The Area 51 Incident

Needless to say that I had actually never heard about this 2022 horror sci-fi movie titled "The Area 51 Incident", prior to stumbling upon it by random chance here in 2024. And of course, with it being a horror movie of sorts, and a movie that I hadn't already seen, then I opted to sit down and give director Rhys Frake-Waterfield's 2022 movie a fair chance.

Truth be told, I virtually had no idea what I was in for here. So writers Tom Jolliffe, Rhys Frake-Waterfield and Scott Chambers had every opportunity readily available to impress and entertain me with "The Area 51 Incident". But I have to admit that I wasn't really harboring the biggest of expectations to the movie, given the movie's dubious cover.

The storyline was pretty straightforward, but actually at the same time it wasn't anything overly noteworthy or particularly interesting. It was a rather mundane, if not actually bland, script and storyline that the writers concocted for the movie. Sort of a very standard alien invasion type of movie, in the likes of "Alien", except not as entertaining or memorable. The movie was sort of a cliché, in lack of better words. Sort of think if "The Strain" and "Alien" had a baby, then this movie would be it, except it didn't prove nowhere as interesting or entertaining as neither of them.

I wasn't familiar with a single actor or actress on the cast list, I will say that the acting performances were actually fair, despite the fact that the script and material they had to work with was mundane.

The CGI animated aliens in the movie looked rather questionable, and that somewhat took away from the overall enjoyment of the movie. Alien movies such as this needs proper effects to be effective, and having subpar CGI effects just really doesn't cut it for me.

While I did manage to endure through the entire 81 minutes that the movie ran for, I was not overly impressed or particularly entertained by director Rhys Frake-Waterfield's 2022 movie. And it is definitely not a movie that I will ever return to watch again. Nor is it a movie that I would recommend for diehard sci-fi fans to sit down and watch.

My rating of "The Area 51 Incident" lands on a three out of ten stars. Points awarded for the sheer effort they put into this project.

After arriving on a confidential military base, a group of scientists looking over the employment of a wormhole being operated at the facility learns that the usage opened a doorway to a world filled with alien creatures that are now overrunning the countryside and must find a way to stop them.

This one wasn't as bad as it could've been. Among its more impressive aspects is the fun pace that has a lot to like with the amount of action presented here. As the failed experiment is within the first few minutes of the action and lets the creatures run wild even before the credits sequence hits, there's some fun to be had with the creatures overrunning the facility and concurrent countryside. While all done in long-shot that keeps everything to glimpses of the chaos, it's still enjoyable enough much like the second half where the creatures are given more of an extra bit of info about how they spread with the parasitic creatures breaking out of the infected bodies and the means of possession. This all goes along nicely with the final half featuring them invading the compound for a strong series of stalking scenes making use of the darkness in the facility while also featuring their unique designs getting centerstage for a lot to like here. There are some issues to be had with this one. The main drawback is the film's rather confusing layout and origin status for what's going on as the whole thing taking place in the US is completely destroyed by the Britishness of the production and the locations' aesthetics. There's no way this is supposed to be the American desert where the actual location supposedly takes place and everything about it screams it's a foreign production so the illusion is destroyed rather easily by these factors. Likewise, there's way too much stupidity here to make for a rather hard time to care about them when they go into dangerous situations with no sense of personal safety or tactical wherewithal to understand the situation that is hard to get behind. Lastly, there's the absolutely horrendous CGI that never once looks believable for the creatures all look like video-game cutscenes and a near-total lack of gore with everything done off-screen that also manages to bring this down.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Language and Violence.

The movie open with some CGI of alien creatures running around on what I think is supposed to be an alien planet. The CGI aliens are not terrible for a low budget movie but they show them onscreen way, way too much. Then it cuts to a technician warning of impending catastrophe with a rift that the base is built around. Apparently, there's an Area 51 in the UK or it's in the UK in this universe or something. The aliens from the beginning start busting through the rift and overrun the place almost instantly since their security is a few guys with rifles. From there, the movie just sort of stumbles from one scene to another without a lot of rhyme or reason. It lurches from one cliche thing to another like the filmmakers had a premise but no idea where to go with it. There are a lot of "because movie" moments where character do stupid or nonsensical things because the movie needs them to. It's not the worst thing I have ever seen but it's not really worth watching either.