and the sound was very well done. I wish the stories had been better written. The first story just goes around and around in circles. "I have it! NO, I have it! You have it!" You'll understand when you watch it. It was pretty long feeling and I was screaming "Can we move this along?"

The other stories were also a bit hit and miss. As I said, pretty well made but the scripts needed to be refined. Anthologies are all the rage these days and I did enjoy this one a bit. Just keep in mind it is low budget. It's better than many anthologies out there, but just needed to be tighter.

The filmmaker tried to do Canterbury Tales, only with a group of fellow victims of UFO people.

But the tales were not well done--there were flashes of well done scenes and acting, and literally in the next minute it would be grade Z level acting in over the top story line/plot changes that made no sense, even in the context of a UFO story.

There is a torture scene that was supposed to be serious and girl empowering, but was just a weird farce of movie torture scenes from good action or drama films.

Not to do spoilers, but there is a last minute plot twist that was so silly and poorly done I felt dumb for not turning the movie off earlier.