Alien Express

"Eh-heh eh-heh hey, dude - look at these aliens. They're like - biting the humans and stuff! Eh-heh eh-heh eh-heh"

This must rank amongst the worst movies of all time. It's utter drivel for anyone with a modicum of a brain. Sure, you have the reviewers on the payroll who give glowing reviews and vote highly for this abomination but it's easy to tell who these sell-outs are. Their reviews are TOO good. To give a movie like this even a mediocre review claiming it had some B-movie remedial appeal would be a glowing review! Calling this a great movie tips the hands of the corporate shills.

But enough of that.

This movie had about all the bad characteristics a movie can have without being SO bad that it's enjoyable just to laugh at. The old Japanese 60's monster films had a quality that this movie lacked. At least in those 60's films you could laugh at just how bad the rubber monster suit looked. Or laugh at seeing the strings holding the space ships, how the models dangled on the strings and how the flames curved UPWARDS out of the back. Those movies made fun of how BAD they were. Alien Express (aka Dead Rail) seems to actually think of itself as a GOOD movie - which makes it incredibly absurd.

The effects were awful by today's standards. Beyond awful. However not quite as bad as the 60's monster movies hence they lacked the comedic appeal. The plot and dialogue were about as sophomoric as I've ever seen, made even worse by being every bit as predictable as you might expect. I won't even point out the plot and logic holes in this one; it just wouldn't be fair to this pitiable plot (plus it would take to long to even get started). Most of the acting was awful; Lou Diamond Phillips must have been very desperate to agree to touch this one.

SciFi Channel is rapidly becoming the "cheap thrills channel", producing movie after movie without an iota of concept or intelligence in the lot. I can only wonder - why bother?

Don't bother with this tripe. It doesn't get any worse.

Alien Express is one of the worst movies I've bothered to experience.

The plot is predictable. The aliens look like rubber sock puppets. The effects would have been mediocre in the 70's, but are just atrocious by today's standards. Couldn't they take a shot of a real train instead of using an obvious model?

The acting isn't great but, really, the dialogue is the worst part. It gouges its way into your mind. "Don't you die on me. Not now." If you ever manage to suspend disbelief long enough to be absorbed into the movie, you'll rapidly be jolted painfully back to reality by the aliens, the model train, or the clichéd dialogue.

The only reason I didn't give this movie a "1" is that it doesn't deserve to be rated so badly that some poor suckers might watch it for the pleasure inherent in a truly bad film.

What do you get when you put Lou Diamond Philips, Todd Bridges, Barry Corbin with a bad toupee, and an alien all on a train? You get a very bad movie called "Alien Express" or "Dead Rail" that would be more entertaining on Comedy Central's old series "Mystery Science Theater 3000." You name it, this awful movie suffered in areas of acting, plot, storyline, and special effects. In fact, the exterior passenger train shots looked like the production staff used a common HO scale model in front of a painted background! The rest of the special effects goes downhill from there.

The plot is very predictable and is similar to two 1970's movies called "Horror Express" and a disaster movie called "The Cassandra Crossing." At least "The Cassandra Crossing" had a better cast, an engaging storyline, and real train scenes.

If you want a good laugh and a movie to mock at a "B movie" party then watch this; otherwise, "Alien Express" derailed long before departing from the station!

I stumbled into this mess of a movie whilst too amped from viewing sports history. The Giants just upset the Patriots in the Super Bowl, and I couldn't sleep. I assumed/hoped this movie would put me to sleep, so I didn't surf away after only 1 minute, as I probably should have. Life is too precious. Puzzled, I IMDb'd it, and soon ended up in the reviews. They were better than what I was simultaneously watching, and I could only try/hope to watch the whole movie just to verify the unanimous disdain (excepting one apparent idiot). I don't know exactly how to say this, but I think that all of the reviews sell this movie short. It is worse than Plan 9. It takes the cake. It's unbelievably stupid. Actually, that last sentence could be misinterpreted. Not only is it unbelievable, it's unbelievable that it was even conceived and completed as a "movie". And it's way beyond unbelievably stupid. The hemorrhoid commercials every 12 minutes were a real relief, and I've never felt that way before! This movie must have been a pet project of Sci-Fi channel's accounting dept., as it can only be some sort of tax write-off against capital gains. If that's the case, the accountant should get any positive recognition as a true visionary. Other than as a wonderful way to rewrite off all of the company's cheepo garbage props out in desert storage (one last time, maybe), and give a bunch of slumming B-actors, a busman's holiday out in the desert, it must have been a way to hold a clinic for all of their new upcoming producers, directors, techs, etc. They should all consider themselves survivors. And they should all look for new lines of work.

A truly deplorable effort. But not exactly a waste of time. I now have a new bar to judge other movies by. And I can't wait to revisit Battlefield Earth. That movie is infinitely better than Alien Express. And to think that they left room for a sequel!!!

I have seen worse movies off the SyFy channel, but that is not saying much. Everything that I dislike generally about the SyFy original movies is here. And where to begin is going to be start.

1) The special effects are not quite Titanic II bad, but they still have a very artificial look to them. The train itself is not convincing at all, almost reminiscent of a miniature train with the inside shot elsewhere. That may not be the case, but that's how it seemed to me.

2) A lot of SyFy movies have slipshod editing, and Alien Express is no exception. Actually a lot of it is so bad that everything in some scenes look blurred together.

3) If you are looking for a good story, or a good telling of it, look elsewhere. The concept is okay if barely original, but like other SyFy movies the execution is awful. The story itself is leaden in pace, thin in structure and predictable in how it is written. There is also no real tension, thrills or suspense.

4) Not only that, if you are looking for likable characters, Alien Express is not for you. The characters aren't just clichés of the genre, but also SyFy clichés. But clichés don't actually bother me as such, as long as they are well written and not annoying. Alien Express fails on both counts. The characters are underdeveloped, and at the end of the day, while there have been far annoying character before especially in the SyFy movies of the past three or so years, I just didn't care for any of them.

5) Was I expecting the acting to be great? No, not really. But I was expecting some enthusiasm. I didn't get that. Everyone seemed wooden and pretty much phone in their performances.

6) But if I were to single out the worst asset of Alien Express, it has to be the script. Although I do dislike most of the SyFy movies, I do keep watching them for the novelty value and to curiously see if they do anything worthwhile. I may have seen about 40 or so SyFy movies in the past couple of months, but few have had dialogue as atrociously bad as that of Alien Express. It's all stilted and spoils any attempts to give some tension or thrills with how unintentionally funny it is.

Overall, a terrible film, even for SyFy. Not their worst, but towards the bottom end. 1/10 Bethany Cox