Listen up
aliens, going around abducting people and stuff… stop
already. Not quite sure why you're doing this, not
exactly sure what you are looking for, and I certainly don't
know who told you that the anus holds the secrets to the human
condition, but stop already. If you can read, and I'm
sure you can since you can build fancy spaceships with all
kinds of horrific scientific experimental equipment on it,
just grab a copy of Gray's Anatomy which will tell you
everything that you need to know about human physiology.
Then maybe just grab one human to make sure everything in that
book correct, and that could be a cadaver. Unfortunately
for the Morris family the aliens didn't get my message near in
time, and they will be all the worse for it.
A few years back in North Carolina, the Morris family decided
to go on a family camping trip. We have Peter the dad
(Peter Holden), mom Katie (Katherine Sigismund), older brother
Corey (Corey Eid), sister Jillian (Jillian Clare) and most
importantly autistic baby brother Riley (Riley
Polanski). Why is Riley the most important?
Because he's the one with the video camera, in this found
footage film, who will be obnoxiously filming
everything. Apparently it helps his autism.
The camping trip seems to be going well, the family is getting
along with little issue but there were those odd lights in the
sky that were moving about like nothing anybody has ever seen,
but no worries. Now it is time to continue the trip to
another great camping location but dad is starting to look
like he's lost. And dad didn't gas up the car. And
the GPS isn't working and the cellphone service is
non-existent. The fact that dad looks to have some anger
management issues isn't making things any better. When
the crows start falling from the sky, we know that the Morris
family is in all kinds of trouble.
So a trend
forms for our heroes that includes a process of run, hide,
lose a member… repeat. But perhaps somebody can survive
to tell the tale and maybe even defeat the alien menace.
Alas, it's not really that kind of movie. And besides,
how many found footage movies have happy endings? It's
called FOUND footage. Not hand delivered footage.
I had heard some very good things in regards to director Marty
Beckerman's film 'Alien Abduction'… and I'm not quite sure
why. True enough, I've seen way worse found footage
movies, and in that regard this is probably one of the better
ones out there, but it is still a found footage movie and I'm
kind of thinking that this is a genre that has run its course…
unless it's one of the VHS anthologies which still manages to
be fresh and inventive, but then I think that's because those
are short form films and not feature length movies.
One of the issues with this movie, and all of the found
footage movies to an extent, is that after a while it is
difficult to justify keeping the camera running, particularly
when you're fleeing in terror after watching people getting
snapped in two. I dig the whole 'autistic' angle and it
does work up to point, but I'm thinking even an autistic kid
would've released that camera. Then there was the whole
repetitive nature of the exercise. It started out well,
and the tension and uneasiness was quite high, but after a
while it fell into a pattern, which fell into the crevice of
predictability which was a rut that this movie could never
free itself from.
Also, some the performances didn't come off as natural as they
needed to be which gave our found footage events the sensation
that they were being staged at some points. Not all the
time, but enough of the time that it became a
distraction. Particularly the character of Sean who
really didn't sell me on the fact that he's a true-life
redneck survivalist, just a guy who is acting like someone who
believes this is what a redneck survivalist would act
like. Some of my best friends are redneck survivalist so
this is why I'm so well versed on the subject of the redneck
survivalist.
As we mentioned 'Alien Abduction' isn't the worst found
footage movie we've seen, but it is still run of the mill like
the majority of the found footage movies we've seen.
This one just doesn't really add much to genre.
