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MOVIE REVIEW:
ALIEN RAIDERS
(2009)
DIRECTOR:
Ben Rock
STARRING:
Carlos Bernard, Matthew St. Patrick, Courtney Ford, Keith Hudson (sporting Robert Z'Dar's jaw on steroids).
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I really wanted to say "I LOVED ALIEN RAIDERS", I really did. But unfortunately I didn't. I had high expectations, but it definitely fell
short of what I thought it would be. I heard about this film from early on and thought it was going to be fantastic, but it just wasn't.
I got in contact with writer & director Ben Rock (who I respect and await in anticipation for his next film) and he was nice enough
to forward me onto his people at Warner Brothers so I could obtain a review copy of his film, Alien Raiders. Everyone involved in this
process was nice enough and here I was with my copy of Alien Raiders. I waited all week to play it, so I could spend a Friday night
watching it with the usual crappy junk foods associated with monster horror and Friday nights, in this case I chose m&ms, salt & vinegar
Tasty Jacks (ohw yih!) and Coke. I'm an ex-junkie and recovering alcoholic, so Coca Cola is the fucking shit. Note: Bludgo is not really an ex-junkie or alcoholic. Just a drug abuser and binge drinker. I settled down, pressed play and the rest is a slowly released sigh.
Alien Raiders is the story of a confrontation between scientists (well hybrid terrorist/scientists) and their inter galactic enemy -
aliens. DUN-DUN! These are the type of aliens that are like pretty much every other low budget alien movie alien. They exist within humans as parasites and only
really take any type of "monster" form at the end of the film. This is so money doesn't need to be spent on the FX. To give the film
credit, they pull this off reasonably well. |
The confrontation takes place in the local supermarket of sleepy town Buck Lake, Arizona. The film opens up with the supermarket hitting it's night shift.
We have the local grocery boy, Benny (Jeffrey Licon), who has been asked to stay on for the night shift (due to some lazy ass calling in sick), the quiet hotty
checkout chick, Whitney (Samantha Streets) and the fat sleazey manager, Tarkey (Joel McCrary), who is dutifully taking his slice of the daily profits). The rest of the store is filled
with your usual small town customers and the local small town sheriff, Kane (Rockmand Dunbar), who also happens to be Whitney's father-in-law.
It's a well
lit and well shot location. There's an eerie feeling (IMO) about a small supermarket with it's neon lights at night. The sheriff leaves,
the employees remain tired and shitty (especially Benny who seems to have been romantically rejected (yet again?) by
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^^ The most un-popular wad of cash in the world! Ech.... |
Whitney), customers
continue to shuffle in a zombie like manner in pursuit of their necessities and the manager continues to syphon the daily takings to buy what I could only assume is wanton amounts of cheeseburgers and other heart
clogging tasty snacks.
Suddenly our would-be heroes/scientists/baddies/terrorists/alien raiders (NOW do you see where the title came from!?) burst into the
store with guns weilded. They have a freaky little guy with them whose eyes are nearly sitting on the outside of his sockets. He reaches
up to everyone's faces, makes them go all weird and "vibratey" and yells "THEY'RE ONE OF THEM!". This leads to the nearest "alien raider"
blowing this person's *insert vital organ name here* to bits and killing who you may think at this point is an innocent civilian. One can
only hope the bug eyed fellow is simply not on acid. Ho ho ho! Worry not though my friends, he isn't. He's a psychic! He can tell if people
are host to what we come to learn are alien parasites. Anyway, who the fuck are you to question these scientists dressed in black,
bursting into the store killing people with their huge guns? They're SCIENTISTS for gods sake! IDIOT!
Anyway, one of the customers is an undercover cop who calls in that the place is being held up. After a stand off the undercover cop
shoots the poor little psychic fellow and after a touching death scene, he is no longer psychic, just a dead lump of meat. Following the
law of "you-killed-my-friend-now-I'm-going-to-kill-you" the other "alien raiders" shoot the cop dead.
Now they're fucked because the psychic only got half way through the store's occupants and apparently "THE KING" (which it's best to assume means the
king alien and NOT Elvis (same dif? hehe.)) is somebody in the store. W0o00oh! Anybody else smell a similar scene from "The Thing" (quickly
blurts - CARPENTER RULES!) coming up?
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After the moody black guy (reference - Will Smith, LL Cool J or any other "Aw HELL NAW!" black actor in their more moody roles), Seth (Matthew St. Patrick) in the team
of "alien raiders" has his little rant about "Hell naw! Not dis shit homie!" when their psychic buddy bites it, they decide to get everyone
else in the store rounded up and take them out back. After all, the cops have now surrounded the building and these guys need their
privacy to do their thing. They throw the bodies of everybody they've killed into the freezer and line everyone else up out the back.
Unfortunately for everyone who isn't an "alien raider", the only way to tell who is an alien now involves making them drink copious amounts of milk and cutting their little finger off. Erm... that IS explained in the film, but it's so stupid I'm going to use this whole sentence right now NOT explaining
how that makes sense. I dunno, aliens hate milk okay? Shut the fuck up, eat some more Tasty Jacks and keep reading.
Everybody is now missing a little finger, except for the "alien raiders". Who remain ominous, frantic, cool and moody - in no particular order.
One of the hostages, some old lady (YES - that IS her name), turns out to be an alien too. They kill her, she's dead now. Guess what though? They
still haven't found THE KING - thank ye very merch. hehe. The cops get on the phone to them asking what they want (as negotiators do) and
it turns out they want some old lady in prison to be released (who turns out to be another psychic) so they can find out who the fuck the king
alien is.
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:O He's screaming! It hurts him! HE'S AN ALIEN!^^
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In all this time other boring things happen that I don't care about much and neither will you.
Eventually we come to learn that the king was in fact the cop who was shot earlier and he's still alive inside the freezer. You see, he's the
king, so he's stronger and a few bullet's to the chest wouldn't put him down.
The king alien escapes the freezer, stomps around (in what is more of a highlight in this "monster" horror film) and attacks and kills almost the
entire team of "alien raiders" (and a few of the hostages to boot).
Finally the "alien raiders" leader, Aaron (Carlos Bernard), comes up with an idea. He wants the co-operation of the police (luckily the cops are lead by a noble,
nice local town sheriff) to take the king down. He lets the sheriff in, gives him the totally ridiculous run down of current events and then
gets all the boys on board.
In a final confrontation, Aaron, jumps on top of the king alien, pulls out the alien parasite in it's pure form and holds it above his face.
He yells to the sheriff to shoot it and so all the cops totally fucking unload on both Aaron and the alien, riddling it and Aaron with a million fucking
bullet holes, leading to Aaron sacrficing his life for the fate of the world. I guess this a genuinely sad moment as Aaron becomes a very likable
character (even if he has far too many similar whinces, character traits and behavioural patterns as Jack from LOST). I don't understand why
this so-called expert Sheriff couldn't have walked up closer to BLAH and the alien, called over a few of his buddies, all aim their guns in one
direction right up against the alien and blown the fuck out of it. Instead they chose to fill Aaron and the alien with lead from an extremely
distant location, thus killing him, when it wasn't really necessary. Smells a bit forced to me. Oh well, at least the king alien is DEAD.
UT-OH. Suddenly the only remaining "alien raider" has realised that the alien that was in Aaron's hands is far too small. It's NOT the king. Oh fuck,
who IS the king!?
It's Whitney. *crickets chirp* In amongst all the madness she didn't sit the "alien test" and as the film fades to black we all come to realise this sharleton
is in fact the king alien. Wooh!
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Alien Raiders isn't shit. It's a good way to waste an hour and a half. The problem? The movie Seven goes for 2 hours and feels like it goes
for 1 hour. Alien Raiders goes for 90 minutes and feels like it goes for 2 hours. This means I wasn't absorbed into the film. I wasn't making
love to it with my eyes and my mind, I was simply fingering it, toying with the idea of making love, but never garnering enough interest to
actually go all the way. Wow, sorry for that, I'm seriously messed up. I really need to stop watching so much beastiality.
What I'm getting at is the movie is shot well, it looks fantastic for what is obviously a low budget film (which is often the case with Raw
Feed films - they all look fantastic for their budgets). The cinematography is nothing to scoff at either. Some of the acting hits a high note
(although some of it never hits ANY note) and the |
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^^ That jaw could make ROBERT FUCKING Z'DAR jealous! |
direction at times is also fantastic. Actually, everything, AT TIMES, has it's very good points.
But this is the problem, besides the appearance of the film, everything else is like a shit sandwhich. Sure, the bread is edible, but there's
shit in it! Hmmm... I need to work on my analogies! hehe.
The writing mostly comes off feeling wooden and although the story is interesting enough it's nothing short of un-original. The characters
mostly seem text book. Examples:
- The moody black guy who always asks retoracle questions like "DO YOU WANT TO GIVE ME A REASON TO SHOOT YOU!?" (whilst holding gun sideways)
- The young couple who go from disliking one another to liking one another. Albeit one of them is secretly an alien, but shmeh.
- The wise & likable local sheriff with years of training in law enforcement and experience who eventually takes the heroes side.
- The old quiet man who dies in the process of finally trying to help everyone.
It's all here and it's all been done before and in alot more original ways. The dialogue is often spouted as if read from a drama text book
and it all just helped pull me away from becoming immersed in this film (which I desperately wanted to do). So as far as things go for
Ben Rock, he's a great visual director but clearly not quite cutting it as far as writing and actor direction goes.
There are some great FX to be seen here and it feels as though everyone has put in their best with what limited resources were available to them
at the time. When the big monster type deal finally appears at the end, the film becomes quite enjoyable, but inbetween the surprise beginning
and then, we are exposed mostly to stale scenes of cardboard characters reading out stereotypical lines. Alien Raiders could have been a classic,
especially if the direction and writing was at the same level of the visuals and sound on display. Unfortunately it falls just short, becoming
simply a good way to kill an hour and a bit. Hire it, don't buy it, because even though I own it, I probably wont watch it again. Meanwhile,
if you scroll down you can...
I'm not a sell out you cunts! |
I wanted to love this but really didn't and I cannot tell a lie, unless the outcome involves me not being charged for a crime. Perhaps this review may be a little unfair as I still had the recent memory of the film "The Mist" in my mind. Alien Raiders reminds me of The Mist for some reason. Maybe it's the supermarket setting and the alien invasion theme, but something was very reminiscent of it. Perhaps that has given me an unfair view of Alien Raiders not living up to it's potential. Because truth be told The Mist is one of the most enthralling horror sci-fi films I have seen in recent years. I guess Alien Raiders could be called a dumber, cheaper version of The Mist.
So for a more positive, final word; keep an eye
on Raw Feed films and keep an eye on Ben Rock. One day greatness will come from both. Trust me, I predicted World War II!
Note: The Bludgeoner was NOT alive before or during World War II. |
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^^ Dudes! Come check out the size of this poo I found! |
While reviewing "Alien Raiders" with a plethora of sickening analogies I give this movie:
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2.5 OUT OF 5 JAGER-BABIES. |
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