Alien Species (1996)

Such a frustrating disappointment

Just perfect...

A different way of telling a story

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

An entertaining science fiction thriller that doesn't deserve the incredibly low rating it's been given on this site. While the film is obviously low budget direct-to-video fare and not a lavish Hollywood production, the special effects are about as good as anything you'll see on made for TV movies or any number of Sy Fy network productions. The film itself is fast paced, the acting is decent and the alien monsters look pretty good (all things considered). Veteran character actor Charles Napier (First Blood) stars as a small town sheriff. The other actors are for the most part unknown but competent in their roles. Worth seeking out if you're a fan of the genre.

Alien Species is a very cheap knock-off that was clearly surfing the wave caused by the massive blockbuster hit Independence Day (1996). This one was also released the same year as that one so that gives you an idea how fast it must have been devised, filmed and distributed. The speed of production shows, as this is a very shoddy and cheap effort, whose title also alluded to the previous year's sci-fi hit Species (1995). Well, it cannot be accused of not covering its bases that is one thing for sure. I quite enjoy rip-off films though so this was, if anything a slight plus point for this one and, in truth, Independence Day was a monumental load of gash and this minuscule budget movie was no more painful to watch. Just horrible in a different way.Huge alien space-crafts arrive in our orbit and attack immediately. Various human survivors wind up taking refuge in a cave which turns out to be the base of these extra-terrestrials. Lots of alien-invader based stuff happens off the back of this, including explosions and cow theft.Despite the budget, this one actually stars Charles Napier in an admittedly uninteresting role but it was still good to see him here nevertheless. It also sports some effects of the giant spaceships that were half-way decent. But in all other regards this is bargain basement stuff to the max. Its soundtrack was so tinny and awful it is hard for me to believe that this could have sounded remotely acceptable back in 1996. Sadly, this music is pretty relentlessly played throughout the movie as well. Its director is Peter Maris who I was already aware of on account of his debut movie being the sleazy thriller Delirium (1979) which made the infamous British video nasty list back in the early 80's. It was a good film though, quite significantly better than this one that is for sure. This one is also notable for ending on a very strange and ambiguous bit of dialogue that frankly posed more questions than it did any answers but, really, that's the least of this movies problems.

I love movies where I can honestly say that I would have done a better job directing. Seriously. I'm not Mr. "Oh, I can do better than that" usually. But I think my dog could have directed this movie better, and I don't have a dog. Doesn't make sense, does it? Neither does the director's strategy for making this movie.This is one of those movies that must have a budget of about $10,000 and you wonder "where did the money go"? I can only assume that the explosions in the film were an accident, since nothing else in the movie works, especially the plot. I also think that the actors in the movie were not only not trained in the art of acting, but deliberately taught wrong as a joke.In this movie, you expect a hard-core sex scene to come on at any moment, not because of any sexual tension that has built up, but because the movie looks like it was shot by the same people who brought you anal whores volume seven. They should have paid the actresses an extra $50/day to score some crack and act while high. At least that would have been interesting.To sum up, only see this movie while drunk with friends. Recommend this movies to none but your worst enemies, and see a good movie directly after this to avoid having the badness of this movie contaminate you.

Usually any B movie with at least a little gore, and some lingering gratuitous nudity is worth a look, but man! This is the worst script, worst acted piece of nonsense ever. Some B movies can be loved because they are so bad, they're actually really good - see 'Hybrid' by Fred Olen Ray for an example of this - but Alien Species goes so far down the pipe that its just not funny any more. The only funny thing about it is the lead guys ridiculous hairdo.Atrocious waste of good film, that i would have happily used to wipe my buttocks with.0/10