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Reviews
Alien Armageddon (2011)
Not bad
The special effects are not that brilliant, and neither is the acting. It had an interesting story although at times it was very confusing and convoluted and difficult to follow. It did have some good scenes however, I do think the film would have worked better had it been shorter and not so much screen time wasted in one room. (Budget constraints I guess) When things are being explained in the movie the explanation is not sufficient enough to quite hold it together.
I can't say I'd ever watch it again, but I'm not going to say it was a total waste of time. Alien Armegeddon is one of those films were there is a lot going on, and lot more gone on, but you don't see much. It would have made a better, say 6 episode series.
Super Tanker (2011)
Why?
Supertanker is dull as dishwater I recently reviewed camel spiders with its inept script and plot chasms. In comparison to supertanker camel spiders is a masterpiece. There must be a wealth of ideas out there are for a good sy-fy movie, so why Supertanker was scripted and filmed is beyond me it has absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever. Like all sy-fy movies it has a protagonists, in supertanker they are dark black clouds which do nothing much apart from hover over the tanker with an not at all menacing hint that they are devastating population areas such as Hawaii. The only other beasts in this movie are a couple of macho egos. There isn't much more I can say about supertanker except the acting is the usual third rate fodder from sy-fy productions. Supertanker cannot even pass as a disaster movie apart from the fact that the movie itself is a disaster.
Camel Spiders (2011)
Usual syfy formula
Camel Spiders (another syfy offering) crosses all the boundaries of credibility and credulity. I don't think the creators of this movie even cared about detail and plot.
Starts off in Iraq, or the Arizona desert, who knows who cares, the writers obviously didn't! After a gun fight between the Americans and the enemy, an American soldier gets shot and dies, then the camel spiders come and drag off all the enemy fighters as it is about lunch time. The Americans don't see this at all, and are puzzled as to where the enemy have gone. They pack the dead soldier into a temporary coffin and three of the camel spiders hitchhike into the coffin. No scene change, same desert scene, and we see a sheriff chasing a joy rider, who then crashes into the Army truck carrying the coffin, and about dozen camel spiders crawl out of the coffin and into the desert, 10 minutes later entire Arizona desert swarming with thousands of camel spiders attacking anyone who happens to be in the area.
Students out and about with their professor get chased down by a giant camel spider, the giant spider jumps on the face of one of the students and chomps it off, others run and find an empty house, they break in but none can get a signal on their phones. One of the students says he took a photo of the camel spider that was chasing them, he shows them a stock photo of the camel spider chasing them, he shows them a picture on his phone of a camel spider posing flat on a black background, not a shot of it leaping through air, or munching on his mate's face, but actually a plate picture from a book!!!!!! So the kid says I can identify it through my phones encyclopaedia !!!!!!!! - Tahdah!! 1 second later he tells them it is a Camel spider native to Iraq!!!!!!!!!!!! From then on in, it gets much worse, you wonder is that possible and with this movie, yes it is not only possible but an unpleasant reality. Next follows half an hour of boring dialogue as several people from the local diner, Sheriff and Army crew hide out in a building and do various things like chat, flirt, sleep and play the harmonica, with occasional hysterics from a couple of irritating females, one who screams in clichés 'We're all going to die!!!' etc.
CGI is usual SyFy fodder. Acting dreadful. Dialogue: awful. Screech factor unbearable. Yawn factor high! A bad movie!
Grey Skies (2010)
Grey Skies
First off I must mention the dialogue in this movie, which is bizarre. After a while I thought I may have been watching a comedy, but there wasn't anything really funny happening apart from the dodgy dialogue and some amazingly stupid reactions from the characters. For example a scene of strange footprints in the forest, and one of the characters exclaims 'what are they?' They are footprints you Dumbo!!! One of the characters throughout the movie taking photographs,captures an alien through the window when taking a shot in the house. The alien is plain as a pike staff in the photograph, with bug eyes, rubber body suit and quite plain to see arms and one of the characters says 'is that a Deer?' Don't know about you but I have never seen a deer with arms, and bug eyes wearing a rubbing suit, unless Deers in Clare, Michigan, USA wear S&M gear. After being tracked by an alien, that keeps bobbing about and showing itself one of the characters says 'I have just been followed by a Racoon'! The first hour nothing much happens, in fact it is really tedious, so I guess the dodgy dialogue keeps the viewer interested wondering if it could get any worse. Well it did get worse, the film is a bit of mess. First when the characters are alien abducted, when they come back they are physically sick and tired and bit zombified, but unless you are paying attention you're not likely to notice. The aliens try to get in the house to get the rest with the help of the abducted zombie victims, politely knocking at the front door :/ as the film progresses the writers must have gotten tired with that idea and opted to beam the aliens straight into the house, then... bored with that they must have thought what the heck, lets just turn them into alien zombies without any effort at all. When the last one is left, she says to the alien 'I don't care where you from you're not taking me' more daft dialogue, so they take her without any effort, do some alien abduction type probing, why? who cares by this stage you have seen it all before and done much better, so all in all, a half witted film, with an half witted script.
Deadtime Stories (2009)
Better than the first
IMDb have both movies very mixed up, with episodes from number 2 and cast listed in vol 1 and vice versa. Anyway these three little offerings are slightly better than the first vol, although again the pace is slow on all three. Out of them all I thought the first one was best. This anthology has upped the gore a bit, so you're going see chewed up bodies and loose eyeballs. The gore is also quite effective. Performances all round are a bit wooden and the second story for me is the most boring with an ineffectual plot concerning a dull professor and his lover student, she gets pregnant and commits suicide, because said Professor's university syllabus and lesson plans are more important than his pregnant lover he's a stickler that all students attend his classes no matter what...so yeah predictable.
The first story is possibly the best, about a trio that get stuck in a cave after a rock wall, splendid gore and interesting story. The final offering has shades of Romero Zombie movie about dust from Mars that not only heals for a short time but also turns the cured into raving nymphomaniacs as well as other things!!! ;)
Star Crystal (1986)
Not bad
The first part of the movie was pretty dire, and the acting was really awful,but it got better after most of the crew apart from 2 were killed.
Some reviewers have commented that the movie is another cheap Alien rip off but it isn't really. It does change direction from gooey killings to ET type Alien but I thought that was a nice direction to go with the movie. Some commentators have knocked the effects but I didn't really notice them; most Sci Fi space films have pan views of the ships in space and this was no different. The interior of the ship was adequate and was OK for a mid 80s sci film. I didn't understand why there was no walking decks as most of the ships access seemed to be through claustrophobic tunnels.
You'll either hate it or be satisfied with it. It isn't a great movie by any stretch of the imagination but it is more than watchable. When I first put it on I fell asleep bored out of my head, but I gave it another go and I am glad I did.