I watched The Making of Alien Domicile before watching the actual movie. As an Indie Film maker myself, I like to see what other's come up with no matter how bad the reviews are. This one has some terrible reviews.
Surprisingly, this movie has many very good elements going for it; The cinematography at times is as good as it gets. The camera work, lighting, and composition at time does truly stand out. Very good work.
The acting is, for the most part, believable. Considering what the cast was given to work with, I think they all gave very good performances.
The musical score is on par with most indie films. Nothing special here but good enough to not be bad.
The sound seemed good enough. Nothing stood out as being bad,, and that's a good thing.
Now, here is where the movie fails. It's a typical story that is played out over and over again in the world of indie film making. It seems to almost always happen that there is one guy on in the production who thinks he has skill and talent to do certain critical jobs just because he is probably the guy who put up the money. It's the guy who thinks he wrote a compelling story simply because he wrote it and will be paying to make the film. It's the guy who edits a movie just because he thinks he can without ever considering that editing is more than just stringing the shots together. ,,, and it's the guy who thinks he has the ability to direct a movie set while telling a story and giving reason to the actors only because, again, he is the one paying to make the movie... In the case of Alien Domicile, that person is Kelley Schwartz. He ruined his own film by thinking he had the talent to handle most of critical creative elements himself. My complements to him for putting together a talented cast and crew. They did not let the production down. It's just too bad that he did. In my opinion, his lack of skill and talent let them all down. As a said, it's the very common story of one man's ego getting in the way of what could otherwise have been a movie worth watching and, for the cast and crew, a movie worth being a part of..... I could see what he was trying to do... It's just too bad he didn't have the chop to pull it off.
I want to also mention the special make up effects. In my opinion, the alien in the movie is well designed and constructed. I was impressed when I first saw the actor wearing the suit in the behind the scenes documentary. Nicely done. It's just too bad that the director didn't know how to shoot a man in a rubber suit. He exposed too much of it and he chose bad camera angles. In the end, it ended up looking like a guy in a rubber monster suit.. If he would have allowed the DP to do his job and if he had a good editor (instead of himself) then the alien would have been something memorable.
I recommend this movie to other indie film makers only as a case study. To the average audience member, sorry, but you probably won't like this one.
