Alienate (2016) User Reviews

David is an idiot with a stupid face

[ksgillihan · 3/10 · 23 February 2016]

A decent trailer made me think that for once a low-budget alien invasion movie might do alright this time around. Boy was I wrong. This movie starts promising and has all the ingredients for a half-way decent science fiction movie but falls flat on it's face in the general area of everything.

This film has way too many scenes of back story and jumps around like it doesn't even know what direction to head in. The main character named David is a married man who spends all his time at work and neglects his wife who ends up having an affair. The aliens then land while he's off doing some neglecting and all hell breaks loose. Well not 100% hell as the majority of the film is spent in the present showing David with an expression that is similar to one a person would get when they had unexpected diarrhea and back tracking scenes where he has the exact same expression. Seriously, he only has one facial expression.

The characters are some of the most idiotic characters you could find in a movie and will make you angry watching all their ridiculous decisions throughout the movie. We are introduced to another supporting character named Samantha whom David meets in between wandering around with a stupid look on his face. They both join up and awkward conversation runs in between yes, more back story scenes. They hilariously fail at helping others along the way and for some reason they end up not dying as most of the people around them do. We don't see much of the aliens killing the humans because the writer spent all their time filling out David's character with more daydreaming and furrowed brow scenes. David also is terrible at surviving anything more than an in-grown toenail and is only alive till then end through the magic of plot device.

David feels badly for neglecting his wife and is oblivious to the affair she had even when his wife spends a lot of time with this other guy. Let's be honest though, David is just a moron so we can't really expect much out of him. Eventually David and Samantha flag down a news chopper that lands and offers to take them both to safety. Of course you know by now that David isn't exactly Einstein so he says 'no thanks' to safety and leaves Samantha to find his wife. He eventually does as we finally see some aliens vs. humans battle it out in the city streets. David has finally overcome his own lack of intelligence and by sheer luck sees his wife in the middle of a group of people running for their lives. The reunion is cut short by the fact that aliens blast her right in front of David and his stupid expressioned-face. He cradles her as more back stories annoy the viewer and an alien walks up to David to finally put him out of the movie's misery. It's not really a good thing when you see David's wife get shot by the aliens and you laugh out loud. Yet that's what I did. Stupid David.

WORKING MY WAY BACK TO YOU BABE.

[nogodnomasters · 3/10 · 26 April 2018]

The film opens with aliens killing humans and then we flash back to before the attack. Dave (Blake Webb) has a female boss and works a lot. His wife Amy (Tatum Langton) who has put her career on hold feels alienated. They are on the verge of breaking up. Dave has to fly to Denver for business with a loner friend who feels alienated at the end of the world. When things hit the fan, David attempts to get back to Amy as she awaits for him. Yes, two minutes ago they were going to divorce, now they can't imagine spending their last seconds on earth with someone else. He encounters a farmer that feels alienated and people who just stand there and don't move as they feel alienated. I think we got the theme.

The film uses various flashback techniques, including flashbacks within flashbacks and running scenes over again. It proved to be confusing in a film that was otherwise boring lacking alien attack scenes that one might expect peeking at cover art.

There have been various end of the world films that were used to demonstrate aspects of the human psyche. In fact all good end of times movies do that to some degree. However when you use it to near exclusion of all science fiction, you need to have an "A" game and headliners. This film didn't have any of that. It was simply boring.

No swearing, sex, or nudity.

Note to self: When leaving the house is a bad idea. Stay inside.

Tried to be clever but ultimately just very dull

[gazimbo_9 · 3/10 · 28 December 2016]

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

All the other reviews have touched upon the fact that the movie jumps about from past and present. I actually liked this element of it, the problem for me was that the story, was just too dull and boring.

I agree with another reviewer that complains about the other people that it introduces have no real significance.

I very rarely start watching a film without finishing it, and I managed to complete this one, but can't really recommend it. It just lacks substance and just isn't very good.

You can look for hidden meanings and existential questions in movies and others are just pointless; this is the latter.

The acting isn't as bad as made out by others, but the lack of euphoria demonstrated by the actual events is a little obvious.

Watch it or don't watch it, the results will be pretty much the same.

Worst Film Ever- an Hour and Half i will never get back...

[Ashleypl5 · 1/10 · 27 February 2016]

Firstly, the trailer looked great!I was expecting an Alien invasion film, something which would probably not be great but have at least a decent plot. But the film was nothing like I was expecting.

The constant time jumps throughout the film are confusing, and there is just too many characters to try and keep up with, even though the end of the film only focuses on the outcome of two of the characters. It seems almost pointless even introducing half of them to begin with. The acting is terrible, and half the time the characters look as bored as i was when watching the film !

Utter garbage. Don't waste your time.

Should file a class-action lawsuit for wasting viewers' time

[dj-194-960850 · 1/10 · 7 October 2017]

If you love being confused, this movie is for you. If you enjoy timelines that jump back and forth, you are in for a treat. If you like characters that are clueless and don't pick up weapons along the way, woo hoo! And what's with the SUPER BRIGHT LIGHTS? Unfortunately I had to give it a 1 out of 10, as there is no negative ratings. I would have been happy to give it a 0, but even that isn't an option so it gets a 1, and that's more than it deserves. I hope it wasn't made with taxpayer credits.

Can I Give This a Zero?

[emplehod-2 · 1/10 · 5 October 2017]

Normally I would provide a spoiler alert, but this movie was spoiled long before I saw it. Fortunately, there's a check box for this, so I guess I'm safe.

This movie was the biggest waste of time I have recently encountered. Firstly, the movie goes through numerous flashbacks without any indication whatsoever that they are happening. In this movie, David and Amy have a horrible marriage yet David is still trying to get back to her. He appears to be oblivious to the alien invasion and wonders why he sees helicopters crashing next to him and people lying dead everywhere. You can see in the beginning that he has an injured leg which he ties a piece of cloth around before driving. We don't know yet how he was injured. He comes across a lot of bodies in the street and stops. He doesn't really seem all that surprised still. A live man comes up and tells him there are others who need help and asks him to follow. This is where he meets Samantha, who also was in a failed marriage. They finally leave together without any others who are being attacked by aliens with laser weapons dressed like Coneheads from a Saturday Night Live skit. While they are driving and talking, you will suddenly notice that Samantha isn't in the car and it is only David. Very bad flashback technique.

Finally realizing it is a flashback, you see David nearly hit a man in the street at night. He stops and exits the car and asks the man if he's okay. The guy is just standing there like a zombie, not saying a word with a dazed look. So what does David do? Ask the strange stranger if he wants a ride, of course. Later, he encounters a weird woman in the middle of the road and she walks up and throws a large bucket of water all over his windshield. What does he do? Of course, he gets out and asks her if she is okay. Then an old geezer with a shotgun fires at him, so what does David do? Jump into his car and haul ass? No, he starts walking toward the dude's house like a moron and all the while this guy is yelling at him and telling him to get off his property. But he doesn't stop. The old man hears something and starts shooting, then tells David to get in or out (meaning his house). So naturally, David enters the old Shotgun- toting dude's house who just threatened his life. Aliens attack the house and the old guy suddenly remembers he forgot to lock the back door. How convenient. When they get in, he starts shooting and accidentally hits David in the leg. Oh! It makes sense now how he got injured. So you'd think. David then goes down into the basement with a sledge hammer and hides while the old guy shoots it out with aliens. Then one walks into the basement and David kills him with the sledge hammer. Now you'd think, after coming face-to-face with a pointed-headed alien that he would have a clue what is going on, but in the scenes later, he still doesn't seem to.

Finally David and Samantha are getting along pretty well and you can just see a new relationship beginning to blossom. David's wife was cheating on him anyway and he had admitted to Samantha that he had cheated on her in the past. So you just know these two survivors are gonna' hook up. Um... nope. A military helicopter lands to pick them up and Samantha begs David to get in but he stays. He insists he must find Amy. So Samantha flies off in the chopper, never to be seen again while David pushes on into town.

People in town are running and getting toasted by aliens and alien drones. David finally sees Amy running in a crowd of people and she sees him and they start the classic long run towards one another in slow motion. Yes, we all know this will end well. When they are ten feet from each other, she is hit in the back with a laser and dies. David sits down by her and holds her while an alien walks up to him and we all know he is killed.

Movie ends, as does 90 minutes of my life I can never get back. Save yourself the torture. Don't consider watching this trash.

Don't forget to lock the back door.

[doorsscorpywag · 1/10 · 24 February 2016]

Man goes to Denver to give his wife some space and world begins to fall apart. Planes crash and people stand around in the street with vacant looks on their faces. News reports wonder what is happening and so will the viewer.

One of the worst aspects of this really terrible alien invasion movie is that it jumps back and forth from the life before and the life after the invasion with scenes of the main characters at work and doing stuff. So much so that it gives you a headache trying to remember who is who so I gave up caring after 30 minutes and prayed for it to end.

The acting is something not seen in movies before. A level of 'bad' that will probably be a beloved genre of film in 100 years. Nobody seems a bit bothered that some really bad stuff is happening around them. Between the ones with the blank look on their faces and the ones supposedly OK there is no discernible difference. Our hero just blundered along with hardly a care as people lay dead around him and these really bad looking aliens killed people.

He hooked up with a completely emotionless group of survivors who try as they might were completely unable to look anything but people being paid very little to read the script and emote some kind of response to what was going on. They barely looked disturbed that an alien invasion was in progress.

Which brings up the point that the invasion was really badly put together. Something about the water and some weird looking monkey thing with a plastic ray gun and a weird hat. And why did they bother invading a house in the middle of nowhere guarded by a bloke with a shotgun and a limp. Surely that is taking thoroughness too far. There must have been far more important areas to invade? Of course our blundering hero was there so that probably covered it.

In the finale the hero blunders back to Salt Lake City and a rendezvous with his missus who was cheating on him anyway. Also her dog was poorly and her next door neighbours were dead.

Last few frames for a bit of emoting and that was it. It did serve one useful purpose though in that if we ever do get invaded by aliens ####don't forget to lock the back door.####

awful

[stevensonshawnie · 1/10 · 16 May 2017]

Don't Believe anyone that gives this more than one star, they must be family, horrible garbage. bad story line, bad acting, unbelievable, my husband left the room and i fast forwarded till the end to find something worth seeing and there was nothing. 699 and 1 hour wasted. I want a refund for both ugh

Phooey!

[wreckingcrew · 1/10 · 14 October 2017]

This movie just doesn't go anywhere. I'd would bet good money that there wasn't a script; that the entire movie was improvised on location. This isn't a true Sci-fi film, it's more like one of those sappy relationship "it's me, not you" love story movies. You really can't blame the cast for lousy acting, they can only do so much with a poorly written script and possibly poor direction.

***Possible spoiler alert***

The characters at the very beginning of the movie have no other scenes in the rest of the movie, which leads me to believe this scene was tacked on AFTER the movie was completed when someone realized this movie needed something to get it jump started - it just crawls along slowly after this brief introductory scene.

Worst Directing Ever!!!

[glbyrum · 8 October 2017]

nuff said. I get that they bounced back and forth in the time line, and if that's done right, it's a good thing but this was done so haphazardly. I kept falling asleep. Can't stay focused on a film that has botched scene sequencing. It was so poorly done, it made me loose interest. Much like trying to put a puzzle together with a boat load of ill fitting pieces.

You'll have more fun cleaning up your dog's mess after taking him for a walk

[stanrogersmith · 1/10 · 26 March 2016]

OK, I get it. When you have the desire to write and make a movie but don't have the Hollywood connections or greenbacks to make it an A-level movie, you do the best you can and you surprise everyone with a great B- movie. This wasn't the case. This was a complete dog turd. Waaaay too much time spent flashing back, flashing forward, flashing sideways. There was so much flashing I had a seizure! I would sue the filmmakers, but I mean, seriously, there is no way in hell this movie turned a profit. Even with the writers, producers, and actors forcing their family members to go to the theater to see it. How about a couple of flashbacks and then keep the rest of the story line linear? Huh? How about that? The lead chump was such a moron I wanted to beat him over the head with that sledgehammer he used to whack that one alien. If breathing weren't involuntary, that moron would have asphyxiated a long time ago. Does this moron not understand the rule about picking up bizarre weirdos on the side of the highway in the middle of the night? I really had to laugh at that. Then, he does it again with that chick in the middle of the road. Too bad that farmer Brown with his straw hat wasn't a better shot with his gun. He would have done all of us a favor. Now, I gotta admit, his wife was a cutie- patootie, but ultimately just another empty-headed bimbo. And once again here's a chance where the director could have earned at least a little thumbs up had he given the audience a nice gratuitous booty shot of her when she was in the shower. But he didn't. Blown opportunity! And what was the deal with all the airplanes falling out of the sky? How about explain that a bit? And then the ending. Holy crap!!! I wanted to kick in my television screen. If anybody can forward me the address of the writer or director of this embarrassment, please do, I'll find him and waterboard him to within inches of his life. This movie didn't know what the hell it wanted to be so, as is readily apparent, the writers and producers simply ripped off Close Encounters, Signs, The X-Files, War of the Worlds, and Battle Los Angeles and made an awful hodge-podge, hot mess, puke-o-rama of a "movie". But this movie? Jeez, this movie makes some of those Syfy channel "Asylum" movies look like Oscar gold. For the love of God, don't waste your time watching this!

Symbolism is strong in this movie

[kavlamitros · 8/10 · 3 July 2016]

I do not understand the negative reviews. This movie is not about aliens and invasion and big explosions. It uses these themes to deal with a much more down to earth issue which is 'alienation' in erotic relationships. This should be clear to even the most naive viewers.

Acting is good and character development very good. Montage is different than in the usual Hollywood flick which makes the story not so linear but that is a good thing as it is used in a nice way to keep the story up. There is tension building like in any nice thriller but it is more of an internal one as we descent into the troubles of marriage and ambition. External tension is following the same arc beautifully.

For an Indy film this was stellar and for a change there is a film with actually a little bit of meaning in it. If you want your 100th movie about aliens and explosions and heroics please move on. If you want something deeper definitely see this one.

Don't believe the negative whiners....

[KiwiSwede · 7/10 · 2 March 2016]

I couldn't believe the reviews I read after watching this. I enjoyed it, OK it's no Predator, but everything about this flick holds up. The acting was good, the effects well done, and although the story burnt slowly, was different and well done. Yes, it's told in a different format. Yes, it bounces back and forward in time to tell different aspects of a story that is important. People should stop whining and watch movies for what they are for, and that's entertainment, and not to slag off what they don't understand. One reviewer gave this film 2/10 but One Tree Hill 10/10.... so you be the judge. I'm giving this flick an honest 7/10, it gave me more than what I expected and I enjoyed the ride.

Had the director simply told the alien story, it would have been pretty good

[keith-774 · 3/10 · 16 October 2017]

With scenes lifted from "Signs" and Tom Cruise's "War of the Worlds," editing so choppy that I couldn't always tell what time line was being presented (and I understood "Primer." Hint: copying the editing style of "Lost" without actually understanding why they did it won't make a good movie), a cultural view of relationships and marriage that only Millenials who thought "90210" represented real life would believe, and what appears to be a sincere desire on the director's part to tell two stories, I simply cannot recommend this movie.

I was once a micro publisher and we regularly received books for review that wanted to tell one story, but thought that telling another story would make it successful. In every case, the story the author wanted to tell was a human drama story (the heartache of affairs, lost love, yadda, yadda, yadda), but they knew that other stories were much more popular. So they would couch the story they wanted to tell in another story: time travel (often civil war romance), westerns, vampires, etc. The result was always a terrible story, and this is no different. Which is a shame, because the special effects where better than average for a low-budget flick and the acting wasn't bad for a bunch of new-comers.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem in the flick (ok, the second biggest, it was SLOW) is that the director actually thinks 20-somethings experience life-altering moral issues. At 50+ it's actually quite tedious to see 20-somethings bemoaning how their lives are over and they're all alone. Kids that haven't actually experienced a lot of real life - and yet that was the story the director wanted to tell. Which, once again, is too bad because the alien story was actually quite well presented. (Well, except for the rifle. A bit too obvious as a plastic toy. Guys, you should have at least glued, sanded, and painted the plastic seam. I'm just sayin'.)

So, end result, not a movie I can recommend.

b.o.r.i.n.g

[ppacct · 1/10 · 21 July 2017]

the entire cast was sleepwalking through this turkey. It rates right up there with Plan 9 From Outer Space for really bad scifi. I have to type in five lines or they won't publish the review. How many ways can I say yuck, boring, terrible, a total waste of time and money to view it, and about a hundred other similar words. If you can't sleep, this is the cure.

Don't waste your time!!

[markrcaputo · 2 January 2018]

I was expecting a plot. By the end of the movie we have no idea what the main character does for a living as a workaholic and nothing made any sense throughout the movie. We saw aliens attacking but they never gave any background on that and the aliens were obviously humans in bad wardrobe. The effects were a joke. The final scene was ridiculous. We don't wonder if he got shot, we hope he did so no one makes a sequel.

Well it could of been better

[draydust · 1/10 · 25 February 2016]

Another alien invasion film but not told very well.

Way to many back story jump arounds.

This guy David goes off on a business trip and the world gets attacked from aliens. First the aliens i guess drugged the worlds water supply without anyone noticing to make people docile. They are going to kill everyone anyway. Why not a disease? Then they start crashing or shooting down all airplane liners. I guess that serves the plot of David having to drive home so he can pickup random strangers on the way to get killed but he survives to keep going towards home.

There are your typical idiotic characters you normally find in a movie and the lame choices they make. Come on this film story takes place in America. No one thinks hey lets get some guns for some kind of protection. Even the aliens are idiots. David actually at one point hits one just standing in the road with a car. You would think if a alien race can travel the stars they could of came up with a better way to attack earth or not stand in front of a moving car. How about nudging asteroids so they hit the planet coastal waters or use kinetic missiles like that. That would cause tidal waves and wipe out most of the worlds population in the first hours.

At least in the end David makes it to his cheating wife and she gets shot by an alien in front of him. Then the idiot holds her dead body until an alien walks up and blasts him with a cheap looking plastic 3d printed gun

Nothing more than waste of time.

[asteriosgnatsios · 1/10 · 10 January 2018]

Still looking up in the sky to see an alien.................................................................................................!

Tries to be an emotional love story and sci-fi, fails at both

[Otte1 · 2/10 · 21 August 2018]

Like 'Monsters', another failed attempt to cross-genre, this movie is really more about the protagonist getting back to his wife. The alien invasion is more like the obstacle. That is about the most positive statement that can be made about this movie. As mentioned, the use of flashbacks were incoherent and not well paced, meaning you spent more time trying to figure whether it was present or past than learning the backstory. Primary issue is acting. Knowing that there are hundreds, maybe thousands of unemployed actors that can act, why do directors settle on a main character that makes Kirsten Stewart look good? There is an alien invasion going on, and people have the same level of emotions as those waiting in a grocery line. Main character has one confused look for most of the movie, regardless of the scene. I lost 90 minutes of my life, I'm warning you not to do the same. Sharknado 4 is an upgrade.

No aliens shown... the girlfriend dies

[tgraca-95763 · 1/10 · 16 October 2017]

My summary is the entire plot of this movie. The rest of the movie is a bunch of cry-baby dialog, unnatural actions (I blame the director) and more cry-baby dialog. There were a few seconds of some alien drones, but they were not impressive in the least. If you are a fledgling amateur movie producer, this movie could be an inspiration in that anyone (including you) could make a better movie than this 1.

Filmmakers need a refresher course on the use of flashbacks

[Abchasi · 3/10 · 10 October 2017]

I view most films as having potential. The problem is that most don't live up to that potential. Either the story is underdeveloped, or it's an idea we've seen a million times over (in this case, surviving an alien invasion), or the characters are underdeveloped, or the plot just isn't strung together very well, or it's a combination of the above problems. Here it seems to be all of the above. And one of the biggest flaws it has is the use of flashbacks. To quote Wikipedia: "A flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point in the story. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story's primary sequence of events to fill in crucial backstory. In the opposite direction, a flashforward (or prolepsis) reveals events that will occur in the future.[3] Both flashback and flashforward are used to cohere a story, develop a character, or add structure to the narrative. In literature, internal analepsis is a flashback to an earlier point in the narrative; external analepsis is a flashback to a time before the narrative started." Here, the scenes and points of history in the movie just randomly jump all over the place with no apparent connection or reason. The story, as summarized a dozen times, is about David, a workaholic who tries to get from a business trip in Denver back to his nearly-estranged (and cheating but who can blame her) wife. He is at first completely clueless about the alien invasion, and everyone he meets at first is cryptic about it ("THEY" poisoned the water, "THEY" invaded my property and I'm gonna empty the gun on them). The scenes are disproportionately out of order, jumping between scenes with him alone, scenes with his wife, scenes with him and his wife, scenes with him trying to help victims, scenes running away from or into aliens, etc. At one point it jumps back and forth between David rescuing a woman and David rescuing a man, WITH NO APPARENT REASON. The flashbacks, if that's what you want to call them, are not linked in any logical way. They could have strung the story out in a much more linear way (Couple having problems, David leaving for Denver, wife cheating, David slowly realizing the invasion, David tries to get home, David helps man infected by water, David helps crowd and only makes it out with woman, David finds his way home and runs into his wife just before....you know). And it would have worked FOR the film. Again, overused story plot, but it would have made so much more sense for the viewer. I get that maybe the producers wanted to try something new, maybe original story angles. And that could have been great, theoretically. Instead, they just caused the plot to jump everywhere, adding more confusion than necessary--confusion that could have gotten cleared up in a much better way, but nothing comes out of it. Instead he makes it back by pure dumb luck only to accidentally run into his wife by pure dumb luck, and be the last guy alive in the end. The whole movie could be one linear scene, with maybe one or two flashbacks to spice things up a bit, and the whole thing could be about David and his wife trying to reconcile over the phone while he tries to make it home alive. But no, we get this jumbled up mess that barely makes it to the end. Better luck next time.

Wait WHAT

[ictxckr · 1/10 · 8 October 2017]

I rarely write a review. I enjoy science fiction movies even most bad ones have some measure of enjoyment to be found.

This movie however has no redeeming features. It had great potential with the premise. It had potential for setting. But it did none of those things.

It had some pretty good special effects. OK, I guess I just validated my one star.

Unbelievable characters, behaving irrationally, with poor camera work, little to no continuity, told with an uninspired and trite script, by a director who had a fetish for a close up of the hero (?).

Yeah, this IS a bad film.

A different pace than most... but good

[karl-46168 · 8/10 · 7 March 2016]

Yes yes yes... there have been a plethora of alien movies invading the big (and small) screen over recent years. And many have been downright dreadful. Poor scripts, predictable plots and amateurish acting, direction and production.

However, this is most certainly not one of those.

The plot is solid. The shifts in time line well considered and engaging. The acting suspenseful and the aliens... hmmmmmm? OK the aliens (as usual) play a very low key role and are mostly shadowy off camera characters. But then hey, they're aliens. So what do you expect? Lol

All-in-all an enjoyable movie if you're ready to engage a little by stepping into the actual plot and give it some space to affect you. I know that most movie watchers expect to be bedazzled and thrown into a mindless haze of visual spectacle but that doesn't mean that there's no space for more introspective 'alien' movies such as this one.

So switch off the lights, make a hot chocolate and enjoy this horror-sci-drama for what it is.

Better than I expected

[ryanalarsen · 6/10 · 12 October 2017]

This was a movie I went into completely blind, kind of expecting to think it to be not worth my time. It turned out better than I expected! Yes, the jumping back and forth in time was distracting, but not difficult to follow if you were paying attention. The special effects are about what you'd expect from a made-for-TV movie, if not a little better. The setting was unexpected and refreshing. Certainly not the best movie out there, but not the worst, either. I'd recommend it.

Disappointing

[bostjeff · 2/10 · 24 September 2018]

Spoiler alert. The acting is fine, but the story line is terrible. This is actually a verrrry long, sometimes boring and disjointed love story with a smidgen of alien violence thrown in. Very little. Alien encounters probably make up less than 15 minutes of the entire movie. The main character is a wimp. During one alien encounter, he injures the alien, but doesn't think to take its weapon. Later, he hits one with a car, and again he wants to leave. This time, however, his female passenger convinces him to take the weapon. Unfortunately, although he has it in his possession for at least an entire day, he never tries to learn how to use it until he's confronted by aliens, and then of course, he doesn't know how to shoot it. In the end, his wife is killed, and we assume aliens take over the earth, because the dodo apparently never had the curiosity to learn all he could about alien technology and use it to his advantage. Too bad the casting director didn't select Will Smith for the lead. He would have kicked alien butt. ;)