Alien Raiders (2008)

directed by Ben Rock
USA
85 minutes
3 stars out of 5
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Before this, I watched The Blackout, a very similarly-themed film (set during Christmastime, alien invasion, people trapped in one place) that was disappointing due to its total lack of personality and charm, so I figured that as long as Alien Raiders had some shred of uniqueness to it, it would be better than The Blackout. I think the two are similar enough that a compare/contrast isn't that far of a reach.

Alien Raiders actually achieved my hope for it to have something distinctive about it within minute one, because the bad, edgy alt-rock song played over the credits is miles better than The Blackout's total lack of anything distinguishing it from a reel of stock footage. From then on we're introduced to the situation using tension, intrigue, mystery, and fear- genuine examples of these things, done well, even if the movie as a whole isn't winning any major awards. The characters each have a personality of their own and feel like actual human beings, not just words on a page being spat out by actors who aren't thinking of their characters as anything but just that, words on a page. A whole lot of the dialogue is cliched, but at least it's being said with conviction!

Every other horror movie attempts to advertise as prominently as possible that somebody in the cast or crew had something to do with Blair Witch Project, so I'll tout the director's work as production designer on Blair Witch as well. Maybe that has something to do with why this feels watchable and smooth, even though it's fairly generic.

The only thing that really bothers me is the title, because if I'm watching a movie with "alien" in the name, I want to see some aliens at some point. I'm not too cheesed off about the lack of aliens, because what the film has instead of aliens is almost cooler (it's like The Thing basically) and the practical effects are really nice. But still, I was expecting that maybe the people who invaded the supermarket the film is set in (you know, the raiders?) were going to turn out to be the aliens in one climactic sequence where one of them gets shot and bleeds neon green, or something like that. But again, what they did instead was good too. I'm honestly pretty satisfied with this movie. It's somewhere between good and great. I think I have low standards. Courtney Ford is really cute though.