Anal probes are so yesterday, aren’t they!! I’m not pooh-poohing the entire “aliens among us” segment of America, but considering that aliens have been abducting humans since at least the 1950s, you’d think those ass-happy turd freaks would know all about our insides and physiology. But apparently the aliens still have more to learn from our log cutters. With that said, I’ve been searching for a good, entertaining scifi/horror film for a while now. ALMOST HUMAN was more disappointing than finding out the girl of your dreams is a tranny. Let’s face it, ALMOST HUMAN was a piece of shit. So when I found ALIEN ABDUCTION on Netflix I got excited. Well it was admittedly a guarded excitement. ALIEN ABDUCTION is an entertaining film that is far from being perfect but it has enough in it that I found myself enjoying it.
ALIEN ABDUCTION begins like we’re about to see a documentary. We get some facts about UFO sightings and statistics about missing persons. We even get some discussion from real paranormal researcher, Joshua Warren; a discussion from physics/astronomy professor, Daniel Caton; and some actual first hand accounts from UFO witnesses Max Woody and Angela Moore. All these people are discussing one particular ongoing UFO phenomenon known as the “Brown Mountain Lights” in North Carolina. This area has become famous in UFO circles for the frequency of UFO sightings and the fact that multiple people have seen these strange lights all at the same time. Remember, one witness is a nut; many witnesses is a phenomena!!
We also get a short discussion and a little info on Project Blue Book, a real study set up by the Air Force to examine all the various UFO sightings around the country. ALIEN ABDUCTION is supposed to be “actual leaked footage from the U.S AIRFORCE …”. That’s right, folks. This is yet another found footage flick. We’re told that whenever the lights appear there always seems to be a few locals who disappear. This one particular time in October 2011, twenty-seven people disappeared after witnesses saw the Brown Mountain Lights. The Morris family is one such family that disappeared that October. The Morris family was out camping in the mountains around that time, but lucky for us eleven year old Riley (Riley Polanski), who’s autistic, got everything on camera. It seems looking through the lens of a digital camcorder helps Riley better adapt to the world.
Along with Riley is his older sister Jillian (Jillian Clare), his older brother Corey (Corey Eid), his mom Katie (Katherine Sigismund), and his dad Peter (Peter Holden). I liked this family. They were close and they didn’t make the older sister bitchy or the older brother a douche bag. Everyone got along but there was also some tension here and there just to keep everything real. On their first night in the mountains they all spot three hovering lights in the sky that would suddenly fly really fast, stop, and hover again. They were all a little freaked out but were determined to have a good vacation. On the way to their second camping site the car’s GPS goes a little wonky and they get lost. As they approach a tunnel all they find are empty cars with no people in them. It’s a creepy scene that director Matty Beckerman does a great job filming. It’s tense, scary, and you don’t really know what’s happening yet.
As the dad, Corey, and Riley walk past cars into the dark tunnel (it’s a tunnel through a mountain) we get to see some of the carnage up close. Car doors are still open, radios are still on, and headlights are still glaring into the darkness. We even see empty baby seats strewn on the ground (that sent a chill up my spine). The father thinks he sees someone at the other end of the tunnel and starts running to him yelling for help. This is where everything kinda goes tits up. The tunnel was obviously the scene of a massive abduction and the Morris family happened to come across it at the tail end. I’m not going to give anything away but not all the Morris’ make it out of the tunnel. The surviving Morris family members find their way to the cabin of a recluse, Sean (Jeff Bowser), who is all about hunting, beer, and guns. He eventually helps the Morris family but as you can probably guess things don’t go too well for anyone involved.
The story moves along at a brisk pace … brisk enough that you may not realize at first that ALIEN ABDUCTION plays out like an episode of THE X-FILES (I love THE X-FILES so this isn’t necessarily a bad thing). But there really isn’t anything groundbreaking here. It all feels familiar and the focus is definitely on how the humans react to the extraordinary things happening around and to them. If you’re looking for an alien-heavy story with lots of special effects and badass looking Visitors, ALIEN ABDUCTION, then, isn’t for you. But the writers do a good job with the characters, which are well-written, and we do get some well shot scenes of people getting abducted. Towards the end we do get some inside shots of the UFOs and get a good idea of what’s happening in them. But even though the story never really rises above that of an X-FILES episode there was enough to keep me interested. I just don’t understand why this had to be a found footage movie. The found footage gimmick did absolutely nothing to enhance this film. Check it out if there’s nothing else on and you’ve got the craving for an alien/scifi flick. And make sure you stick around for the scenes after the end credits.
My Summary: Director: Matty Beckerman Plot: 3 out of 5 stars Gore: 0 out of 10 skulls Zombie Mayhem: 0 out of 5 brains Reviewed by Scott Shoyer
