Ils sont parmi nous

I am very tolerant of really bad sci/fi and horror movies - I've been watching them since I was 4 or 5, so I've seen some really bad stuff, but I deal with it. I've even watched a lot of SciFi Channel movies so I know not to expect much - a usually promising movie that has no ending to speak of. Hope springs eternal, I guess - or the triumph of hope over experience, as they say. Unfortunately, this is a dog right from the beginning and I knew it, but like a moth to the flame, I kept thinking something, anything, interesting would happen. It doesn't. All of the actors give a decent performance - given the script, I don't know how they all kept straight faces. It has something to do with collagen-starved worm parasite creatures who are slowly taking over the human race, one body at a time. There's an evil plastic surgeon who collaborates with the enemy by giving them the outward appearance of humans...don't worry, he gets what's coming to him. The slug people themselves don't really know where they came from, they think they might have thumbed a ride on a meteor that landed on earth, but...somehow they know about the members of slug royalty among them - the slug princess has managed to breed with a human being who knows that she's the worm queen and loves her for her self...oh, must I go on? Please, I implore you, do not waste 2 hours of your life watching this...anything would be better...think of the worst, least enjoyable way you can spend two hours...it would be better than this.

Things are strange in a small American town, and a race of alien creatures are responsible. It's up to a group of friends and a female alien hunter to save they're town before it's too late! A decent made-for-TV sci-fi film in the vein of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers". Good cast including Alison Eastwood and genre vet George 'Buck' Flower. Director/screenwriter Jeffrey Obrow is no stranger to the genre, having also helmed 1987's tentacled-monster-on-the-loose film, "The Kindred". The creature effects are great and there are some nice gory scenes. The film is also surprisingly suspenseful at times, something I certainly didn't expect from a low-budget alien invasion flick in a year like 2004.

If you enjoy 50's-style alien invasion flicks, you'll want to see "They Are Among Us".

6.5/10.

I can't believe how awful this movie turned out to be. I feel magnanimous even referring to it as a "movie". The acting was flat, the editing was terrible and the plot leaves many major questions unanswered. The premise was OK, if unoriginal: a small group of aliens is living in the US and trying to slowly take over humanity. But it goes rapidly downhill from there. How could they convince a "human" to accept an alien as his wife in order to make they alien-human hybrid they require? They show a larval alien but never show what it does. They have a plastic surgeon that can produce perfect looking skin on an industrial scale. They throw in the obligatory huge alien monster with teeth. The ending was almost too painful to watch. I suppose that I'm mostly disappointed that Bruce Boxlietner would have anything to do with this. How could he say to the huge alien monster with teeth, "Get away from him you son of a b*tch" with a straight face? It's a long fall from his Babylon 5 days. Avoid this at all costs.

"They Are Among Us" is poor science fiction at best. Mediocre acting bogs down this film. The plot holes are numerous. Aliens that somehow came to earth on a meteor and have been hiding among us for over 100 years, but need a plastic surgeon to make them appear human. In their alien form they supposedly have exo-skeletons (which is why they need the plastic surgery) but when you see them they have teeth and fingernails. The heroine's father "disappeared" after Project Blue Book closed, but was supposedly an F-16 pilot. And on and on. If you want to see an alien invasion movie, pick "Invasion of the Body Snatchers", and see how it is done right.

Writer/director Jeffrey Obrow is another relatively unknown filmmaker, but surely fans of '80s creature features will remember his slimy magnus opus "The Kindred" (1987). In recent years the man brought us "They Are Among Us". What if our parents were actually aliens, starting colonies on earth, converting human beings into their race to secretively walk among us? With a mouthful premise like this, the script could have used a talented supervisor as Obrow's story feels very inconsistent. But still a handful of interesting ideas stand out and the special effects are commendable. In an era where CGI had taken over, Obrow opted for real make-up effects and old fashioned creature designs. A muddled affair, but a curious watch nonetheless.