ALIEN SPECIES

STARRING: Charles Napier, Hoke Howell, Jodi Seronick, Ashley Semrick

1996, 92 Minutes, Directed by: Peter Maris

Description: A fleet of UFOs is circling the Earth and a top scientist races to discover their true intentions for the planet. When the UFOs begin an attack on Earth, the scientist finds himself thrown in with a sheriff and his deputies transporting some prisoners to jail. The unlikely group is forced to seek shelter from the attack in a nearby cave, not knowing how significant the location is to the aliens’ plans. — Amazon.com

“Why does it feel as if I’m in a bad episode of The X-Files all of a sudden?” the hero in Alien Species asks at one point. Except he’s got it wrong: throughout its decade-long run the X-Files never got anywhere near as bad as this cheesy alien invasion flick. And we’re including all those stupid episodes without Mulder here too . . .

Earth – which has never looked as pixellated as it does here! - is attacked by some equally bad CG flying saucers. Before blowing up some cars and city buildings, the UFOs however first abduct a cow in a field as well as a redneck farmer’s teenaged daughter. (He goes after them with a shotgun of course.) Why would they do this? Maybe because this sort of behavior is expected of aliens in flying saucers and they probably didn’t want to disappoint anyone – who knows?

It’s War of the Worlds all over again – but due to budgetary constraints most of the action is set in a cave.

Managing to rip off two movie franchises in one movie title, Alien Species is the sort of movie in which the hero handily has a bazooka in his car’s trunk for no apparent reason (we know gun laws are lax in the States, but come on!). It’s a bad movie all right, with cheapo special effects, make-up and lousy acting.

It could however have been a whole lot better if it didn’t boast one of the most gratingly annoying soundtrack music scores ever composed.

Avoid.

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