Kids vs. Aliens

Firstly I would like to start this review by saying under normal circumstances this would be the kind of B movie I would thoroughly enjoy and I had been looking forward to seeing this as I was a fan of the directors work. Sadly it turns out to be a pretty poor effort all round. The acting is good from all the young cast but the story is non existent and the fx and production values are bargain basement. The aliens look terrible and the faces just look like a Halloween mask with no moveable features. Gore wise it's very tame and apart from the odd moment it doesn't deliver much of anything. I like to support small indi horror but even at 75 mins it's a chore to get through.

Horror has seen a resurgence in the last several years/decade. But so has the relentless onslaught of homages to the campy, garbage 80's horror/sci-fi films. Some do it very well, some are awful, and this film is somewhere in-between. I found it fun but at the same time too drawn out and overall, hard to watch in the sense of it being bad. Being directed by the guy who made Hobo with a Shotgun, expect it to be intentionally bad, and then see that they may have tried a bit too hard to make it schlocky.

Que to clichés, foul mouth pre-teens and teens, huge house party, evil of some sort ruin it, kids band together to defeat said malevolence. The acting was good but everything else either was just below average or flat our bad. What kind of script was this? Did a foul mouthed 12 year old like the ones in the film write this. They couldn't have added more foul language if they tried. Sure we swore as kids, but this was trying to hard.

The story was horrifying, again trying way to hard to be those Prom Night, Slumber Party Massacre, The Prowler, Nightmare on Elm Street 2 type films. The social hierarchy of "cool kids and dorks" is so over done, to the point where a character literally says dorks deserve to be taken by the aliens and murdering a child because "you ruined my party". Its just too much, again, "trying too hard" would be the motto of this film.

This is a film that started as a great short in the V/H/S series of films. Here's the formula to this highly derivative crappy film. 1. Take the interesting idea of teenagers sitting for younger siblings and expand this to stereotypical rebellious and anarchists teens using others just to party. 2. Expand the alien action to see more of them and their inane actions of horror that really make no sense. 3. Turn the lead garbage teen into a sniveling self-centered sociopath. 4. Try to redeem by having the teen sister recognize her bad behavior toward her younger brother. Production quality is low to the point of the aliens looking like their skin is saggy costumes. And they lost the camera on the dog which was one of the best elements from the original short. Go back to V/H/S and watch better films.

A group of kids filming a movie and having the times of their life during Halloween season sounds like a fun thing to watch. Now to that add a alien invasion in the middle of a teenager's party and it turns into battle to survival with some enjoyable moments. The most remarkable part of this film is the cast, they delivered an excellent and fun performance that leaves you wanting to see more of them. This comes as a surprise since both the story and script are messy and lack of coherence proving even more the talent of the young cast.

The level of gore and practical effects is the expected for an indie b horror movie like this but works. The neon colors and costumes combined with the good acting can make you forget about the awful characters like Billy, the Dad, the Mom and flat story. This is the type of horror film that you would watch when you want to have a good time without having to think much.

Jason Eisener blends his love for pro-wrestling and grindhouse horror into an extended version of the V/H/S 2 segment that doesn't quite hit the mark. While the man's passion for these pop-culture phenomenons is largely evident, I think the plot and characterizations are super thin (especially that of Samantha and Billy) and the practical effects are a tad too silly, often bordering on the comical. Maybe, that was the intention after all? Like, an anti-Spielbergian approach to showcasing a Gen Z & Gen Alpha ensemble, i.e. Foul-mouthed kids versus horny, anarchist teenagers.

However, the film lacks conviction in delivering the goods. I'll give you an instance as to why. When the film is showing the "home movies" that the kid characters are making, it's alright to use shaky cam and extreme close-up shots as that would befit the setup. But then, why shoot straightforward action set-pieces too in shaky cam? Some of it is borderline nauseating. The main antagonist (no, not the aliens) is out-of-this-world despicable - no effort has gone into the writing or the performance. I like Eisener's work on Dark Side of the Ring, but as a feature filmmaker, I'm yet to see something truly remarkable coming from him.