Alien Outbreak

This new poster is much better! :)

I recently had the pleasure of being surprised by another film. When I saw one of the posters for it, I shook my head and sighed. The poster showed a huge city with alien ships around it. I thought, "Not on your budget. That's not going to be happening."

Then....I saw the trailer and thought I'd give it a go. The trailer looks great.



As my screener started...my eyes narrowed and I viewed the film with caution. Ok, there were some things that I started to see here and there that set me off a bit, but they were rather small things that didn't take away from the fact that I was locked onto the screen. (Some dodgy audio mixing and camera moves in the beginning paired with the lead actor and her rather interesting acting style that I had to get used to)

But, as the film unfolded and the plot started to be revealed, I was totally sucked in and loving where things were going.

We have a classic alien attack film here, but with a few really interesting new ideas added into the mix. It seems that they are able to make people have suicidal thoughts, which ups the danger and risk factors overall. When will our leads be driven to take their own lives like many others in their town?

They also kept it set in a small town which was a major win as I see it. If they had tried to run this scenario in a large city, this film would have gone the sad way some others have gone in the past leaving you to wonder why we don't see more people and why we're limited to a few locations that seem to be in an abandoned warehouse district somewhere. :::grin:::  I've seen this MANY times before and it's distracting and upsetting. heh  These folks play well within their budget and it's grand.

The small UK village feel really locked me into the story. The police officer leads who were in the area knew the people they were trying to help and the people knew them. They had a history. That aspect made things more interesting for sure.

And gore? Yup! There are some really grand splatter effects that manage to add to the story without being too distracting. CGI effects blended with what looked like practical effects seemed super seamless.

What I was REALLY impressed with here, however, was the 3D and effects work. This is not a major budget epic. It's not even an indie funded medium level effort, I don't think. However, the effects are very good and there are a lot of them. They don't hide things in darkness or used the "camera as villain" to avoid having to show the aliens and the tech. They full on show rather cool looking tech monster robots attacking and stalking in full light. Massive ships take to the skies and sweep past trees. HUGE alien figures stroll along at roughly two stories in height and I was loving every minute of it. They were solid and locked into the scenes and felt like they had weight and that they were actually IN the scene instead of being pasted on top.

VERY difficult to do, but seeing as writer / director Neil Rowe looks like he has a VFX background, it seems like he knew exactly what he was doing. The story and direction are engaging and interesting and the whole film holds up right through to the end. Our leads Katherine Drake and Ritchie Crane have a lot of good dialogue to work with and the supporting cast is not only up to the challenge, but have some grand, WORLD WAR Z-like monologues to sink into.

ALIEN OUTBREAK is well worth a viddy!!! 
I believe the release date is Feb 11, 2020

 From IMDB
In a small rural community local police officers Zoe and Patrick begin their shift as normal but it soon becomes clear that something is wrong. Strange events unfold before their eyes, residents begin behaving strangely and mass suicide panic spreads amongst the community they are trying to protect. Zoe and Patrick realise they are under siege from alien machines as they become cut off from the outside world. They are forced to do battle against these uninvited visitors. Can Zoe and Patrick save their community and the outside world from extinction?

Galaxy of Horrors

This sci fi horror anthology really delivered some interesting stuff, I have to say. It was really solid and held my attention throughout. As with most anthology films, there were some hits and misses. However, the overall experience was positive, engaging, and presented some concepts and storylines that I had not seen before. I love that.

I'm very happy that these folks had a vehicle to get their short films out into the world and I was happy that the Exploding Heads Horror Movie Podcast gave me the heads up about it.






Wraparound Segment (dir. Justin McConnell)
Maybe notthe most engaging segment - it was really just a throughput to the end goal of seeing the videos. However, it was still interesting and did what it was meant to do.

Eden (dir. Todd Cobery)
Dystopian future fun with some interesting visuals and both practical and 3D effects. Pretty solid. 










Iris (dir. Richard Karpala)
High concept goodness. A grand and simple morality play with heavy big brother overtones.





Flesh Computer (dir. Ethan Shaftel)
Not really my cup of tea, but it had enough interesting visuals to keep me engaged even if i didn't find the story to be to my liking.



Pathos (dir. Fabio Prati, Dennis Cabella and Marcello Ercole)
Very BRAZIL in feel. One of those, "I'm not sure what's going on, but I'm interested," sorts of segments.





Eveless (dir. Antonio Padovan)
Another that slipped a bit, but this two man act was interesting for sure.

They Will All Die In Space (dir. Javier Chillon)
Reminded me of OUTLAND (1981) a bit. Solid sci fi.




Entity (dir. Andrew Desmond)
Whoa. That was really strange. I liked it. :)







Kingz (dir. Benni Diez and Marinko Spahic)
Wild visuals, cool action choreography, and a odd little plot made this a fun watch for sure. Pretty wild.







 All in all, I believe this is well worth a viddy. Currently available on AMAZON PRIME.

Grabbers

What a fun little film! Is it SHAUN OF THE DEAD level horror comedy? Mmmmm...no, but nothing is, right? :) This is a load of fun and rolls along at a funny and fun pace for sure.

The long and the short is that something has fallen from space near a small, Irish island. The residents start dropping like flies as the grabby, tentacled monsters start feeding off of them. The one way to protect yourself from their attack? Being completely drunk, thus rendering your blood toxic to them. Silly, right? Oh yes, it really is. But, it's SO MUCH FUN.

Jon Wright's Direction is grand as well. I'll need to check out the film he did before this - a nasty little number called TORMENTED from 2009 and his new outing OUR ROBOT OVERLORDS due out in 2014. 

It's a fun ride, but it doesn't let the horror go to get giggles. There are some nasty little bits of grabber goodness in this film that had me laughing for different reasons. Some of the kills are shocking and well played. And, while this is a lower budget affair, the computer work and practical effects work doesn't suffer. They manage to pull off some grand effects and I never found myself rolling my eyes at what i was seeing. 

I imagine this would play well as a drinking game of sorts as well, though if you drank like they drink in the film, you might not remember most of the film come morning! 

Check out GRABBERS. It's a hoot!

Helldriver

The great and powerful Yoshihiro Nishimura (involved in various ways in TOKYO GORE POLICE, MACHINE GIRL, SUICIDE CLUB, VAMPIRE GIRL v. FRANKENSTEIN GIRL) is back with more gore madness - HELLDRIVER.

These films make me happy. They are pure stupidity on some levels, but also a lot of fun and hyper-kinetic on dangerous levels. There are times I think they might give me a seizure or some other sort of brain damage. But, the gore and over the top, comic style is very enjoyable. If you're into that sort of thing.

And "That Sort of Thing is what it really boils down to. I've seen movies like MACHINE GIRL in a theater with people howling, screaming and laughing all the way through, then clapping wildly at the end. It's a lot like being on a roller coaster. You know that you're basically going to be doing the same things - up up up, screaming down into a series of flips and turns and curves, then peacefully back into the station to continue your day. You are not disappointed when that's all you get. Unless you're 5 years old or something.



These films basically tell you "So, we're going to have nudity, blood spraying all over the place, insane action, even more insane weapons, head and limb chopping and various other items that will have you whispering What the HELL was that?!"   

I'm all in. :)

TWITCH Review found here:  http://twitchfilm.com/reviews/2011/11/helldriver-review-2.php

"Dallas?"

Dallas should have stayed THE HELL outta that air shaft! :)

I look back on 1979's ALIEN fondly. I had tried to sit through JAWS in 1975 or 1976 and...well...it didn't work out. It ended badly. My friend's father had to sit out in the lobby with me watching the last 25 minutes through a small porthole in the door at the Novato theater. (The funny thing is that JAWS is now one of my favorite movies ever. Go figure.)

So, flash forward to 1979. I'm 10 years old. Another friend and I convince our mothers to take us to see ALIEN in an afternoon show. They cave to our begging and take us. This always brings a smile to my face. I WAS FRIGGIN 10 YEARS OLD and sat watching ALIEN like a CHAMP. I remember watching this film unfold like the titular Alien itself - staring at the screen and wondering what was going to happen next.

ALIEN had a realness to it. Things looked dirty and used. Really, everything in the film looks like it could exist. I love that. While STAR WARS was definitely mind blowing and amazing, it looked like fantasy while ALIEN looked like it was the future on celluloid. We loved it. No nightmares. No lobby time. Just sitting...watching...and LOVING this film to death.

Speaking of death...like I said...Dallas should have stayed THE HELL out of that shaft....

Spoiler much?