After the Lethargy

Alien Invasion (2018) is a Spanish movie I recently watched on Tubi when I saw May would be it's last month available. The storyline focuses on a journalist who investigates a missing person at a water tower that appears to be an alien abduction. As she gets close enough to the circumstances to discover what happened and discovers it may not be an alien abduction and the aliens may not have gone anywhere. This movie is directed by Marc Carrete in his directorial debut and stars Joe Manjon (The Hustle), Lilliana Cabal (Red Lights) and Julius Cotter (Black Beach). The storyline for this is pretty funny and delivered in a non-serious manner that is cheesy and ridiculous at times. I did think the main Rangers voice was entertaining and Ed was a pretty good character. The CGI alien was absolutely awful. Like watching a video game character in a movie bad. The woman in the prison the main character runs into was also delivered so bad. Overall this movie was pretty bad and not really worth your time unless there's nothing else on and you want to watch something really, really bad. I'd score this a 3/10.

A woman and a forest ranger track an extraterrestrial life-form to an abandoned military barrack in the depths of the forest.

The forest ranger ain't no Rick Grimes as for the woman. Shes going on a forest trek to find an old military barracks dressed for the beach. Her charecter is more dopey than Sarah Connor initially in the first segments of Terminator.

The then there is the mumbling bum.

It's a B movie and a rubbish one at best.

Then theres the guy on the DVD the girl bought. Enough sai Go for a walk or read a book do not watch this garbage.

For a no/low-budget flick, this was better than I was expecting. The basic premise is that "Sara" is an investigative reporter travelling out to the sticks (presumably, in the U.S., though this film was shot in Spain) to investigate unexplained phenomena. There she meets a ranger who warns her about bears in the area that have the habit of attacking humans. Of course, the bears are not the problem. Rather, the source of the mysteries is a semi-abandoned military installation where, it appears, some awful experiments had once taken place. While there are many of the expected clichés, there are some well-done scenes and the story, for the most part, holds together like an X-Files episode. My main complaint was the writing. Sara, played by Andrea Guasch, spends too much time in the last half as the damsel in distress. I thought that was a wasted opportunity, given the interesting (if familiar) role she ends up playing toward the end.

No pun intended - the low budget movie has a few interesting ideas and concepts. I reckon most of them are not really entirely fulfilled. I also understand that some may have issues with the acting choices - and the movie does not look particularly good. That all being said, the movie has some charm if you are into the low budget thing.

Of course if the movie would have been able to realize all the things it did set out to do ... although maybe it took on too much to begin with. There are some passages that could have been cut out of the movie without you really missing them too - and it is not even that the movie is too long in a wider or broader sense (just 80 minutes) ... yet it may feel like that at certain moments.

So if you are able to suspend your disbelief and have a heart for movies like this ... well it is all up to you I reckon.

What I fundamentally don't understand is: A film costs money. Even if it's a low-budget film, and especially then, I think everyone is interested in making the most of the little money they have.

And a film production doesn't just consist of the director. There are many other professionals from the film industry at work. And I don't believe in the saying that too many cooks spoil the broth. There are ALWAYS many chefs working in a star kitchen and the food is pretty good. Maybe not everyone likes it, but you see a certain structure, you see professionalism and: you can eat it.

The most interesting thing about this film was the DVD menu. Then the film starts and you ask yourself: Who is going to eat this? And so it continues. If you lack a sense of dialogue and narrative structure, can't identify capable actors or create clichéd scenes, then why do you want to make a film? What is the motivation? And as a producer, do I just want to get rid of money or do I want the film to sell? Can't the producer say something about that? The first five minutes are enough to immediately change the director or script.

I have been working in the film and television sector for years and am familiar with some constraints and unfavorable conditions, but even the films made by the trainees (not film students!) were more professional than this film. (Sorry, Mr. Carreté. But I invested money and time and the film is from 2018. I just expect a little more quality, for things that don't cost money.)

Who reads the script and thinks: This is what I'm spending my money on, the world needs to see this movie! - Please enlighten me.