August 12, 2009
Not of this earth...
A slap in the face to all of humanity!
Late one night, a meteor carrying an extraterrestrial disease lands near the small community of Lawton, California. While out on patrol, Officer Brick Bardo comes into contact with Larr...( read more)y Jenkins, a local rancher, who discovered the mysterious meteor in the first place. Little does Bardo know, is that Jenkins has been infected by the alien organism. While Bardo has his back turned, Jenkins, under the control of the alien host, passes the infection onto the policeman. Bardo is now under control of the alien creature and he steps back into his patrol car, looking for new victims to spread the infection to. He finds a young couple and they are caught off guard when he attacks them. Only the young girl, Cheryl Cooper, survives Bardo's attack and she steals his police car in hopes of escaping this nightmare. What follows is the recording of Cheryl Cooper's ordeal of trusting no one, trying to outwit the infected people, and hopefully seeing the light of day again while she drives through this infected park containing a disease threatening annihilation of the planet.
This terrible film is directed by Albert Pyun whose other films on his resume are cheap Jean-Claude Van Damme action movies (i.e. Cyborg and Kickboxer 2: The Road Back) or they have just never been heard of. According to IMDB, he has been frequently compared to Edward Wood Jr., the man who directed Plan 9 from Outer Space, a strong contender for worst film ever. I don't know what goes through this guy's mind when he directs a movie. Has he ever thought of seeking some serious mental help in order to make a decent film? Who knows. All you need to know is that this guy does not make Academy Award worthy films.
There are about a dozen actors here at the most and you won't be blown away by these performances. Jenny Dare Paulin portrays the character you follow the most, Cheryl Cooper, as she tries to get out of the alien zombie park. This actress gets a little emotional but when she tries to deliver angry lines, it comes off as being flat. The voice you here most next is Don Keith Opper as Deputy Ben. The guy doesn't do bad voice work and should have been in radio instead of being in this film. Everybody else is as about as stiff as a board. When the actors try to act like part human/part alien/part zombie, their movements are terrible and it is like they are dolls being controlled by wires. Something like that NSYNC song, "It's Gonna Be Me."
The whole film is shot from behind the dash of a cop car. The perspective is something like [Rec], Cloverfield, Quarantine, or The Blair Witch Project, except it is still as still can be. I think they must have shot everything in one night as all they had to do was drive up and down the same dirt road. You know it is the same dirt road because you see the same shit house several times. What doesn't make sense is that on the front cover of the DVD is a cop car with a light on the driver's side window. In the movie, the light is on the roof of the car and on the passengers side.
The sound effects are all stock sounds or from a soundboard you could get for free on the internet. The music at times sounds something like the main theme from John Carpenter's, The Thing. Other times it is just the same old, and I mean old, music you've heard from deceased horror films.
This film is an attempt, although a poor one, at an evidential tape that goes against a U.S. government cover-up of this alien infection. Somehow, despite the disease spreading in Lawton, California, it is eventually stopped and called nothing more than the Bird Flu.
This film is anything but an A-grade movie. The filmmakers tried to throw in a bit of The Thing, a bit of Invasion of the Body Snatchers, a little bit of The Blair Witch Project, and a lot more from good movies. The film is boring, cheesy, pointless, and a waste of your valuable life.
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