[Alien Raiders]
Plot:It's the end of yet another night at Hastings Supermarket, an idyllic family grocery store in Buck Lake, Arizona. But the normal monotony of rounding up shopping carts and settling out the cash drawers is broken at 11:07pm, just before closing when a group of masked and armed-to-the-teeth militants invades the store, immediately killing several of the employees and shoppers and holding the rest hostage. Though the hostage-takers at first appear to be robbers or terrorists, they reveal themselves to be a cadre of rogue scientists that has discovered and tracked an alien infestation to THIS STORE on THIS NIGHT, and they are determined to find out which of the survivors are extraterrestrials and end the invasion at any cost.

Cast:Carlos Bernard, Mathew St. Patrick, Courtney Ford, Rockmond Dunbar, Tom Kiesche, Joel McCrary, Bryan Krasner, Bonita Friedericy, Derek Basco, Keith Hudson.

My Thoughts:Should've kept the title "Supermarket", because it was as boring and uninspired as a trip to one.

Review:So Director Ben Rock tries to get creative with the A-typical alien invasion film by bringing us "Alien Raiders", a film where a group of masked men burst into a supermarket in Arizona right around closing time looking for some quick cash. Well....atleast that's what we think at first. The group are actually rogue scientists, looking for extraterrestrials disgusied in human form.

This plot point slowly emerges later on in the film, and as it does..the stakes get higher and higher as the aliens go on the offensive, turning shoppers/hostages, and killing off the scientists one by one. If they don't complete their mission of killing the King alien, the world may be doomed. I say that they should've kept the title "Supermarket" because "Alien Raiders" makes the film sound all exciting and intense and to be honest, it just is not. At all. I really enjoyed the opening 15 to 20 minutes of the film. But it really runs out of gas after that, and starts wandering around trying to figure out what it wants to do with itself for the next77 to 80 minutes.

And when a movie wanders around aimlessly, that's never good. Most of "Alien Raiders" takes place in the dark which is another problem I have with it. It didn't seem the dark scenes were added for dramatic effect, or to try and scare the viewer. But instead to hide maybe bad visual effects with the aliens, or for obligatory reasons like saying..."yeah, we have to have dark scenes because this is a horror movie." The characters beyond the two lead rogue scientists aren't very interesting, and as a matetr of fact the rogue scientists don't make believable scientists at all.

I look at these guys and quite honestly, they'd strike me as a legitimate gang of crooks, and not highly intelligent scientists. There's not much blood or gore in this movie, although there is a cool plot point where one of the scientists can read people and discover who's alien and who's not. But any film involving aliens has to have the usual stuff like pus, blood, gore, slime, you know...grossness. This film had none of those things, and it seemed Rock just didn't get how to put together a movie that falls into this genre.

The movie really boxes itself in by going from nicely-set-up extraterrestrial vs. human sci-fi-horror film, to a hostage standoff picture which never captures the intensity of either situation. The deadly aliens on the inside, nor the police with guns drawn on the outside. Rock does try and throw in some wrinkles here and there in his movie though, with the identity game of who really is the king alien?

And a woman who kind of lives in that gray area when it comes to moral and honorable behavior, but at the same time....is the only person who may be able to help the scientists complete their very vital mission. But between the peaks and valley's script, and the subpar acting..."Alien Raiders" never really gets off the ground fully, and ultimately winds up being a sub-decent film.

Positives:Nicely set up story, and a unique spin on the A-typical alien invasion film.

Negatives:A story that never lives up to it's potential, lack of action, suspense, and intensity, not very great performances, and an overall lack of enetrtainment value.

Overall:One and a half out of four stars.





( Talk about it in the Forums!)



( Back to the main page)