Customer Reviews

AVH: Alien vs Hunter

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(19)

 

 

Alien versus Hunter arrived on the coattails of Aliens vs. Predator Requiem, and this is not a coincidence. The Asylum makes films to make money off of others, and many of them are terrible, with the exception of War of the Worlds, which I personally enjoyed.
Alien vs. Hunter, AVH, is a classic example of incompetent film making. The director did no work, came in 2 hours late, and spent his time on his ipod. No joke. The 'director' is possibly the worst one today. Probably worse than Uwe Boll. The editor obviously tried to save it, but it didn't work.

The acting was horrendous. You can't help but laugh at these guys who take the situation more seriously than anybody realistically would while doing stupid things right and left. The acting isn't great, either.

The creatures... I can make better ones. The alien is an arachnid thing m monster done through a poor costume and crud CGI. The costume only includes the top half of the creature, who, while a suited man, stands about five feet. The CG version, complete with spider legs, stands about 15 feet high. The creature doesn't even feel like a threat.

The hunter is even worse. Look at the cover. What you see is not what was used. This guy is a short five feet, wears a salad bowl on his head, and doesn't do anything but look retarded. He holds a gun that he picks up very slowly and doesn't do anything with it. He doesn't even fight the Alien. He just stands around watching in the final fight.

The lighting, directing, script... non existent. Your seven year old son can make a better film.

If Ed Wood was alive today, he'd look at this film and say it's the worst he's ever seen.

This is Robot Monster minus the fun factor. Avoid. Buy only if you want to spend an evening with a friend making fun of it MST3K style.

I'd recommend Dragon Wars instead of this if you must watch a terrible movie. At least Dragon Wars is so bad it's good. This is so bad it's unbearable.

Was this a comedy? I couldn't stop laughing at the bad acting, bad sets, bad lighting and bad dialogue. This is like the movie you see being made while watching a real movie, you know, the one so hokey you know it's not real. Don't ever be fooled by these "film makers" this is pure garbage in a bad way!

The Greatest American Hero has fallen upon hard times indeed. Twenty-some years after hanging up his ridiculous-looking superhero tights, William Katt is no more than a bad actor surrounded by even worse actors in this egregiously awful rip-off of Alien vs. Predator. AVH: Alien vs. Hunter is just a stupid, stupid movie; it only took about five minutes for me to start talking back to the screen. I don't think it's possible for anyone to maintain silence while watching this movie - not without your brains bleeding out your ears, anyway. Such a concentrated amount of cinematic incompetence should come with a warning label.

OK, here's what we have. Two craft of some sort crash land near a remote mountain town, and - amazingly - no one seems to notice. I guess everyone is just too busy being bored with their worthless lives - that and the fact that there only seem to be seven or eight people living there to begin with. This place is so boring that the local sheriff all but begs the local reporter to tag along with him as he investigates a call about a domestic disturbance. That's when someone finally notices the huge space ships sticking out of the ground (you apparently can't see gigantic, smoke-belching alien spacecraft if they're behind a small trailer home). Before you can say, "Well, I'll be doggoned; look at that," an alien (who reminds me of a wild onion turned upside down) pops up and layeth the smacketh down on the sheriff while Lee (Katt) runs back to the truck. This is when things really begin to get frustrating. If aliens attack my little town, the first thing I'm doing is getting in my car and getting the hell out of Dodge. In the movie, though, no one even thinks of driving away; heck, they don't even drive to get from one location to another. Knowing full well that aliens could be anywhere outside, these knuckleheads walk everywhere they go, even as their numbers continue to dwindle. Here's the thing, though - the story would have us believe that there is no way to get down off the mountain in a car. It's the middle of summer, so it's not like the place is snowed in for the winter season. I can only assume the government had to chopper in all of the equipment to build the decent-sized town in the first place - and that government planes routinely air drop supplies to the local population.

While the characters are all walking to their deaths, we get a look at two other alien creatures - one of which is a giant CGI spider. The other one is all decked out in seemingly indestructible armor. Still, these idiot humans keep trying to shoot and even slug him. Moving along, the whole gang of survivors goes to great - and stupid - lengths in an attempt to escape but manage to keep getting in the way of all the aliens, blah blah blah. Throw in a stupid "twist" ending and you're done.

You can learn a lot from this movie. When attacked by aliens: throw the car keys away and just start walking all over the countryside with no escape plan whatsoever; insist that everyone stay together, then go ahead and keep splitting up anyway; if the alien attacks while you are indoors, immediately run outside and hide in plain sight of the alien; if you accidentally wander into one of the alien's spaceships and no one knows where you are, stay right there in the spaceship (since there's no chance of you possibly running into an alien in the alien's own spacecraft); and most importantly, should you actually survive the whole ordeal, immediately start joking around as if it's a normal day and the body parts of all your friends and neighbors aren't littered across the countryside.

So let's see: a stupid story with stupid characters doing stupid things, decidedly unimpressive special effects, exceedingly bad acting, excessive toboggan-wearing (it's summer, dude, take that ridiculous toboggan off already), an all but complete absence of character development, and a terrible ending. Yep, that pretty much sums up AVH: Alien vs. Hunter. You would have to pay me to suffer through this B-movie bomb a second time.

This is the fourth Asylum made film that I have endured. Two had their moments and were at least moderately entertaining (Transmorphers, I am Omega) while the other (Universal Soldiers) was not. Unfortunately, AvH will have to be grouped with the latter.
The effects are bad, but not unreasonably bad for a low budget film. The spider effect on the alien is ill considered as it makes the creature have to hide its lower body (budget restraints)in holes, behind trees, etcetera. The Hunter looks nothing like the picture on the DVD case so caveat emptor if you are considering this based on the artwork.
The acting is also bad, but is pretty standard for an Asylum feature or a Sci-Fi Original Movie. It does feature William Katt and DeeDee Pfeiffer so this may be the most "star-studded" Asylum production, and both 80s relics are okay in the film.
The real problem with AvH as many have noted, is the plot. Events seem to happen randomly at times and there are some scratch your head turn of events as the film limps towards an improbable end. I can deal with bad effects in a movie but when the movie just doesn't make sense, it is unacceptable. Having seen three other Asylum films I guess I should have known better, but I'll keep watching.

Please keep that in mind. I was fooled into renting this. It was awful, terrible acting, terrible effects, and absolutely not anything like Alien Vs Predator.

The aliens is some sort of spider thing and hunter is some sort of human from ... somewhere not on earth.

I could only force myself through so much of this movie. If you like bad acting/low budget/all together awful films then go see this film.

Oh yeah I just want to stress the HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ALIEN VS PREDATOR part.

Ok, I love really badly done horror/sci-fi movies. This is definitely a very poorly done knock off of Aliens V Predator, and is so bad it is as stinky as Limburger Cheese. The only thing that makes it even a little bit palatable is the tongue-in-cheek nature of the film. Let me explain:

The BAD: The script is terrible and in many places, it just doesn't make sense. It's not the type of thing you can follow and make any logical sense of. The editing is choppy and the `special effects' are probably great for the budget, but they are not great compared to other movies. The alien looks like a poor man's Geiger mixed with a spider and the Hunter looks like a poor kid's cobbled together Halloween costume (growing up poor, I know where of I speak). The acting is really, really bad. I mean BAD.

The NOT SO BAD: It is really tongue in cheek, and it doesn't take itself too seriously. This quality adds an element of fun to the film and makes it watchable without being unbearable.

Look, if you're looking for something less than horrible, check out AVP-R, or if you want something horrible but with better special effects watch AVP. AVH is a shameless rip-off on a shoe string budget, but watch it for what it is and have fun with it.

Recommended for those who don't take their movies too seriously.

ALIEN VS HUNTER

Yes that is right you read that title correctly this is indeed a knock off of AVP:R or Alien vs Predator Requiem. The Asylum is now well known for it's self described "mockumentries" or better said rip/knock offs, still I love this company because their original works are really good and some of the knock offs are actually good. Now I have seen many a horrible film and many of those have been cheap imitations of more successful films, many of those have been from this company but I must say this is just bad. I hate to say that because Asylum's usual producer extraordinaire David Michael Latt wrote this, usually he can make something interesting. Here though things are just unintentionally funny.

The plot is actually almost the exact same as AVP:R with the ship touching down on Earth right at the beginning and some alien sometimes aliens roaming around killing people off. Of course you would not have this title without a hunter who guess what is hunting these creatures, yes it is the exact same movie just no were near as good. Honestly this movie makes the first AVP [which I didn't like as much as the second] look like Oscar worthy material on every front. I honestly can't believe that this was made like this, The Asylum is usually pretty good with these [even though my reviews of their films thus far would say differently].

Writer/producer David Michael Latt really needed to rework this before he even attempted to make it. I mean the script is just awful and he even had two other films to take from, you would think they would take what worked from them and made a decent rip off. Along side Latt is director Scott Harper who really needs to stick to visual effects, his other attempt at directing while not as bad as this was still eh [that film of course would be "Super Croc" also from The Asylum]. I don't know if it is true but apparently he was more into playing on his new phone than working on this film, the message board for the film stated this and things were also said on the commentary about him. This guy has done visual effects on films like "Snakes on a Plane, Dr. Dolittle, What Dreams May Come, Zathura, Ghost Ship, The Italian Job, Supernova, Liar Liar, My fellow Americans, Nutty Professor, Dead Presidents, The Indian in the Cupboard, Mortal Combat" as well as others. I can't believe with a list like that he would make or should say just show up on set to make a film like this.

I have nothing but respect for the crew and editors of this film since they were forced to try to fix this guys mess [once again if this is true]. Apparently the first AD actually became the real director for this film and got this thing done the best he could, because Scott played with his phone they didn't even film the whole thing. The editor obviously tried to fix this problem and work around it but the footage just wasn't there for him. The editor and first AD I believe are the two guys that do the commentary and it is honestly the most honest commentary ever recorded for a film. Big ups to these guys for trying so hard on something that was so lost, you can tell these two along with the crew that stepped up to try to make this really love what they do.

As far as the acting it is not really there at all, but who would expect some Oscar worthy material from a movie like this. The only one who really stood out is the wonderful Dedee Pfeiffer who I have loved in many other things such as the wonderful shows "Burn Notice & The Dead Zone". Why she did this I will never know it could possibly be because the so called director had an excellent track record, to bad he couldn't direct like he can work with effects. William Katt is a good actor but he was here for a paycheck, can't blame him if the director wont work. The same came be said for Randy.

Over all this film is funny but not because it means to be but still this film is very much worth a purchase for possibly the best commentary of all time. They not only let you know about what was going down behind the scenes but they actually talk about the short comings of the film. Still they give props to those who cared enough about the film to actually work on it. The film is a two star film at the most but only because Dedee and a Very cool looking alien [but what was up with that spider one]. But the film is worthy of 5 because of the effort put forth by the crew and post production team. So I will meet it in the middle kinda and give it three stars, oh and by the way the hunter while having an actually good ending looks nothing like the one on the DVD case.

Like the other reviewer low budget doesn't mean it has to be bad. Personally I like low budget movies, they have to depend on a good script and good acting. This movie was was pathetic, script, directing and acting all was garbage. I couldn't finish watching it because it was so bad.

Do yourself a favor and avoid at all cost!

There are some movies that are so bad they end up good. Then there are the ones that are just plain bad. This one fits in the latter category. I went into this movie with really low expectations, and I was still disappointed. It might be so bad that even the Sci-Fi channel won't show it. The acting is stilted, the photography is poor - it really needed another pass of color correction, the animation is jerky, the alien costuming looks home made. I get the feeling that maybe this was a film school project that somehow made it into mainstream circulation.

Despite the mockbuster studio's reputation, Asylum actually can make good movies. What made I Am Omega good was that it took liberties and chances that mainstream movies wouldn't dare. Alien vs. Hunter, on the other hand, has no interest in doing anything even remotely interesting. It's there to confuse grandmas trying to buy their grandkids Aliens vs. Predator. Those grandkids are not going to be happy with grandma...

For those of us who love the Alien and Predator franchises, we know the basics: Predators hunt Aliens and use us as bait. AVH (I hate to even give this film even the appearance of legitimacy by giving it an abbreviation) has no interest in any of that, and instead aims for a "man on the edge" plot in which our supposed protagonist Lee Cussler (William Katt) is a failed journalist who wrote a scathing tell-all. This story tainted Cussler's reputation with everyone in town, who are unlikely to believe his tales of alien hunters from outer space. Cussler's predicament is completely irrelevant of course, because in the span of just a few minutes everyone is grouped together like contestants on a reality show. Come to think of it, that would have made a better movie.

AVH's biggest problem is that it's simply poorly produced. The audio is terrible, the music inappropriate, and the acting is all over the place. At various points the actors seem to have either decided to improvise, had no direction, or just forgot their lines. The scenes are so disjointed that characters appear to be teleporting from set to set - a sewer crawl here, a fortified bunker there, some random forest...time and space are mutable in the world of Z-level movie-making. For all we know, there was no script. The plot, if one can call it that, doesn't require much.

That leaves the monsters themselves. The Alien-knockoff is similar to the xenomorph from the torso-up; the rest of it is like a giant spider, rendered in unconvincing detail through CGI. The Predator-knockoff is a guy in a suit with a mushroom-like helmet that sports a single red lens. If the actor in the suit were bigger, it might have been effective. Instead the Hunter looks like he wandered off another set from the 80s, say Battle Beyond the Stars. Now that was an awesome low-budget alien movie!

But I digress. Alien vs. Hunter is every bit the cynical cheap knockoff that audiences have come to expect from mockbusters. Ploddingly paced, filled with recycled footage, and populated by awful actors (Wittly Jourdan is particularly bad) whom you can barely hear over the equally awful soundtrack, AVH isn't even bad enough to mock. It's just bad. Jourdan sums it up best as Tammy:

"We're stuck on an alien spaceship and that totally sucks!"

Yes, Tammy. Yes it does.