Earlier I goofed up on my review when I said the first film I was reviewing was a found footage film what I meant to say was I was reviewing two found footage films today. Mistakes are made I know but I saw my error and got it back on track. Sorry for any confusion but there is a review for a normal movie coming either later today or sometime this weekend. Not entirely sure but it will eventually happen depending on my free time between now and then and whatever movie or tv show pops up.
Well the second movie I watched was this found footage film called "Alien Abduction" and yes its yet another directorial debut for another director. Matty Beckerman makes his first feature an easy one cause you can practically do whatever you want in a found footage film you want. You can use the scene's atmosphere for cheap scares or just added fear effect. Beckerman came up with the idea for this film while he was living in North Carolina and heard a local legend about how strange lights had been seen on a nearby mountain ridge and that people claimed to have been abducted while viewing them. He also referenced Alfred Hitchcock's famous movie "The Birds" in a scene for this movie. Already I was sold after reading that cause I am a fan of "The Birds" and had to see how he used this element in his film.
The film opens to Riley Morris an autistic 11-year old whose keeping a video journal of his families camping trip during their vacation to Brown Mountain, North Carolina. Now the beginning of the movie is normal but something did stand out for me during it. And it had nothing to do with scenery, characters or dialogue. No it struck me that a certain song was used during the beginning of the film and it was while the whole family was in the car and that song was Riskay's "Smell Yo Dick". Now I dunno why this struck a chord with me maybe its cause the scene called for a different song to be sang by the family but I'm at lost for words cause I wouldn't of picked that song to sing around an autistic child. Thats me everyone else can be different and have a different opinion about it but to me it seemed wrong and I felt bad for laughing at first but I just felt it wasn't a good choice in my opinion.
But back to the matter at hand Riley is awaken by flashing lights outside his tent during the night and then he manages to capture lights in the sky on camera after he gets his family to investigate them and that's when his mother confuses for stars and they take off in a weird way that makes them doubt they were stars and something different. Now the movie takes off the following morning when they are driving down the mountain en route to the highway that they begin to experience trouble with their gps system and then a bird slams into the car's windshield causing Riley's father to become pissed off and mad about what happened. Then they lose their cell phone signals and the most hated thing of all time the car is running out of GAS!!!!! This all leads to a tunnel where they see abandoned automobiles around it and inside it. The men and that includes Riley go to investigate the tunnel to see if there is anyway they can maneuver their car through it to get through the tunnel. Buts when they see a figure standing at the end of the tunnel that when they call out to it and another figure much closer pops out from behind a car and reveals their not humans but aliens.
Now the alien design is the norm so its not something original that you see in any other science fiction film. The big head, big black eyes and pale grey skin. So this kind of bummed me cause I was hoping for something a little more weird but got something I saw on Unsolved Mysteries. But the father is the first person who is abducted in the film and the brothers escape capture to make it back to their mother and sister to flee the scene even though the mother fights with her son to go back for the dad but lets face once old man was caught its safe to say he's gone time to run. Sorry dad but we have to survive. They make it down the road some ways before a wave of birds slam into their car ala "The Birds" reference!!!!! They also make it to a cabin that's home to a local redneck who at first nearly shoots one of them but takes them in once he realizes that they are being followed by aliens. He tells them that local stories are true about people disappearing or being abducted by aliens in or around Brown Mountain for centuries.
After a small fight with the aliens and they flee the cabin in hopes to finding better shelter their mother is captured and whoa was she mangled by their tractor beam the redneck followed suit in the same fashion. I was impressed with that imagery cause it clearly showed that our bodies are no more than brittle things when it comes to alien tech. The fear of being separated in the woods is felt through Riley's use of the camera cause your like oh god let this kid at least survive the night to get out of this ordeal. Especially when he's in the woods cause I don't think there's not one person in the world whose not leery of the woods at night. He finds his sister they make it through the night and find civilization at dawn and they make their way down to the mountain and find the highway and the other end of the tunnel and that's when cops show up and if you guessed it the movie ends on a sad note.
Now my only problem with the ending is how the footage made its way back to ground and was found not damaged. That's my only problem I don't want to spoil the ending cause I know some of the readers probably haven't seen this film and want to so I will leave it be there and say this film okay to say the least, its not bad. Like the other movie I watch that was found footage the both of them fall into the better pile as compared to the other pile that's filled with the same old crap that you've seen over and over again. You can find this film on your VOD service if your cable company carries it. So like tonight if theres nothing to do and its way to hot to go outside and do something then curl tight and grab some popcorn cause if your looking to kill an hour and a half then this is your movie.
reviewed by Bucky S.
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