Teenage Space Vampires/Darkness: The Teen Space Vampire Saga (1999)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Full Moon Entertainment/Moonbeam Entertainment

RUNTIME: 86 mins

FORMAT: Full Moon Streaming

PLOT: Bill, a dorky high school student and avid horror movie fan, witnesses a UFO flying over his town. When the ship lands the next day, Bill and a team from SETI discover that the alien is a strange vampire creature who wants to cast the Earth into darkness so that he and his people can colonize it for themselves.

REVIEW: I got anxious while waiting for Asylum's newest release, Mega Shark vs Mecha Shark, the third movie in the infamous Mega Shark series, to arrive in the mail so to help pass the time until then, I signed up for Full Moon Streaming - an online streaming service for the full catalog of Full Moon Entertainment movies, both old classics in addition to brand new stuff, and everything in between.

Now, I do plan to get back to my Puppet Master series rewatch here shortly, but I was really in the mood this evening for something I hadn't ever seen before, so I went to Full Moon's Moonbeam subsection (their side-company for 80's and 90's family friendly-aimed movies such as Prehysteria, Pet Shop, and the Josh Kirby: Time Warrior saga – none of which are actually up on the site yet, but were among my favorites of theirs while growing up) and came across a nifty-sounding little diddy that I had never even heard of before, the awesomely-titled Teenage Space Vampires, or the even cheesier (and obvious Twilight cash-grab) renaming it's been given in recent DVD re-releases, Darkness: The Teen Space Vampire Saga! I figured this would be the perfect kind of movie to watch for the first time and do a review on.

The first thing you have to realize, is that this is indeed a family-friendly 'horror' movie, so there's no swearing or gore of any kind, and there's no other kinds of questionable content in that regard, if you're a parent wondering if this movie is ok for your child to watch. With that said, there are indeed a few scenes that children might find a bit creepy or scary so you may want to watch it with them if they're sensitive to those kinds of things. For example, there's a scene that consist of the Turned football players and cheerleaders (among which are a couple of main characters) vamping out mid-game to cause a feeding frenzy and chow down on the other team and the spectators in the stands, or in one scene in particular that reminded me of The Lost Boys we have a group of teens around a campfire at night that get ambushed by a gang of the vampires. In addition to those, we also have a couple scenes that take place in dark underground mines that deal with a nest of vampires lurking in the shadows and led by the Master Vampire that looks far more monstrous than the rest of his minions, so as I said, if your child is sensitive to that kind of stuff, than maybe this isn't the movie for them after all, at least not without you watching it with them to remind them that it is just a movie.

However, in terms of the horror aspect, that's really all there is. Most of the vampire effects are extremely goofy-looking and made worse by the extremely-bad glowing CGI eyes and overly-large and overly-obvious fake rubber teeth. Honestly, everything from the special effects to some of the acting to the production values are all what you would expect from a mid-90s Direct-to-Video low budget children's movie. Actually, anybody that grew up with the Goosebumps TV show already knows what to expect from this in that regard as it pretty much plays out, complete with the all-around general cheesiness expected of such, of the average 22-minute Goosebumps episode, but spread out for feature-length.

 

Making the acting come across as even worse than it probably initially was, is some distractingly-bad ADR dubbing. It's not present in every scene, but the ones that it is, it really takes you out of the moment as it's delivered in such an incredibly dull and boring way, which is usually in complete contrast with how the character looks as they're saying it. That issue aside though, there is still some decent acting to be found, mostly via Robin Dunn (Species 3, The Skulls 2, Cruel Intentions 2) as the main character of the movie and the always-beautiful Lindy Booth (Wrong Turn, Dawn of the Dead remake, Kick Ass 2) as his older cheerleader sister. The one truly honest-to-god great actor though, that I actually always enjoyed when he was on-screen, was the mostly-unknown James Kee as the leader of the SETI team that comes out to investigate the mysterious going-ons in the town.

I suppose I should step back a bit and explain a little of the plot. The movie starts with a bang (literally) as Robin Dunn's character is woken up in the middle of the night by some mysterious explosion that also set off car alarms in the area and drives the dogs bonkers. Even though his character doesn't look or even really act like it during the movie, we're told he's a dweeb and dork that gets picked on a lot, which only intensifies when he comes across a spaceship in a neighbor's back property – a spaceship that is guarded by several stone gargoyles that seem to be alive (a totally pointless addition as they never even once do anything other than turn their heads to look around). Of course nobody believes him except his goofy best friend, and it isn't long until he starts noticing that his neighbors and classmates are all, one-by-one, starting to act strange and differently. That's when a research team from SETI arrives in town, having noticed the mysterious falling object and wanting to investigate it. They team up with Robin Dunn's character to get to the bottom of things and eventually discover that the town has been invaded and partly-taken over by vampires, which are actually an alien race. They're in this specific town to locate an ancient mystical amulet that when used in the proper ritual can harvest the energy from the sun and moon and plunge the entire Earth into a total never-ending darkness – a vampire's wet dream.

The plot of the movie actually isn't half-bad. At first it seemed a bit sloppily written, seeing as how we see plenty of vampires out during the day thus making the entire evil plan pointless, but they actually explain that away fairly well, as those are only vampire fledglings and aren’t yet full alien vampires, so they don't quite have all their strengths but also don't quite have all their weaknesses yet either. Where the movie kind of comes undone is the above-mentioned bad effects, terrible ADR dubbing, the unbelievability that the main character is a picked-on dweeb (seriously, the guy is taller and more buff than half the 'jocks' in the movie are) and just all around general cheap feel of everything (again, think a feature-length Goosebumps episode on the same budget of the average Goosebumps episode). Luckily the movie is saved a bit by decent to good acting from the core main characters (even if a lot of the dialog they have to work with is pretty terrible), a well-made monster suit for the Master Vampire, and a pretty fun overall plot. It also seems that director/writer Martin Wood has perfected his talents since his time doing this movie, seeing as how he has since gone on to be a main writer and director on such Canadian TV shows as Sanctuary, Andromeda, Primeval: New World, and the various Stargate shows.

Die-hard horror hounds and just adults in general may scoff at this one and roll their eyes during most of it, and I honestly can't blame them because there's not much in this one for that demographic, but for young boys and girls looking to dabble into some family-friendly horror, Teenage Space Vampires, aka Darkness: The Teen Space Vampire Saga is a pretty decent hour and a half, and it's low budget and cheesiness may also help lighten the mood for them a bit when it comes to the few darker, scarier scenes that some kids may find a little troubling.

5/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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It Came From Another World! (2007)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company: Saint Euphoria Pictures

Runtime: 93 mins

Format: DVD

Plot: When Professor Jackson's colleague and best friend, Dr. Frasier, doesn't return from a scientific expedition in the deep woods, the Professor is sent to find and retrieve him. While searching, the Professor and Canoe Cops Sven and Gustav stumble upon an enigmatic meteorite that may hold the answer to Dr. Frasier's disappearance — and something far more cataclysmic than they could ever imagine!

Review: I recently watched The Monster of Phantom Lake, the very first movie in the Mihmiverse – a series of micro-budget tongue-in-cheek movies made as parody homages to the classic 1950s era campy Drive-In B-Movies, where the creator Christopher R. Mihm makes a new one of every year. Even though each movie acts as kind of its own separate stand alone movie, there arerecurring characters that pop in and out of them occasionally, with small dialog references to previous movies once in a while, so it's because of that fact that I've decided to watch all of them in the order that they were released, although (from my understanding) that's not a Must and you are able to view them in any order you can manage to get your hands on them in. So the next movie up for me to watch and review in the Mihmiverse is It Came From Another World!

I already discussed at length in my review of The Monster of Phantom Lake just what kind of approach is taken with these movies and what kind of angle Christopher R. Mihm hopes to achieve, so if this is your first foray into that world then I suggest going and reading the first little bit of that review before reading this one, just to get a better understanding of what exactly these movies are trying to accomplish. This time, with It Came From Another World! we move away from the mutant lake monster genre of the first movie and right toward a more Global plight – alien invasion!

Rock And Roll-loving, pipe-smoking, Professor Jackson from The Monster of Phantom Lake returns here, searching for his friend and colleague, Dr. Frank Frasier, who has gone missing while investigating a crashed meteorite in the forest (the same forest as The Monster of Phantom Lake, I believe! Which being back in such a familiar location actually kind of had me longing for a sequel to that movie at some point down the road). Unfortunately his lovestruck student who he ended up in a romantic relationship with by the end of the previous movie is nowhere to be found here, and in her place we have another woman who Professor Jackson is actually set to marry, although it's implied that she's also a student of his so not sure why they didn't just go with the other character from the previous movie that we're already familiar with, since this one is essentially just a far less interesting carbon copy. Even if they couldn't get the actress back, they could have had a different person playing that character - after all, they have the same actors playing multiple characters from movie to movie, so having two actors playing the same character isn't that much of a stretch.

In addition to Professor Jackson, we also have the two hilarious and always-awesome cops return from the previous movie - ya know, the ones that prefer to paddle in a canoe to get around instead of using a squad car? With the excellent Abbott and Costello style chemistry with one another? That totally stole the show in the first movie despite only being in two scenes? Yeah, those fine fellas! Although no explanation is given as to how they survived their apparent deaths in the previous movie, especially since that one ended with the implication that one of them had mutated into a new algae monster, but hey – no complaints here! I love them so much, I'm just glad they're back! In this outing they team up with Professor Jackson to scour the remote woods for the missing Dr. Frasier and together they all end up finding the crashed meteorite as well as a strange-acting Dr. Frasier with some memory loss and, once back in the city and trying to readjust to normal life, occasional blackouts. It's not long after that, that they discover the truth – Dr. Fraiser has been taken over by an extraterrestrial entity that came to Earth in that meteorite and plans to first overtake Dr. Fraiser's body, and then the world! This of course means more screen time for the Canoe Cops then they had in the first movie, which is always a great thing in my books! The more of these two, the better! There's also a hilarious cameo by the surviving nerdy loner teen of the first movie, during one of the scenes of Dr. Fraiser's alien entity-induced blackouts.

While the first movie was already a pretty damn good parody of the campy 1950s Drive-In B-Movies, this one does so even more successfully, right from the in-your-face eye-catchy title all the way to some of the hilarious scenes that could have easily been lifted from any straight-faced movie of that era but done to comedic perfection here, such as when Dr. Frasier is writing in his journal when he witnesses the meteorite crash and insists on writing about it excitably before actually getting up to go investigate, or Professor Jackson's basement laboratory that I'm sure would have looked high-tech for the time but was purposely made to look cheap and bad here, complete with all the dials, nodes, cardboard, tinfoil, and antennas you would expect. Oh, and of course the deep-voiced, Joker-smiling, eye-bulging evil alter ego of Dr. Frasier when the alien entity is in command of his body – you seriously can't get any campier then that, even if you tried! Well, except for maybe the final climatic fight between Professor Jackson, with the help of the Canoe Cops, and Alien Warlord Dr. Fraiser, complete with some awesomely-placed famous Star Trek dialog at the end.

I also felt this movie improved on the first in the area of its runtime. Sure, it's still a tad bit too long for its own good (only a couple minutes shorter then the first and still longer then the average Drive-In B-Movie of the era), but unlike The Monster of Phantom Lake where the algae monster didn't even show up until an hour into it, with very little before that having anything to even do with it, this movie uses each and every scene to intelligently keep moving the main plot forward so there wasn't really any place for unneeded filler scenes that would just drag the movie down, and thus even though the movie is only a couple minutes shorter then the first, it feels like it goes by at a much quicker pace.

Where this movie didn't improve though, is with the character of Doctor Jackson himself and his very grating purposely-bad William Shatner impersonation. I get it was meant to be part of the joke, especially with his jerking head movements factored in, but it only came across as annoying and I was pretty much done with it before the first scene of him was over. Now, it was present in the first movie as well, but it wasn't done nearly to the level that it is here, making what was bearable and even kind of funny when done in moderation there, just annoying and headache-induing when cranked to the max this go-around. Also missing was his hilarious awkward chemistry with his female companion. As mentioned above, the presence of the main female character from Monster of Phantom Lake was greatly missed here, and having her replacement character just be bland and boring only added to the effect of her absence.

As mentioned in my review of the first movie, these self-produced DVD discs are stacked right up with tons of excellent bonus content, which is quite surprising seeing as how these are not only micro-budget, largely fan-funded titles, but the overall price for each DVD is so cheap that it blows my mind we get so much with them! This go-around we have the usual introduction to the film by Horror Host Dr. Ivan Cryptosis (which I personally could do without, but I know there are lots of people out there that love that sort of thing), two Blooper Reels (one of which is just about 15 minutes long and the other, while shorter, deals strictly with just all the issues they had with the props for the bulging eyeballs), two Deleted Scenes, a Photo Gallery of tons of Behind-the-Scenes photos, and of course the full length Audio Commentary by Christopher R. Mihm and lead actor Josh Craig. You certainly get a good amount of bang for your buck with this, although it would have also been nice to have the actor who played Dr. Fraiser on the commentary as well, only because he did such a phenomenal job in this movie with playing duel characters, it would have been great to have some of his input as well. That's of course in noway a detractor to the set though, just a personal wish is all.

There are a few personal quirks in this entry that annoyed me greatly, but the amount that it does right vastly outnumbers those, and it even manages to improve over the first movie in a couple key areas, making this the...logical...next step of evolution for the Mihmiverse movies. If they continue this trend, then the next movie, Cave Women of Mars, should totally blow me away and get a perfect score. Add to that even slightly more bonus features then The Monster of Phantom Lake had, and it's a pretty safe assumption to make that It Came From Another World! was a nice step up for me from the already-good package that was the first movie.

Seeing as how 99% of the advertising for this guy and his movies come from simple word of mouth from the fans, then be sure to get the word out there on these movies and hopefully we can snag in a few other fans that may not even realize these exist. You can order these on DVD (and even BluRay for the latest couple!) over at his official site which is filled with all sorts of other goodies as well (including a monthly newsletter in addition to a very laid back, yet informative, podcast). Hell, there's even an excellent deal on right now – Buy Three Movies, Get One Free, which seeing as how there's currently eight of these titles, if you do that twice then that is the perfect way to catch up with all of them and in the end save some dough – that's how I did it! 

8/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

 

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V/H/S (2012)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company:  The Collective

Runtime: 116 mins

Format: BluRay

Plot: When a group of misfits is hired by an unknown third party to burglarize a desolate house and acquire a rare VHS tape, they discover more found footage than they bargained for.

Review: V/H/S is a horror anthology movie made up of 5 short stories and a bookend wrap-around story, all of which was made in the found footage style of film making. Like with all anthology movies, some entries were great while others...well, not so much. I'll start first with the main wrap-around story. It involves a group of trouble-making hooligans that video tape their crimes and potential attempted rapes and all that, and they get hired by a mystery man to break into this old guy's house and steal a VHS tape. While in there they come across a room filled with VHS tapes and start checking them out, which leads to the various short stories this movie is made of. I really hated this wrap-around story, especially since it led to nothing at all and even finished mid-way through the movie, before the movie was even over and while more of the short stories were still to come. There was nothing scary here, and there was no build-up to anything good, just a quick flash of something before the camera shut off and that was it. Out of all the characters in all the stories of this movie, these were the most hateable and the ones you wanted to see get their come-uppance the most, which is why it's even more frustrating that you don't ever see anything all that bad happen to them, and most (if not all) get killed off-screen.

The first two of the actual short stories were great though. The first deals with a group of party-loving college friends that are having a night on the town and trying to get laid, but one of the girls they pick up and bring back to a hotel room isn't exactly what she appears to be. This one was creepy as hell and is easily my favorite of the bunch. Even the questionable CGI moments didn't bother me at all and if anything, added to the creepy factor more often then not.

The second story was classic Ti West movie, but in 20 minutes as opposed to full-length. Ti West is a controversial horror director, where I find people either love him or hate him and there isn't much middle ground. Personally, I love him. In this entry, a honeymooning couple is traveling across the U.S., but an unknown stalker is following them across the country and keeps recording them with their own camera, from inside their hotel rooms while they sleep at night. As is usual with his fare, this entry has a bit of a slow build and not a whole lot really happens until the very end, but it still remains creepy as hell and tension-filled through and through, and it uses that slow build, as Ti West often does, to make you A, care for the characters and B, slowly build the tension to a boiling point that comes to a head at the very end. My only complaint with this one is that the ending was really predictable, as I called it almost right away, however that doesn't make it any less shocking when it hits.

The third story is about a group of four college friends that head up to the family cabin that one of them owns, but their vacation is cut short by a vicious killer made entirely out of static, and seemingly only visible through a camera. No way around it, this entry was total lameballs. Not even remotely scary, just stupid. Not even on the same playing field as the first two stories. The first two felt like they could have easily been theatrical movies if made longer, while this one just comes across like a micro-budget student project, and a bad one at that. This one is the worst that this anthology has to offer, though also luckily the shortest. I can't recommend enough to just skip this one all together.

The fourth story deals with a girl webchatting with her doctor boyfriend, whom she's in a long distance relationship with, as weird paranormal activity seems to be escalating in her new apartment. Over all this entry was a nice step up from the previous one, and was actually pretty intense for the majority of its runtime, and it was kind of a better attempt at a Paranormal Activity movie then a couple of those sequels had been. Unfortunately it all comes completely apart in the final few minutes, once the big shocking twist is revealed, and that made this entry take a very quick nosedive for me, and just ended up leaving me more confused then scared. Also, when you stop to think about it, you can't help but wonder exactly how these webchats are being recorded? Especially when the fact that they're not being recorded is a plot point mentioned several times? While I liked this entry more then the previous one and more then the initial wrap-around story, it's still a far cry from the awesome first two stories, although the potential was totally there had it not been for that dreadful twist ending that just ruined the entire thing.

Luckily the final story is back to being pretty good, however it still doesn't quite reach greatness. It follows a couple of friends as they arrive at a Halloween party they had been invited to, only to find the mansion empty...that is until they find a cult in the attic doing very unspeakable things. This story's biggest fault, to me, is that its too short. Out of all the entries of this anthology, this is the one that could benefit the most from being extended into a full-length movie as I felt not nearly enough time was given for the subject matter, so its just a huge rush job on an otherwise really interesting story. You're not given time to get to know the characters, and thus you don't feel anything for them, and it starts throwing all these good ideas at you such as devil cults, possessed people, and a haunted house that seems to be alive with walls that morph over windows, doors that shrink or disappear entirely, and other creepy as hell things. But you only get to spend a few seconds on any given topic because they have to cram so much into such a short runtime, and you never really get the chance to enjoy any of it because it's instantly moved onto the next wild and crazy thing. With a longer runtime and more room to flesh everything out, this entry could end up being a really creepy and fun horror movie. As it stands as just one more short story in an anthology, it remains not as good as the first two stories, but certainly better then everything else in the movie.

Overall, there's some great stuff in V/H/S, but also some huge crap in there as well, just like with most anthology movies. Luckily, due to the wide range of quality, there's more then likely at least something in there for everyone.

5/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

 

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AE: Apocalypse Earth (2013)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

Company:  The Asylum

Runtime: 87 mins

Format: BluRay

Plot: In the future, a group of refugees flee from a dying Earth only to crash on an exotic planet where they must fight ruthless aliens to survive.

Review: Earlier this month I watched and reviewed Asylum's other most recent flick, Age of Dinosaurs and thought it totally raised the bar as far as expectations go on all future Asylum movies, because it was so incredibly good that now that I know they're capable of such a high caliber of entertainment, that anything less then such caliber will simply no longer do. Shortly after I was able to watch and review an early copy of an upcoming Asylum movie, 100 Degrees Below Zero and thought, for lack of subtlety, that it was pretty much utter crap and a gigantic step back in the wrong direction from Age of Dinosaurs. While the trailer for this one had me excited and expecting something more along the lines of Age of Dinosaurs in terms of how I think of it, knowing that 100 Below Zero fell way below what I was expecting had me kind of worried for this one. However in the end, it landed somewhere between the two.

AE: Apocalypse Earth arrives just in time to cash in, as Asylum always so expertly does, on a recent upcoming Hollywood Blockbuster, the Will/Jayden Smith-starrer, After Earth, though how similar to each other the two end products will end up being still remains to be seen. This movie starts right off in the thick of action, as Earth's population is being evacuated by the military into giant transport ships while the planet is being attacked and destroyed by invading alien forces. We don't really get a whole lot of backstory on this part, like no info is given at all on these aliens or why they're invading or anything like that, but I'm fine with that as this part of the movie isn't really that important anyway and it's just an excuse to get our main characters into space and crashing on the unknown jungle planet that the bulk of the movie takes place on. It's here that shortly after crashing, the survivors get ambushed and attacked by unseen cloaked foes that are relentless in their pursuit. It isn't long before our cast of characters team up with and receive help from a green-skinned humanoid Native alien girl as she helps lead them on an expedition to a downed spaceship that just might be in working order and could get them off the planet. Of course the journey is not an easy one, as there are other dangers along the way other then the pursuing cloaked figures, such as the many dangerous man-eating species' of wild life that live on the planet as well.

Along for the adventure is Richard Grieco playing the main boss company man in charge of this particular transport of people, and many will know him from the original 21 Jump Street TV show, Veronica Mars, or a recurring voice on Gargoyles, although fellow B-Movie philes such as myself will probably know him best as Loki from another Asylum movie, Almighty Thor, and as pretty much the only strong aspect of that movie. Just like in that one, he's excellent here as well and continues to be an entertaining actor to watch in these movies, although it is a bit disappointing that he spends about half an hour of the movie unconscious. Joining him is Adrian Paul from the Highlander TV series and latest two movies, though some may also recognize him from the Killer Yeti SyFy Channel movie from earlier this year, Deadly Descent, aka Abominable Snowman. It's actually kind of fitting (albeit it totally coincidental) that I'm posting a review for AE: Apocalypse Earth today, seeing as how it's actually Adrian Paul's birthday today, so Happy Birthday, dude! Here he plays the leading military man who butts heads initially with Richard Grieco, although they eventually learn to accept one another. Unfortunately, his character in this movie doesn't really have a whole lot of personality or really any charisma, which is never a good thing for a lead character to lack, but in terms of his acting he did fine what what little he was given. The girl playing the green-skinned alien chick that falls in love with Adrian Paul was actually better then you would expect, considering this is the very first movie for that actress and she came across very competently in the role. I also felt the love story subtplot was not nearly as forced I was initially expecting it would be, although I have no idea what she sees in him since he's very emotionless and bland. In the trailers, I was actually thinking this part of the movie would be a pretty big riff on James Cameron's Avatar, but seeing it in execution I can say that it really doesn't resemble that at all. The rest of the cast are also mostly unknowns, and are about as good as you would expect in a movie like this – not really all that good, but serviceable enough. The Android character provided a few good chuckles though, and was often the comedic relief, and most of his comedic bits were Hits more often then they were Misses so he was normally a joy to watch, especially during a scene where he had to act as bait to lure a giant killer lizard away from the rest of the group.

And speaking of a giant killer lizard and other such things, the CGI in this movie was a mixed bag. The giant killer lizard and most of the shots of spaceships were good, but some other parts such as a scene with giant insects, any time that laser blasts are shown, and the evil invisible aliens, the CGI didn't really look impressive at all. Luckily though, it was better more often then it was bad, however even when it was good it wasn't as good as I've come to expect from some of Asylum's more recent movies so in that regard it was a slight step backwards – but only slight, mind you. 

With that said, the biggest fault of the movie is making the main villains invisible. Sure, we see a few bad-CGI shots of them as they dart around here and there, but they are, essentially, completely invisible. It was my biggest complaint of one of Asylum's movies from last summer, Alien Origin, and it's again my biggest complaint here – it doesn't give us anything to invest ourselves in during the action scenes and, quite frankly, it's just not fun to watch people fight invisible bad guys. I realize it's a cost-saving measure but really, it's just a slap in the face to those of us who have to watch the movie because there's just nothing to watch when what we're supposed to be watching is something that's invisible! It makes you want to just skip ahead to the next scene because you get bored very easily when all the action is invisible.

AE: Apocalypse Earth may not be groundbreaking or quite as good as some of Asylum's other recent stuff, but it's not a bad effort either; Despite a few flaws, it was enjoyable enough for its short runtime and was a decent little sci-fi adventure flick filled with some fun scenes of danger, a few good story beats (including a twist ending that's easy to spot coming from as early as the opening minutes, but that doesn't stop it from being any less fun of a twist), and a bit of good acting, however in the grand scheme of things it's pretty forgettable overall. I'm writing this review the day after having watched the movie and even now it was a bit of a chore trying to remember enough stuff about the movie to pump out a review. Not to say that it's a terrible movie, just that there's nothing that's really stand-out or memorable about it either. Add to that, the overly-annoying fact that the bad aliens are all invisible and they ask that we use our imaginations to picture them, when they play such an integral part to the movie, really brings it down a bit for me as well.

In the end, it was a decent effort that fell a bit short of its mark, but it's still a fine enough one-time viewing time-waster for fellow B-Movie fans that enjoy the work that Asylum puts out for us. Just don't expect it to stick with you for long after you've finished watching it.

5/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Nazis at the Center of the Earth (2012)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: The Asylum

RUNTIME: 90 mins

FORMAT: Netflix

PLOT: A group of researchers in Antarctica are abducted by a platoon of masked soldiers and dragged to a hidden continent in the center of the Earth. There, they discover that surviving Nazi soldiers are plotting an invasion of Earth to revive the Third Reich.

REVIEW: I honestly wasn't originally planning on doing a review for Nazis at the Center of the Earth, simply because I can't review every B-Movie I watch, I just watch way too many of them, and where I recently put out two reviews, one for Grimm's Snow White and one for Gingerdead Man 3: Saturday Night Cleaver, with another one for Camel Spiders being prepped for the near-future, I was planning on just sitting back and enjoying Nazis at the Center of the Earth without having to worry about taking notes and doing up a review after. But by the time the credits started rolling I knew I just had to do a review of this one to help get the word out to fellow B-Movie lovers about just how good I found Asylum's latest offering to be.

Our main characters are all scientists at a remote facility in Antarctica, where they happen upon an entrance that leads down through the ice to another 'world' at the center of the earth, in which remnants of Nazi Germany are residing, led by the real-life Nazi war criminal made famous by his horrifying human experimentation, Dr. Josef Mengele, as they seek immortality by abducting people and using their flesh and body organs to replace their own when theirs expire.

To start, this movie already had me pretty much won over by mentioning and touching upon some of my more favorite conspiracy theories (yes, admittedly I'm a conspiracy theory nut), such as Nazis having top secret underground bases in Antarctica where they currently may still reside in secret to this day, Nazis working on UFO and futuristic technologies at said secret bases, that Hitler actually survived WWII, and that there was a secret battle between the U.S. Air Force and a UFO in the skies over Antarctica a few years back. Do I honestly believe these conspiracy theories? Well no, of course not (Though I am willing to be open to the idea of Hitler having survived WWII), but they're fun to think about and still among my favorites regardless, and it was great to see them all utilized here in one form or another. It's the attention to these little details that sometimes go a long way with me, and Asylum is normally pretty good at including those little details in their projects.

The acting from most everyone was surprisingly good. Yes, there were a few of the more minor characters who were about as good as to be expected from an Asylum movie (which is to say not very), but all the main cast, especially the lead scientist with questionable methods, as played by Starship Troopers' Jake Busey, were in top form, with their true acting chops coming out when they had to play their characters as being terrified; when these characters were screaming or being horrified, you believe them, and you feel the fear right along with them. Another shout-out has to go to actor Christopher Karl Johnson (Angels & Demons, Anneliese: The Exorcist Tapes) who played the evil Dr. Josef Mengel to perfection. Every time he was on-screen, there was great tension as you just knew he was in the scene for a reason, and normally those reasons don't bode well for our captured good guys.

Which brings me to what I believe is the strongest aspects of this movie, and it's kind of a broad topic but it all interconnects. Nazis at the Center of the Earth is nothing if not atmospheric and genuinely creepy. Nazis alone is enough to make the movie a bit creepy, but this movie goes above and beyond what it has to, to paint them as a real genuine threat to the characters. Not once did I think 'well sure, they're the villains because the movie says they are, but they're so cartoony and laughable that I just don't see them as a threat'. Instead, I was on the edge of my seat whenever they were on-screen, knuckles white from clenching them in fear and ready to jump a mile high at the slightest unexpected noise in my darkened apartment. I'm not going to go into the details of individual scenes regarding them and some of the things they do, because to be spoiled on them would remove much of the tension, but what I will say is that this movie is certainly not for the feint of heart. There is plenty of blood, gore, disturbing imagery, and uncomfortable scenes that made me extremely anxious - there are quite a few scenes that even I found difficult to watch that made me squirm in my seat uncomfortably. Of course, it takes more then just horrifying subject matter to accomplish that. Sure, that's a large part of it but it could easily come across as hokey and eye-rollingly lame without excellent make-up and practical effects. From the look of the skinless and zombie-esqe Nazis to the various experimentation and operations done on the captured scientists, it all looked amazing and never once did it seem terribly fake or obvious (A first for Asylum, I believe).

But for those that are squeamish or easily creeped out, you'll be able to relax after a bit as the movie takes a surprising and sudden 180 degree turn midway through from being deadly atmospheric and disturbing to a full-on campy cheesefest filled with hilarious one-liners. How can a movie where zombie Nazis that rip people's skin off and group-rape women in a dimly-lit underground base turn into a hilarious cheesefest, you ask? Two words:

Robo-Hitler.

Yes, if you just saw the words 'Robo-Hitler' then you did indeed just read that correctly. In a sudden twist that I can honestly say I did not see coming, Hitler is revived as a giant CGI cyborg with a wide range of arsenal that includes a long-ass blade, machine gun arms, and green energy blasts that shoot from his chest. I am being 100% serious right now when I tell you that I shit you not on this.

And I loved it.

So so much. Only Asylum can turn such a genuinely disturbing and nightmare-inducing torture-porn movie into a laugh riot camp-ground and actually have it work. Adding to the amazingness that is Robo-Hitler is the fact that he also commands a gigantic Nazi UFO Doomsday Machine that breaks up through the ground of the Earth and rests in the skies above Antarctica, heading out to declare war on the rest of the world by pre-empting a biological attack by way of releasing flesh-eating bacteria above the major cities. This of course leads into the previously-mentioned battle between the U.S. Air Force and a UFO over Antarctica, but as to be expected, the fighter jets are no match for this Doomsday Machine and it's up to our escaped heroes to take it down from the inside. This part of the movie actually felt very similar, visually, to another Asylum movie titled Battle of Los Angeles, and upon doing some research discovered that the director of this, Joseph J. Lawson, had been the visual effects supervisor on that one, which would explain the similar visual style from the reveal of the Nazi UFO onwards.

I know this kind of movie isn't everyone's cup of tea, even among B-Movie fans, but I have to say that I personally really loved Nazis at the Center of the Earth. To me, it's near-perfect. There's really only two very minor stumbling blocks, the first of which is the fact that despite being out in the cold in the middle of Antarctica, there's no visible breath coming from any of the characters, not even crappy fake CGI breath and that kind of takes the viewer out of the movie for those scenes (though there is a scene where two of the characters end up outside in just their regular everyday clothes and they rush to grab warm jackets and gloves to put on, so props to the director for that little bit). The other minor detractor is that, putting Robo-Hitler and his UFO Doomsday Machine aside, most of the twists and character motivations in this movie are very predictable and easy to guess pretty early-on, leaving very little to be surprised by during the movie. But as I said, these are only minor issues that are easy to overlook when up against all the other excellent things in this movie.

Production value-wise, this is probably one of Asylum's best and most professional movies to date. Entertainment wise, while it may not be the best (Seriously, 2-Headed Shark Attack, Mega Shark vs Crocosaurus, and Mega Python vs Gatoroid has that market pretty much covered), it's still really, really good and far better then I was expecting.

Also, be sure to stay through the End Credits for a short little stinger scene at the very end.

10/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Battle of Los Angeles (2011)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: The Asylum

RUNTIME: 91 mins

FORMAT: Netflix

PLOT: Without warning an alien fleet invades Earth and starts destroying Los Angeles, and it's up to a ragtag group of soldiers to survive the onslaught and find a way to save the day.

REVIEW: A word of warning before I go into this review: This is not a review for the big-budget Hollywood summer blockbuster Battle: Los Angeles. This is a review of the low budget mockbuster knock-off Battle of Los Angeles, made by The Asylum.

Asylum, as much as I love them, tends to turn out movies faster then I can keep up with. I nab them on DVD or BluRay as quickly as I can, but then they sit on my shelf for months while I try to make time to actually watch them. Battle of Los Angeles aired on SyFy before it hit DVD, but since I live in Canada I wasn't able to catch it on TV (we don't have access to SyFy here) and have been putting off buying the DVD because Asylum has confirmed that it will be hitting BluRay (though it's been delayed). Then I was browsing the new arrivals of Netflix Canada's Instant Watch and noticed it was available there – and in HD! So I canceled my plans for the evening and loaded the movie up to finally watch (truth be told said plans involved simply cleaning my apartment and going for a bath, so it's not like I had anything better to do).

To be 100% completely honest, I was totally enthralled from the opening seconds, right to the end; the phrase 'Action-Packed' has never been properly attributed to a movie better than it is with this one. The movie opens on the mothership already hovering over Los Angeles with a squad of fighter jets heading towards it. Within 60 seconds, the action starts and it literally does not let up until the credits start rolling some 90-odd minutes later. If nothing else, this movie really captured the hecticness of war, never giving the characters a proper chance to just stop and catch their breaths, and never giving us, the viewer, a chance to even blink. From fighter jets attacking the mothership, to alien fighter ships attacking the jets and the city in general, to soldiers doing battle against stationary alien projectile turrets on the ground, to killer robots, to one-eyed hot samurai women taking out alien fighter ships with her katana sword, this movie throws everything and the kitchen sink at us, and oddly enough – it all works. The only problem I really have with the script is at the very end when our heroes bring down the mothership and make it crash, it crashes right into the middle of Los Angeles, sending up giant explosions everywhere. It did (what looked like anyway) more damage to the city then the aliens themselves did during the actual invasion. But that's just one minor problem at the very end, and it's more of a visual issue then one on the script-level.

On top of turning out a mostly well-written script, the scriptwriter also knew his shit. Not only did he seem well-versed on the original Battle of Los Angeles event from the 1940's, but he also seemed to be educated quite thoroughly on alien mythology in general, incorporating MJ-12 lore into it, which I feel not enough alien/UFO movies do. Upon researching, I found out that Mark Atkins (both the scriptwriter and director of this movie) actually had made a short film in his filmschool days, on this very topic, so it doesn't surprise me too much that he did such a good job here.

Of course more works here then just the script. There have been a few Asylum movies that have had great scripts, but still failed over all. It takes a combination of many successful aspects and something else that stood out to me while watching are the effects. Yes, ok, they suck...for a normal movie. But this isn't a normal movie – this is a low budget movie made by a low budget company and thus, the effects need to be judged on those merits and going by those merits, the effects rocked. They are easily the best effects I've seen to date from The Asylum, and leaps and bounds better then the effects from any other SyFy Original Movie of the Week. Both the extensive CGI work on the spaceships and Alien Lord creature, as well as the practical effects work for the captive alien - it all looked good. If this is the direction that Asylum is going for their effects work in future releases, I say bring it on. They've certainly improved from their early days. The only downside, and it's just a minor quibble, is that there were a few times we saw the exact same effect shot re-used over and over and it was just a tad distracting, but that's understandable considering the small size of the budget and how good everything looked.

To accompany the awesome script and better-then-expected effects are well-written characters and the stand-out performances of them. The movie is filled with all sorts of characters, but I'll only directly mention the very main ones because really – even the minor characters were written-well and performed perfectly by the actors portraying them. First up we have Kel from Keenan and Kel playing the timid unsure-of-himself army private that has to take charge and lead the fight against the aliens. Honestly, I wasn't too sure of him at first, being the weakest actor in the movie and not being very convincing playing the timid role. But once he started having to take charge, I liked him a lot more and felt he fit that kind of role much better, and by the end I was totally behind him, especially once he started piloting the captured alien attack ship and took the fight to the alien mothership, Independance Day-style. Alongside him is one badass eyepatch-wearing sword-wielding hot chick in a tight jumpsuit, who kicks ass and takes names. Not only can she bring down alien attack ships with nothing more then her skill with a katana sword, but she can order people around and spew lines with the best of them. Easily the best actor in the movie and totally stole the show almost every time she was on screen. Also, there's a tough-as-nails Michelle Rodriquez-wannabe fighter pilot that ends up crossing paths with Kel and his squad of soldiers and joins them once her jet gets grounded. That is one woman you do not want to piss off, and if trying to channel Michelle Rodriquez is what her goal was, she met it perfectly. Other then them, there are a few random other military characters but none really worth mentioning, as well as a couple Government scientists once they reach the secret underground facility. But unlike most Asylum movies, even the small roles for the minor side characters were played by mostly-capable actors that did surprisingly well with the roles. A highlight of them is an old army Sargent that barks orders alongside insults and threats and is so bad ass, he brings down an alien attack ship with just his pistol, then hijacks the weapons off that to shoot down another ship.

The set designs are also really well-created. We have the streets of a ruined city, a desert outpost, a dimly-lit secret underground government facility where they're keeping a kidnapped alien, and the corridors and inner-workings of the alien mothership – it all looked really well-done and believable. You can tell Asylum pumped a larger budget into this one then normal, and not a penny went to waste.

When all was said and done, I had had so much fun watching this little gem and despite being a low budget direct-to-video cheap knock-off, I actually enjoyed it way more then the bigger-budgeted version Battle: Los Angeles. Battle of Los Angeles never once took itself too seriously, and the creators knew what it was while making it and don't try to deliver on anything it's not. The acting, the effects, the script...it all adds various levels of cheese that makes watching this movie, and other mockbusters like it, so much fun to watch while chugging back on a few beers some weekend evening, which is more then what can be said for the crappy Hollywood version.

This is, without a doubt, Asylum's best production to date.

10/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Decoys 2: The Second Seduction (2007)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

  
COMPANY: Decoys Production

RUNTIME: 94 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: The sexy alien invasion force returns to Earth to carry out the same plan as in the first movie, but this time at a different university, located in a different city, and with an updated plan of attack.

REVIEW: Shortly after posting my review of the first Decoys movie, it was brought to my attention that there actually is a sequel to Decoys out there, so I scrambled to get my hands on a copy. As soon as I did, I popped it in, anxious to view the next chapter in this awesomely-campy Canadian sci-fi/comedy series.

Despite the basic plot sounding like a carbon copy repeat of the first movie – it's really not. This one manages to take the same plot, but do completely different stuff with it, which both worked and didn't work, depending on the part of the movie.

With this taking place at a different school in a different part of Canada, we're introduced to a whole new cast of characters for this movie. We've got the main lead and his dorky best female friend who's pretty much just a copy of the same kind of character from the first movie down to a T – she even has feelings for the main character but he doesn't realize it himself. There's also a trio of his friends who are gamer nerds, with one or two being jock-types. They all start a kind of secret tournament to see which one of the group can rack up 'the most points' by how many girls they can sleep with, leading up a big annual End of Semester campus party. There's not much more to really say about any of these characters as they're all pretty bland and forgettable. One of the things I mentioned in my review of the first movie is that in many movies like this, despite saying and showing us that these people are best friends, they do a piss poor job of actually portraying it. This would be one such movie, as I didn't believe for a second that any of this group would possibly be friends with each other. They all have zero chemistry together. Although I was happy to see that more of them join the main character this time around in his fight against the aliens, as opposed to the first movie where that guy was mostly going solo in his attack the entire time.

Other then the lead teens, I was quite surprised that a couple of the new, more-aged characters, were actually played by some pretty well-established actors. We've got Dina Meyer  (Starship Troopers. Saw series) as a psychiatrist and Tobin Bell (Boogyman 2, Saw series) as the University's science professor, although it's quite hard to get past his role of Jigsaw from the Saw movies every time he speaks. While neither have any large amount of screen time, they do get a decent amount and have some interesting things to do. Certainly more interesting then the two cops from the first movie, that's for sure. Also surprisingly, and very-much welcomed, are two actors from the first movie back to reprise their roles. There's Kim Poirier back as the leading sexy alien babe (she was the one sexy alien babe interested in the lead character's best friend in the first movie), however in this one she doesn't play exactly the same character. If you remember, she died in the first movie so this time it's simply a new, much more vicious, alien just using the same human skin design as a way to screw with someone's head. This time around, instead of being one of the little worker bees out trying to get laid by someone in the student body of the university, she instead works undercover as a newly-transferred doctor/psychiatrist at the hospital that makes visits to the school to keep an eye on everything, and is seemingly in-charge of this nest of sexy alien babes. The Mother of them, if you will. And while she doesn't have a whole lot to do during the movie beyond spy on one of the characters from a distance and do various things to screw with his mind, she does end up being the 'final boss' of the movie, so to speak, and was quite enjoyable in that fashion.

Accompanying her is also Corey Sevier back as an older, slightly more-crazy Luke, the lead character from the first movie. If you remember in my review of that movie, I said I was hoping he and his tomboy female friend would return for any future sequels, and I got half of that wish come true. He's far less dorky this time around and much more composed and intense, showing some decent character growth from the first movie, and while he plays a bit smaller of a role this time (more of a supporting character then a main one), I'm fine with it due to the way he plays it. He has the scattered appearance throughout the first part of the movie as Tobin Bell's teacher assistant, a scene or two with his shrink (played by Dina Meyer) since he's currently plagued by many sleepless nights and daytime nightmares due to the events of the first movie and due to Kim Poirier's new character messing with his head unbeknowest to him, and then a scene or two of him suspecting that something isn't right around campus and looking into it. He doesn't really get a chance to truly shine until about half an hour from the end when he comes across Kim Poirier's character face-to-face in the flesh and realizes that he was right about the alien invasion, and that he's not crazy. He then saves the current cast of main characters from a raging alien attack like the complete bad ass he's become between movies, then proceeds to drop some knowledge on them about the invading aliens and trains them in awesome sexy alien babe-dispatching methods. The only disappointing thing about his return is that the female character from the first movie that ended up with him at the end of that one is nowhere to be found, and her absence is never addressed, which is unusual given what happened at the end of the first movie. The scene itself is addressed, but not what happened to her, or where she is now.

And of course I have to mention the sexy blond alien babes once again. Everything established about their species in the first movie is carried over here and also further-expanded upon. So often when a series is handed over to someone new, they tend to either change or outright ignore certain rules, so it's nice to see that these people pay respect to what has already been established. Of course we have plenty of nude and barely-clothed scenes with them in it – possibly even more then the first movie had, but we also get the nice addition of them wearing certain, um, fantasy clothing in some scenes, thanks to a new power of theirs that wasn't on-display on the first movie. Also, where the first movie portrayed the aliens in almost a victim kind of way and made you really care for them and kind of understand why they're doing what they're doing, this time around the aliens are portrayed as vicious evil bitches that must be stopped at all costs. The change is a bit jarring at first but after thinking about it, I'm perfectly fine with it. Like I said above, this movie takes the same plot as the first, but does it's own stuff with it to make it enough of a separate entity to be worth your time, and this is just one of the things it does to make itself different. Plus it creates more situations were we get better, and longer, looks at the aliens in their true alien forms – and they look simply bad ass. Props off to the creature designer of this movie, because he did an excellent job with the special effects for the aliens, even making two or three different designs, depending on the character. In the first movie you only ever got a few very quick glances at the creatures, and when you did you could tell they just used the exact same CGI model for every single one, but in this one we get some good practical man-in-suit shots, and a couple different designs at that. And lastly, where the nest of them failed in the first movie by bringing too much attention to themselves due to leaving the dead bodies everywhere, the nest in this one is much more smart and they make sure to get rid of the dead bodies themselves, leaving no evidence around to cause suspicion of their activities, which actually becomes a plot point when Luke from the first movie starts suspecting something isn't right and tries looking into it and warn people about it.

While the acting isn't anything to write home about, it must be noted that it is improved from the first movie, even by the returning actors. Of course, by having veterans such as Dina Meyer and Tobin Bell in your movie, that certainly helps to elevate the bar a bit. Another improvement comes by way of the special effects. Like I already mentioned, in the first movie everything was done with quick CGI and this time around we get a lot more practical physical effect shots, and because of that, we get longer, better, shots of them. The aliens themselves, their tentacles as they burst out of the stomachs of their human forms, all of it just looks so much better this time around. Even the small amount of shots that are CGI are done with better, upgraded, effects.

Not everything was peaches and cream though. The biggest fault of this movie isn't that the characters were uninteresting and bland, like I touched on above. No, it's that for the majority of it – it was just plain boring. Not a whole lot really happens for quite a large portion of it. And even that wouldn't be too bad if the movie took that slow pace to have some good character-building scenes like the first did, but they didn't. By the end of the movie, I didn't give two shits about any of the new characters, with most of them being not only forgettable, but largely annoying to boot. The movie is actually a bit shorter then the first yet while watching it, it feels so much longer. Once things finally get going though, it does try to return to the campy fun that the first movie captured so well, but doesn't quite reach the level of camp that that one held. Absent are the cheesy memorable one-liners and dialog that was on display in the first movie. “You were right. There ARE blond aliens on campus!” is the best one in the movie, and really, one of the only ones. This movie actually plays itself off as more straight and serious for the majority of it then even the first half of the first movie did, which I'm not a fan of simply because my favorite stuff from that one were the more over-the-top campy scenes, and it's important that a movie of this kind doesn't try to take itself too seriously, and this one seemed to be on the edge of doing just that. However, there were a couple scenes towards the end where things seemed like they could be headed in a more campy, comedic direction. For example, there was a scene where they used the main human girl to scan the dance floor to try to determine which girls were aliens since she wouldn't be fooled by the hormones they gave off. The music used, mixed with how the character was portrayed for that scene, really made it quite funny. Another scene would be shortly after that part, when the group of them all gear up with various home-made heat weapons to fight off the aliens with. And of course there was the scene where Luke from the first movie was going all crazy in the hospital upon seeing Kim Poirier's character for the first time in this movie. Unfortunately, despite these scenes and a few other minor ones, it never quite gets to the level of fun or camp that the first movie had.

I was quite happy though to see that much like with the previous movie, this returns to the winter landscape that I so-love in movies and wish more movies utilized it. Also much like the first movie, there were some well-played twists in the plot that I didn't see coming at all, so kudos for those. It also did quite well with the added element of 'Is *insert interchangeable female character* an alien, or isn't she?' paranoia that the first movie never touched on but this one did a few times, and ended quite humorously in a couple cases.

So in closing, while a different crew made this movie then the first (different director and different scriptwriter), they managed to properly hold their own with someone else's material and improved many aspects, but lack of any interesting main characters, lack of fun campy scenes, and a very slow pace prevents it from being as good as the first movie. Still, while not as good, it still is good in it's own right, and did manage to be a worthy addition to the series all the same.

With the cliffhanger ending given to us in this movie, I would love to see one final entry made to finish out the story and end it as a fun little trilogy. However, since this movie came out in 2007 and it's now 2011 with not a single whisper of a third movie being made, I believe we'll just have to come to terms with the fact that this is all we'll ever have for the series, and we'll never get a proper conclusion to the story. (Hey, I suddenly just got an idea for a new SyFy Channel TV series...)

6/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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Decoys (2004)

REVIEW BY: Jeffrey Long

COMPANY: Téléfilm Canada

RUNTIME: 99 mins

FORMAT: DVD

PLOT: A group of aliens, in disguise as female humans, infiltrate a Canadian university in the hopes of mating and producing offspring. It's up to one guy and his friends to put a stop to this secret invasion, all the while being suspected by the police for the recent rash of murders caused by these aliens

REVIEW: I've been having recurring nights lately where no matter how tired I am, I just can't get to sleep. I probably should go see someone about that and maybe get some sleeping medication or something. In the meantime though, I've been using my sleepless nights to watch some campy bad movie goodness. One of the movies that came my way via 4AM movie watching last night would be Decoys - the low budget Canadian answer to the 90's cult erotic sci-fi flick Species. To be honest, I wasn't looking for anything more then a movie to fall asleep to, but within 20 minutes I knew I'd be staying awake long enough to finish it, because I was having such a blast with it. Easiest way to describe the movie when talking about it to friends – American Pie meets Species.

Much like with Species, there's a horny female alien (actually several in this movie), looking for the perfect mate to father their offspring (anyone the aliens mate with seem to die before they can finish, so they're looking for people who can withstand having sex with them). And what better place for finding a perfect mate then a bustling party university where, much like American Pie, our main leads are trying to loose their virginity. Also taking a page from Species, these aliens can change between human form and creepy tentacled-alien creature at will, and do so whenever threatened or in the height of their sexual activities.

That's where the similarities with Species and American Pie end however. In this, the main human character is a bit of a geek who's best friends with one of the party-going hornball guys that one of the aliens sets her sights on. After witnessing some of the aliens change, our hero tries to warn his friend – and everyone else – but just gets laughed off, so he takes matters into his own hands. Discovering that the aliens thrive on the cold and thus are scared of fire, he sets out with a flame thrower on a one-man mission to save the world. And it's at that point the movie unexpectedly turns into a full-on comedy.

And that's the movie's biggest fault, if you ask me. Not that it turns into a comedy per sey (I actually feel that's when the movie is at it's best), but that it just changes gears so abruptly and so far in. Personally, I really loved all the comedy bits of the main guy running around campus like a maniac, screaming his lungs out, shouting one-liners like Bruce Campbell is going out of style, kicking down doors and firing a flame thrower to roast the alien girls alive right as they're about to have sex with some guys. But what bothered me was that the majority of the movie played it mostly straight, and tried to be serious to a degree (sure, it still had some silly campy moments throughout, but overall the tone was mostly straight), then there comes a part about 20 minutes or so from the end where it just does a complete 180 into slapstick comedy territory for the rest of the movie. It almost seemed like they weren’t sure how they wanted to proceed with the tone of the movie, so just decided to do both, and it's quite jarring and takes you out of it for a bit. Really would have preferred they stayed with one tone or the other instead of switching part-way. Reading other reviews online, that seemed to be an aspect that turned quite a few people off from the movie.

My other complaint is with the acting. There's not very many scenes in the movie, from anyone, that's well-acted. While that doesn't seem to be as noticeable in the more-comedic final portion of the movie, it's distractingly noticeable in the first half as well as in any scene where strong emotions of sadness or anger are supposed to be present but they're just portrayed so badly.

Those are really the only main complaints I have though; everything else about the movie was just plain ol' fun and I had a blast with it. As with a movie of this kind (I.E. teen sex comedy; erotic alien invasion), there are plenty of young hot women on display in skimpy clothing. In terms of nudity, there is surprisingly very little with only one scene at the beginning really coming to mind, however every other scene seems to have one of the hot leading ladies of the movie stripped down to her bra or other scantily-clad forms of clothing. And don't get me wrong, this movie isn't one of those that shows nudity or near-nudity just for the sake of showing some skin, with nothing else going for it. Sure, it does have that in spades, but it also includes other things such as interesting characters that you love to watch as the events of the movie unfolds.

First there's the aforementioned main character who can never catch a break when it comes to the ladies of the campus...that is until the overly-sexy blond alien babes show up and a one of them takes an interest in him. But as soon as he finds out the truth, he wastes no time in waging war on the alien species to save his school – and the planet. It's at that point that the actor's performance goes into 'over the top, crazy, and campy' territory, but in a 'that's the point of it' kind of way and made many comedic scenes in the second half of the movie pretty laugh-out-loud 'what the heck am I watching' kind of funny, and it's at these points that the bad acting actually helped add to the entertainment as opposed to distract from it like earlier in the movie. Then there's his party-loving virgin best friend/roommate who also gets himself into a bit of trouble with a sexy alien babe, only to not listen to his friend's crazy warnings and...well...that ends about as well as expected. However the death actually hit a bit harder then I expected it to, and I was quite surprised at just how much I cared for this character by the time his end came, and I didn't really want him to go. I actually would have loved to see him work side-by-side with the main character in taking down the alien menace, but oh well. His death is really what sets the main character on his path of stopping the invasion. He also gets his very own out-of-place slow song playing over his death, but it really came across as more hilarious then anything serious, and with the style of this movie being what it is, I have no idea if that was the intent or not.

Next we got the tomboy female friend to the main guy, who acts as kind of his partner-in-crime throughout the movie and very-obviously has a crush on him that he just doesn't notice himself, which ends on an interesting note. I won't spoil it, but it was definitely fun and I hope to see these two characters back in any sequels there may be, however I highly doubt it considering the end of the movie. Still, I can always hope. And speaking of hope, I was actually hoping to see her take a much more aggressive stance against the alien babes, since they were, after all, trying to sleep with the guy she likes; maybe a good girl-on-girl cat fight or something, but unfortunately we don't get anything like that and she remains working behind-the-scenes mostly as kind of this movie's Chloe Sullivan, and even disappears from the movie all together for a large chunk, which is a shame cause she was one of my favorite characters and would have loved to see her do more during the climatic final 20 minutes or so.

Rounding out the main human characters are the two cops investigating the mysterious murders popping up around the campus. Personally, I could have done without these characters. They were portrayed quite poorly and didn't really add anything to the overall movie other then more minutes to the run time. The male cop was annoying as all hell and the female cop supposedly used to have a relationship with the main hero, despite looking about twice his age, and like with everything regarding the cop characters – it went absolutely nowhere and had absolutly no bearing on the rest of the movie whatsoever. And the worst thing? The male cop is so annoying, I was waiting anxiously for his death scene – except we never get it. Out of the few characters to survive, he had to be one of them. Actually, he completely drops out of the movie until he shows up again for about 30 seconds towards the end, and not in any 'shows up at the last minute to save the day' capacity either. Just in yet another useless appearance.

And of course, there's the nest of sexy alien babes. And sexy is the best way to describe them. They certainly weren’t hired for their acting abilities, but in a movie where they play sex-crazed attractive women...I'm totally fine with that. What makes these characters so interesting is that unlike in Species, these aliens have a decent grasp on how to portray human emotion, to a degree. They're not perfect in that aspect but they're far from the monotone robot-like personality of the creature from Species. Actually, their emotions play a rather large part in the plot of the movie which is something Species has never bothered to really explore, and it's that aspect that really sets this movie apart from being 'just another Species clone'. We also get a bit of the backstory of their race and why exactly they've come to Earth, and more specifically, why they picked Canada. Sure, it's only a short 3 or 4 line explanation, but one that really worked for me and added a bit more depth to the characters that normally don't really get it in these types of movies.

The movie also has a rather well-written script. For instance, they have you actually believe that the two main character best friends are best friends, unlike a lot of movies that say it, and even show it, but don't do a good job of portraying it. It also takes some level of talent to make you care just as much for the invading alien species as it does their potential victims. This movie did an excellent job of making me care about not only the main characters, but also the invading sexy alien babes, none of which I was really expecting to care for. There's also some quirky and fun dialog thrown in: “She screwed him to death!”, “They've come to Earth to sleep with us and kill us all!”, “With you lately, it's all about cameras, conspiracies, and ass-kicking alien girls from Hooters planet!”, “He thinks you're part of a Hottie Invasion Force from Hell”, “That's it, ladies, show me your navels”, and my personal favorite comes as the hero bursts into a room of sexy alien babes with his flame thrower - “Belt of Orion? How about belt of O-Fryin'!” and then you can probably guess what happens next. The movie is pretty much filled with dialog like that, so fans of campy B-movie goodness can't help but fall in love with it, with a large smile on their face. At least that's how I was every time a character shouted out another such cheesy line. Add into the mix some unexpected plot twists throughout that I honestly didn't see coming, and the writer of this movie has got me as a fan for all future projects.

And to add to everything else as kind of the sweet cherry on top: Since the aliens thrive on the cold, the movie takes place in the middle of winter, with snow on the ground. I don't know why, but I always love it when movies take place in the snow – adds to the atmosphere I think. It's just a little observation but one that I much appreciate. And their reason for picking Canada as their initial invasion point is due to the infamous cold winters here, which I got a good chuckle out of. Sure, when you give it much thought it doesn't make any sense, since there are just-as-populated city locations in Russia that get even colder, but any excuse to have an alien invasion flick take place in my country is fine by me.

I'm a huge Species fan and while this isn't technically a Species movie, it felt enough like one that it satisfied my late-night alien sex shlock for the time being, but also did enough things different that it kept my interest in it as a separate entity and made me want to see more of these characters in potential future installments.

8/10 rooms in the Psych Ward

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