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Alien Species (1996)


Cast:

Charles "From Hannibal Lector guard being skinned to this..." Napier is Sheriff Nate Culver
Hoke Howell is Professor Edgar Chambers
David Homb is Aaron Doyle
Jodi Seronick is Carol Nelson
Marc Robinson is Paul Towers


What the box says:

A fleet of UFOs is circling teh 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 alien's plans.


Plot:

Marvel at the mid-1990s computer generated effects of Earth while the narration reveals of the alien invasion of Earth in 1999.


Close Encounters of the 3rd Kind motherships are returning because Earth didn't broadcast enough kickin' jams into space...
Technicians watch satellite surveillance detect something entering the solar system heading towards Earth. They can't contact professor Chambers.

The motherships launch a number of flying saucers that start teleporting a number of people and animals.


Beam me up, Scotty....

Things wouldn't be any better when the suacers start blowing up farmers and farmhouses either.

A sheriff sends a couple of his deputioes off to transport some prisoners to either the county jail or prison before morning or night. Having to listen to the convicts on the trip isn't any more helpful when the deputies find a car wreck. Originally, they want to leave Professor Chambers, his granddaughter-Stacy, and assistant-Caroll. The sheriff agrees

The sheriff gets distracted when he sees flying saucers blast several cars outside his office.


At least, B.J. and the Bear had some quality to my guest starring episodes.

Hee orders his deputies to take the car wreck people with them to the nearest town.


HG Welles with a coloring book would have given more impressive special effects.

Flying saucers all over the world start attacking.

The transport manages to crash which mean everyone including the convicts have to be taken out. They head for shelter in the nearby cave. One of the deputies spots aliens leaving a saucer. They head deeper into the cave to avoid and shoot an alien. One of the prisoners breaks away and is grabbed by the aliens.

Elsewhere, the technicians see a mothership send numerous ships out blow up most of the city.

In the cave, the cowardly deputy freaks out and runs off from the group. Well, he must automatically be caught by the aliens for cowardice.

Deputy Tyler sees that things aren't looking too good. He unlocks Towers, the good convict who only killed someone in a drunken barfight. They head on but reach a dead end. Tyler is shotgunning aliens while Towers finds a small vent-like opening. The 3 civilians head on. The deputy is wounded and can't go any farther but wants Towers to get the civilians to safety.

The aliens grab Stacy and wound the proessor. Towers and Caroll are the last left. They discover the aliens have set up some kind of lab and Sttacy is close to human experimentation group.


Why you should never fall asleep in front of aliens with plenty of goo...

The lab has a number of pod people. Grabbing Stacy, they find that they're trapped in the lab behind some sort of force field. Towers finds a control and starts randomly working the controls until it deactivates the force field. Well, the 3 manage to escape the cave. Towers wields his explosive humor as he blows up the cave.

Stacy and Caroll knew about the alien invasion. If that's not strange enough, Max, one of the astronomy technicians drives up to take them away. They discuss that the aliens were capturing people for labor, food, etc... Reach the nearest town is hard enough when a flying saucer is chasing after them. They hide in a warehouse.

Max is trying to crack the alien code and Towers uses the control to turn off the force field of the nearby saucer. He uses the recently discovered rocket launcher to blast the saucer to Roswell. Other ships head back to the motherships.


Giant mothership that looks like the Visitors apwned some of their older ships..

Max, Towers, Stacy, and Caroll ponder how the aliens will be stopped by taking the data to the military or will the invasion be stopped? Cut to the movie just ending...


What I say:

These days, just wait for Saturday night and the Sci-Fiffffffffy original productions normally can attack you. However, in the mid-1990s, the direct-to-video movies were still at video stores. Children, there were days before Netflix and rental kiosks. Who else would think that a movie like Alien Species at least have the common decency to steal fom Species in that movies all Natasha Henstridge goodness?

When this movie's greatest star is Charles Napier, one can't expectbig-budget actors... Well, Napier may be best known as the sleazy CIA guy angering Rambo in Rambo 2: First Blood or the the guy, Hannibal Lector scalped in Silence of the Lambs. Remember the older actor who shows up as the head local law enforcement guy who doesn't understand the monster attacking the nearby area in all the truly lame sci-fi movies? That's the kind of guy Napier is here when the low budget action series don't have him as some crooked sheriff against the A-Team.

1990s sci-fi gave us things like Independence Day. With ID-4 coming out the same year as Alien Species, it does make one wonder which came first with both using the alien technology against the aliens to shut down their force fields. It may have been a good thing that this movie was more interested in releasing a movie the same year that seems quite a bit like Indepedence Day but without the Will Smith action-heroness...

1990s low budget movies using computer graphics aren't exactly known for their greatness or even the 1950s greatness of things like Earth Versus Flying Saucers. These alien motherships look like CG Close Encounters of the Third Kind ships that can only be said as more technical than Paint on Windows 3.1.

Alien invasion and trying to evade or stop them doesn't require much to go to it...Alien Species is trying to be some sort of kitchen sink story that throws every thing that can be thrown in to stick. Flying saucers beam up people and attack cities. Lets also throw in aliens that are experimenting on people for nefarious purposes. Cutting the jumping around from characters that don't matter would have made the story at least not disconnected. Characters are just the beings. Well, time jumps between the deputies leaving before dawn to deliver the prisoners that morning or to leaving late at night, too. If that's not enough, where are the prisoners going? Either to the prison or county jail.



2 NINJAS

Quotable Dialogue

"This is not a technical malfunction."
"That's what I get for hiring family."
"Little green men, Einstein!"
"Time for an attitude adjustment!"
"Time to beam back up kids."
"Why do I get the feeling we're not in Kansas anymore?"
"Why do I think I'm in a bad episode of the X-Files?"


Morals of the Story

Aliens love to probe cattle.
Aliens love to beam up cattle.
Aliens should have blinking LEDs in their chests.
Slapping someone immediately calms hysteria.
Rocket launchers are easy to find during extraterrestrial invasions.


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