Customer Reviews

Alien Apocalypse

5 star:		(13)
4 star:		(12)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

B-horror movie god Bruce "Evil Dead" Campbell is the main attraction of this Sci-Fi Pictures original, in which Campbell and Xena: Warrior Princess' Renee O'Connor star as opposing humans against devious, grotesque aliens hellbent on, what else, annihilation of all mankind. The special effects are about what you would expect from a Sci-Fi Channel original movie, and were it not for Campbell, this would just be another forgettable schlock-fest. All in all, Alien Apocalypse is worth checking out for fans of Campbell (and you all know who you are), but if you want to see a surprisingly great new film with Bruce, check out the recently released Man With the Screaming Brain, in which Campbell stars and directs as well.

Bruce Campbell is the King of B-Movies and this flick is yet another in a long line of fun yet low budget films to feature this over looked talent.

The fun of this film is watching Bruce gather his legions of freedom fighters to battle the "Bugs" that have over run the planet.

From the "Great Healer" to the "Great Exterminator" Campbell brings fun to a role that would have been unwatchable with any other actor in the spot.

If you are a fan of sci-fi and B-movie adventure be sure to check it out.

Hey everyone! Chill out! This is a great B Movie as Bruce is well known for. It's funky and lame and very enjoyable! Based in Beautiful Oregon the show is old time alien v man/woman in an off beat Sci Fi and not to be taken so seriously. I LOVED IT! It totally cracks me up and I think if folks were in the right mind set and love the actors then they will totally LOVE the show for what it is and not what they expected it to be.
It's a B Flick so just go with it People!!!!!

Believe it or not, I actually got to meet Bruce Campbell once way back in the early 90s at a Fangoria convention my friends and I attended on Halloween (we later went to a GWAR concert at the Chicago Vic Theater and saw the 1953 version of House of Wax in 3-D at the Music Box Theater, but that's a story for another time). Mr. Campbell was on tour at the time, promoting his upcoming Army of Darkness (1993) film, and he struck me a really nice guy, one genuinely appreciative of his fans (I sincerely doubt he remembers me). Since then, I've followed his career, supporting his cinematic endeavors with my hard earned lucre, and usually I haven't been disappointed...until now. As much as it pains me to admit it, Alien Apocalypse (2005) was one rotten film, no matter how you look at it (some will say it was intentionally bad, but even if that were so, it still wasn't very entertaining, and my standards aren't that high). Co-written by Robert G. Tapert (The Evil Dead, Evil Dead II, Darkman) and Josh Becker (Thou Shalt Not Kill... Except, Hercules in the Maze of the Minotaur), with the latter also directing, the film stars Bruce Campbell (Evil Dead II, Maniac Cop, Escape from L.A.) and Renée O'Connor ("Xena: Warrior Princess"). Also appearing is Remington Franklin (Man with the Screaming Brain), Rosi Chernogorova (Shark Attack 3: Megalodon), and Peter Jason (They Live, Arachnophobia).

As the movie begins we hear narration with regards how aliens wiped out a majority of Earth's population, and the remnants turned into a slave labor force. In the sky we see a fiery object barreling towards Earth (a manned space capsule), and here come four astronauts, two women (a blonde and a brunette, who is injured), along with two men (Bruce and an African American man). Contact is made, and the recently returned are taken as prisoners...actually, the injured woman is shot, which I didn't mind because of her incessant whining...come to think of it, her companions didn't seem much put out by the loss, either...anyway, the three remaining astronauts are taken to a primitive lumberyard where they get to meet their alien, insect overlords, to which the outspoken, token minority character gets his head bitten off...and then there were two. Turns out in the 40 years the crew have drifted around space in a cryogenic sleep, aliens have taken over Earth for the purpose of harvesting our rich supply of trees (the aliens have `wood' for our wood)...oh bruther...the two remaining crew, Dr. Ivan Hood (Campbell) and Kelly (O'Connor) are thrown in with the rest of the prisoner rabble. Life in the camp is difficult...if you try to escape, they cut off a finger...if you lose enough fingers, you can't work, and they eat your head. Hope seems non-existent, but there are rumors that the President survives and is in hiding, priming a secret army somewhere in the nearby mountains with the intent on overthrowing the alien aggressors and taking back the Earth. Ivan and Kelly manage an escape (Kelly gets recaptured), and Ivan goes forth to find out if the rumors are true, garnering support among the few refugees he comes across who've managed to elude capture, eventually finding himself the leader of a movement (a bowel movement, if you ask me).

On the back of the DVD case for this movie, originally produced by The Sci-Fi Channel, it states the film is a cross between Starship Troopers (1997) and Army of Darkness (1993), which seemed a pretty ballsy claim to me, since I had just seen the film, and a more applicable comparison, in my opinion, would be Starship Troopers 2: Hero of the Federation (2004) and Battlefield Earth (2000). I did get a sense few took the production seriously, but even still, this was a rotten effort. About the funniest aspect for me was the scene when Bruce Campbell's character is trying to understand why some of the humans are working for the aliens as bounty hunter/guards. Here's part of the exchange below,

Ivan: But you're not helping things...you're hurting.
Idiot Guard #1: What do you mean?
Ivan: I mean if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem.
Idiot Guard #'s 1 & 2 (in unison, after looking at each other stupidly): ...shut up!

It does come off funnier on screen, but not much. By the end of the film I had a hard time deciding what was worse, the script or the acting...I'm going with the corn pone script. The acting is completely horrid, but I suspect a lot of it was most likely due to the distinct possibility this film was made in some Eastern European country (I'm betting Bulgaria), and featured a number of people who probably couldn't speak English (check out the closing credits...watch for all the names ending with a "V" or a vowel of sorts). It's not uncommon in cases like this to get non-English speaking actors and feed them their lines. Problem is, they generally have little idea what they're actually saying, only repeating what they've heard, so they don't know how to act accordingly. But then this doesn't explain Campbell or O'Connor, both of whom speak English fluently. I honestly couldn't understand Campbell's character's interest in saving humanity, as those who were left were clearly products of the heavily chlorinated, shallow end of the gene pool, and worthy of far worse treatment than they ever got in this film. And who did the sound for this film? The musical score, which was decent, often overshadowed the dialog, which would normally be a bad thing, but here it was somewhat of a blessing. The effects, overall, were pretty shoddy, but I did like that alien battle tank, that was until they effectively turned it into circus type clown car as something like thirty weapon wielding aliens eventually emerged from the interior. I thought this impressive, especially since I'd estimate, based on the size of the vehicle and the aliens, the total capacity to be, at the very most, about ten. As far as the aliens themselves, they were hardly menacing, despite their superior weaponry. This was probably due to the fact that during a battle, they'd remain relatively stationary until perforated by multiple arrows, to which they would then collapse in a heap. There are a few bright spots in the movie, but you have to endure a lot of pain to find them...

Anchor Bay Entertainment does provide a good-looking anamorphic widescreen (1.77:1) picture on this DVD, along with Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Surround 2.0 audio tracks. Special features include a commentary track by writer/director Josh Becker and star Bruce Campbell, behind the scenes footage (2:24), a storyboard gallery, a lengthy Bruce Campbell biography, and trailers for other Anchor Bay DVD releases like Evil Dead (1981), Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987), Man with The Screaming Brain (2005), Dead and Breakfast (2004), and Lightning Bug (2004).

Cookieman108

What were the makers of this movie thinking when they gave all the surviving humans really bad wigs and obvioulsy glued on beards. It is very distracting to the story (if there was one). Basically Bruce and crew have been in cyro sleep for 40 years in space, return to earth to find it has been infested with buggy aliens with a thing for wood. The crew was in space to do something with a probe that is never explained. I am a huge Bruce Campbell fan but this movie was not a good B movie at all. It was neither silly nor serious and worst of all was not entertaining to watch. Xena Warrior Princess' Renee O'Connor was given second billing on the DVD box but she is really not in the movie very much. She is basically there to play the romantic interest for Bruce, the two have great buddy chemistry (as seen on Xena) but zero romantic chemistry. The movie also suffers from a lack of a surviving human character to root for. Renee and Bruce can kick some butt, but all the other characters are pathetic. If you want to see a good Bruce flix stick with the Evil Dead films.

"Alien Apocalypse" is an entertainingly ridiculous, made in Bulgaria, sci-fi movie that has roots firmly in the giant insect movies of the 1950s and 1960s. It was made for cable television, and while no masterpiece, it is an enjoyable diversion featuring the great B-movie actor, Bruce Campbell.

Typical for films of this ilk, a group of astronauts return to earth in the future to discover it has been infested with giant mites, which immediately place them (and all other remaining humans) into slavery, making them work at a lumberyard near Portland, Oregon. The aliens (who look uncannily like Zorak from "Space Ghost") have a predilection for biting the heads off of people, and give an entirely new meaning to the terms "fingerbowl" and "finger sandwiches." Bruce, who is a physician, leads a breakout, and the escapees set off to find the completely ineffectual President, who is encamped with his aides, but refuses to assist the humans. They also run across a band of pacifists living in "Freedom Valley" who also do not appreciate the true peril confronting them, and fail utterly to grasp that sometimes enemies fail to appreciate peace and tranquility as much as they do. Both of these are excellent allegories to the current political state in certain parts of the world, though I don't think the movie is in any way heavy-handed.

There are some great scenes and lines in the movie, my favorite being "Your stupidity is terminal, and now you're cured." (I was going to use this as the title of my review but a fellow reviewer beat me to it.) I also found it entertaining that while many want to call Bruce "The Great Healer," he wants to be known as "The Great Exterminator," a title he truly deserves by the end of the film.

The extras are extensive and include a commentary track, a great behind the scenes video, a storyboard gallery, and more.

Low budget, bad effects, cheap wigs, partly glued on beards. Yep this is a b-movie but its one the best films I've seen for ages. Simply because it's made by people who love the genre, know full well how low budget it looks but play to that and it works perfect. Its funny for all the right reasons, Bruce has a riot playing the role and why not. He's having fun and so do we. Highly recommended for those who will get the humour.

Just finished watching Alien Apocalypse, only because I never wanted to be tempted to see it again. Bruce Campbell did a spoof movie about himself and said - "what can be worse, I did a movie in Bulgaria". This was that movie. This movie is dying for a spoof soundtrack a la MST3000. If you like bad effects, bad acting and a worse script - this movie is for you.

Synopsis:
Alien Apocalypse follows a group of astronauts who come back to earth (Oregon to be exact) after 40 years in cryogenic sleep only to find that the world has been over-run and enslaved by insectoid aliens that have a propensity to chop off fingers and eat people's heads. After being captured by the aliens and forced to work at a sawmill (for what reason I never was quite sure), two of the astronauts, Dr. Ivan Hood (Bruce Campbell) and Kelly (Renee O'Connor of Xena fame) manage to escape and try to follow up on rumors that the United States president is still alive and raising an army to fight the aliens.

Hood eventually manages to raise a rabble army (through the help of Chiropractics) to fight the aliens with the expected results.

About the Movie:
A Tv movie shot on a shoestring budget in the woods in Bulgaria with a lot of local extras and actors, this movie is a b-film through and through. The production values are fairly low though it does boast some special effects, including a few explosions and computer animated effects.

Campbell is the king of B movies, and one does not watch a movie of this nature and expect Oscar winning performances or dialog (Though I don't think Campbell is a bad actor). He isn't given much to work and his iconic attitude and silly bravado falls short. Campy dialog is fine, but it just feels like everyone was phoning it in. The bad script is main culprit. All the locally hired actors and neanderthalish dialog didn't help. Not even the pleasant presence of Renee O'Connor could help much.

It's hard not to compare this movie to the best of the Evil Dead films where shoestring budgets were used to good effect despite the lack of money. Despite having no money, those films had amazing FX and costuming. And of course, the quirky scripts were wonderful.

In this film, the costuming is really poor (everyone looks like they just bathed, despite having been enslaved in medieval conditions... and you got to love their vinyl coats), the characters have little chemistry, and the setting just makes you scratch your head, especially since at the beginning of the film, a narrator states that there are no trees left. Next thing you know, they're in a lush woods by a sawmill.

Then we have the battle scenes. Aliens with blasters versus guys with crappy homemade bows. Who wins? Not the Aliens of course.

Finally the ridiculous nature of the whole thing collapses under its own weight. It's mildly amusing at points, but falls far short of other Campbell vehicles such as Bubba Hotep or the Evil Dead films.

On the other side of the coin, this DVD contains a commentary track by writer/director Josh Becker and star Bruce Campbell. Bruce Campbell is always fun to listen to on these commentary tracks. Hearing him and Becker discuss and joke about the movie and how it was filmed and developed as it plays is almost as good as a Mystery Science Theater track. The movie itself is terrible, but with the commentary track on, it's actually watchable. I love Campbell's wit.

About the DVD
Alien Apocalypse comes in a DVD hard case in anamorphic widescreen (1.77:1) picture on this DVD, with Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Surround 2.0 audio tracks. The digital transfer is pretty good.

It comes with a few special features which include the aforementioned commentary track, behind the scenes footage, a storyboard gallery, Bruce Campbell's biography, and a few unrelated movie trailers.

Make no mistake: This movie is awful. I mean, REALLY awful. I loves me some Bruce Campbell, but this is the worst of the worst SciFi channel muck. But for those of you who truly revel in the joy that is an awful movie, this is for you.

When this first aired on the SciFi channel, we squirmed through the whole thing groaning and moaning and suffering... and then I immediately went to Amazon to buy a copy for everyone I know for Christmas. Nothing is more fun than sharing! The computer animation is atrocious, the plot line is so thin you couldn't even use it to blow your nose, and the over-acting would make even Calculon blush. It's pretty damn ripe. But how can you not enjoy something so completely and utterly craptacular?

Put yourself to the test! For less than $10 you too can spend an evening in stitches. Do it! You won't be sorry! (Well, you probably will be sorry but you won't forget it in any case!)