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Alien Raiders is the spiritual crossing between The Mist and The Thing… only with a smaller budget and all the problems that come with a smalltime production. The film is a gritty low-budget flick that attempts to cash in on a tried and true formula for tension building and scares, namely trapping a bunch of fuckers in a small place and have them guessing who is a monster… or in this case a person taken over by an alien.

In Alien Raiders, a group of fuckers storm a grocery store and rob it… only they’re not interested in money. It turns out the group is a cadre of dudes and one chick who are seeking out parasitic alien lifeforms and snuffing them out… of course, everyone in the grocery store thinks they are simply walking around executing people. Eventually the group figures out that this is where the king alien is hiding out and they must uncover who it is and snuff the person out. Then the cops show up and the situation gets more complicated than a dude trying to explain to his girlfriend why his dick is inside her best friend.

Simply from looking at the cover and the plotline, one would expect a low-budget shitfest, but Director Ben Rock does an outstanding job of lifting this film off the DVD scrapheap by providing a nice sense of tension throughout. Rock was clearly inspired by the “testing” scene in The Thing, and while it doesn’t score any marks for originality, it is still fairly effective. The look of the film is crisp and a little more professional than what you would expect from a low-budget movie. Rock, despite going with some handheld camera footage, selects his shots nicely and delivers a high dose of action throughout the movie.

The biggest drawback of this film is its low-budget cast. Most of the characters are two-dimensional and no one truly stands out. It could be a side effect of Spartan writing, but no one in the film feels like a badass and you really wouldn’t care if they were all executed. There’s a weak “boy likes girl” sideplot which never comes to fruition thanks to the amateur efforts of the characters playing the roles. It’s not a terrible display of thespianic talents, but it’s not like you’d hire any of these people for your own movie anyway.

The special effects are the highlight of the film. There are some great alien make-ups scattered throughout and a nice dose of violence here and there. The kill factor of the film is fairly high, so the fact that the special effects area actually proficient is a nice touch. The kills could use a little more brutality and an upgrade in the blood department, but at least they’re there.

Alien Raiders is a little too generic to stand out and be a must see film, but if you’ve exhausted every option on the DVD shelves at your local video store, you could easily do worse. The film does devolve in the final act, but the first hour is a solid success… you’ll just wish the finale was a little more action packed.

Final Synopsis: I ain’t mad at this effort. Alien Raiders is a solid indie effort that will entertain sci-fi/horror fans for a little while. It’s worth a watch if you’re bored of everything else.

Points Lost: -1 for a lame ending, -1 for bad actors, -1 for lame handheld camera stuff, -1 for “the twist”

Lesson Learned: People who are lactose intolerant are aliens.

Burning Question: Why don’t these dudes just go to the cops to begin with?

Alien Raiders
6/10

Tags: 2008, alien, aliens, ben rock, horror, horror movie, indie, killer parasite, latest movie reviews, low-budget, New Independent Film Reviews, new independent movie reviews, parasite, recent1, sci-fi, sci-fi movie, science fiction, science fiction movie