Alien Showdown: The Day the Old West Stood Still

Alien Predator War (2013) is the Cowboys vs. Aliens vs. Predator nonsense production that Asylum would have been ashamed of.

In this cheap flick, we get some kind of Roswell alien and a Predator dumped on the screen, who come to Earth and encounter unruly cowboys.

There's a time jump, and now we're in the present. There, Prof. Hermit and Dr. Hotchick are bothered by an alien artifact and records of alien invaders. We alternate back and forth between the Wild West and present. All clear so far?

The Predator has developed a few irritating habits on Earth. He finds bare-breasted women quite tasty.

The debris Predator made of rags and rubber scraps is one of the movie's lowlights. He is reminiscent of the waste product of a 4-year-old dropout from handicraft workshop.

The lighting and camera work are also bungling. The movie would have benefited from a lighting technician. In the forest, the actors' faces are constantly in the shadows. And they're actually traipsing around in the forest all the time.

Effects like fire and smoke look like they were added with a cell phone filter.

And what's with that stupid laser railgun with which the Predator never hits anything despite continuous fire? I could go on and on. But I am now calling it a day.

Aaaaah, no, there are sequels! Plural!

Literally no joke watched two minutes and told my husband to take it back! Music was poorly added, acting was bad, picture was bad. After the two minutes I watched the trailer out of pure curiosity and was amazed at how it too was terrible. The trailer was just a short scene frm the movie. How is that even a trailer? A trailer is supposed to portray the whole movie. I have never not watched an entire movie and never returned a movie because I do not like wasting money but I did not want to waste over an hour of my life on this. I looked up the year and was so shocked that it was made in 2013! I thought maybe due to the poor quality it was made along time ago.

Writing, acting, plot and effects are just awful. They forgot to put in punching sounds on the fist fights which were nearly silent. On the plus side, Robert Amstler has a great body and fills out his costume nice. That's what the three stars are for.

Original title, as displayed in the movie: Alien Predator War.

This is actually a nice movie, considering the budget and the level of amateurism. The story is thin but interesting. The cinematography is really amateuristic. It is clear what it is supposed to look like, but it just doesn't.

The movie score is monotonous at best. Better than no music, they must have thought. Some kind of elevator music I think. The acting is fairly decent, save Robert Amstler's performance (Reinhardt/Alien invader) which is more like pretending to act, while stepping through the forest scenery like a 1967 sasquatch. Amstler is best described as a cousin of Arnold Schwarzenegger who never took acting lessons. Also he is the producer of this movie. Multi-tasking is common in these mockbuster movies. Rene Perez is director, cameraman, writer, editor, and fight choreographer.

Special effects are creative but far from good, again with an ultra low budget in mind - fair. There is some inspired screenplay, like making use of the environment nicely (the huge fallen trees). An alien invader (predator lookalike from the movie "Predator") comes in. Very creatively the dreadlock-like beady hear strings are suggested with pieces of ragged cloth. Also, it's stepping through the woods like bigfoot. That's when I realized it must be the same actor playing Reinhardt. Another alien (a "gray") transmits information in an inaudibly garbled voice. I still wonder what it was saying.

The cgi guy worked miracles. Really, I take off my hat. Nice work!

There is a scene with bears, which is clearly out of a documentary like from Discovery or National Geographic. Well, as long as they paid for it it's okay. And YES! There is nudity which seems to arouse the praying predator, breathing heavily and grunting like an animal - and wow! It appears silicone breast implants were available in 1894. Later, in present time, the "gray" alien also likes to look at the naked female body. Kinky aliens, those.

The camera-work and editing allowed a little too much filler footage, seconds in where nothing really happens or is added to the movie, and no entertainment value is apparent. A lot of lost seconds, makes the movie advance a little faster trough time. At the end I was like: "Really? Already?"

Concluding I'd say it is a nice movie on the amateur level. Something a cosplay club could have thrown together. Script is consistent, all the way, in contrary to the Asylums recent "Jack the giant killer". Once I discarded Amstler's chunky acting and the amateuristic cinematography, the movie was really not bad. Was I entertained? Moderately. On a geek level, though.

It is clear that I am rating this higher than others here. My reason is that I can see what could be with enough resources, acting, writing, and directing. It was easy to see the connection here with the Predator movies. I have been hoping to see a movie with a Predator in the old west. I am a fan of westerns and the Predator franchise. I hope this will inspire someone with the resources to take another attempt of making a better movie about cowboys and Predators. The effort here was good with what they had to work with and the movie held my attention until the end. Good job folks.