Heatstroke

The first time the alien appeared I was in shock just how awful the CGI was - more Dire Effects than Special Effects. It was almost funny - I had to get the wife to check I wasn't just imagining things. The alien design was bad, the implementation bad - that I can only think they ran out of money in post-production and made the wrong decision to release. It really looks like they've given it to some teenage kids who don't really know what they're doing. The fake blood is bad, the integration with the performers and set is bad. As the alien runs forward it's head shuffles oddly - as though it was added on separately after the body action was done. The action was awful and the acting poor. The director has cooked up a turkey - the very worst film I've seen for a long time. I'm stunned that can get released as a movie and show on terrestrial TV in the UK.

...or person, that is. I watched only to see the beautiful Danica McKellar. Grown up now and looking fine in swimwear, but even that can't rescue a poorly produced film. The special effects are so fake looking I suspect first year film students can do better. I didn't expect much more, a made-for-SyFy Channel movie gave me what I imagined. Danica is worth far more than this, and I hope she eventually gets roles that showcase her talent, not just her looks. Heck, cast her as a math wizard model in some hybrid story...she is a true math wizard, and I just hope she doesn't need crap like this to balance her checkbook. I'd have given it one star, but the added star is for Danica :)

You know, this movie had a low budget, mediocre acting, bad writing, and was full of cliches. EVEN SO, it could have been a fun B-grade horror movie to watch, but the CGI! My God, the CGI was amateurish and terrible! I laughed out loud! A person in a suit would have been MUCH better.

Maybe that's what they attempted, an exercise for actors to show they had the acting skill to speak the worst lines that could be written, and make those lines passable.

I wondered first if it was poor actors ad libbing, which I've seen in Louisville productions, bot "no". You can see every actor and actress struggling with clumsy lines. That can't be coincidence.

So the plot? Sci fi creatures killing vulnerable people and people having dreams. And aversion of X files even dumber than X Files (which was a hack TV series about the department of defense hiding the existence of aliens from the public so they couldn't ask for a bigger budget at appropriations time. Yes, this plot is even dumber) How do you get dumber than a government branch trying to hide the existence of something that would grant them a bigger budget? By elaborating even more on what was dumber about X Files. That people wouldn't want aliens.

There's even an expository line where a lady scientist claims she wanted to believe in God and that she didn't want to believe in aliens, because she believed God made humans in his own image.

Said no one ever.

Because no one wants to believe that. People want to believe in aliens. We have proof of this. The IMDB top 250 presently has 8 movies dealing with outer space. All 8 of those contain aliens. That's what people want. Even I want that. I'm not going to watch an outer space movie sci fi movie with no aliens. Rarely.

Is there an exception? For me, SILENT RUNNING and OUTLAND are about it. And neither are in the top 250. Why? People want aliens!

The writing is definitive of "expository". But I don't consider it totally "contrived". The only "contrived" part is the failure of the military in hunting the creatures. Kind of a "groaner" scene there.

I'll give it points for being an "exercise" for actors. I truly believe that is what this is. An exercise where actors and actresses weren't allowed to alter lines, and instead try to make something of the ridiculous script before them.

Lack of a good script in addition, of the terrible special effects, the bad actors, I do not recommend it at all to see, it is a waste of time