Alien Agenda: Under the Skin (1998)
Now, let me say this first: this was a no-budget effort, and it was shot on video. There are two possible reactions to this information. The first (and more common) is to dismiss it as a "piece of crap" and forego viewing it. The other, which is what came over me, is to apply different standards to this film (you can order the best film review, film essays and research papers in our paper writing service) then I would to a professionally-made stinker (for example, the professionally-made but piss-poor "thriller" I recently saw, Headhunter).
I mean, Alien Agenda is an amateur movie in every sense of the word -- it was made by people without much professional (i.e., paid-for-it) experience, and it was made for the hell of it because someone loves to make movies. And when you understand that, that the filmmaker, cast and crew did it just because they wanted to make a movie, then you feel like you're in on the joke. It's as if a friend and his buddies made a video and got to you watch it the next weekend.
Because here are the hurdles for a no-budget filmmaker. 1) Your cast will be largely unprofessional (maybe some community theater experience). 2) Your make-up effects will be limited -- you can't have the Alien creature roaming your hallways. 3) You have to use the locations you can find for free, with two results: a) if there's a college campus, a park, or a warehouse you can use for free, you work them into the plot; and b) if you need a specific facility such as a police station, you have to set a folding table up in the corner of an empty room and pretend it's a police station.
So when you look at this, not as a professional effort that just didn't click (like Headhunter) but as a creative effort against unsurmountable odds, when you measure it against those standards, you can see past the bad acting and the definitive shot-on-video look and find the good parts.
Stock footage is used to good effect. Camera work is creative, helping to break up the hand-held shakiness. Night scenes are very effectively lit for video. The location sound quality ain't great, but the music (both score and contributions from local bands) is used effectively.
I keep comparing this to Headhunter because that is, for me, the epitome of a professional backfire. Everyone from the cinematographer to the gaffer was a professional and knew exactly what they were doing, but the resulting movie is terrible despite adequacy of resources. The Alien Agenda, on the other hand, is people figuring out how to make a movie on paper-route money, and at times transcending their lack of resources.
In fact, I'll say this: While Fred Olen Ray is what Ed Wood wanted to be (a maker of not-too-challenging films that are extremely entertaining), Kevin Lindenmuth and crew embody a statement which Ed Wood never made but should have: "Well, sure, it's a bad movie -- but it's MY bad movie!"
And it is a pretty bad movie -- from start to finish I never figured out what evactly was going on, thanks to it's semi-anthology structure. Acting ranges from adequate to laughably bad. It's the kind of movie you should get your friends over to watch and laugh at. But since it's billed as a Sci-Fi/Comedy, I don't think that Lindenmuth would mind too much.
And the coming attractions for the other two Alien Agenda films seem to show more plot in those installments.
Conclusion, if there is one: If you see it, pick it up. Give it a look. It's only 75 minutes of your life, and you'll be more likely to like it than Headhunter. (I'll stop ripping on Headhunter now.)
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