The poster is very cool. Too bad it has nothing to do with the movie. I don't know if I've seem a more poorly edited film. I realize the budget was low, but that has nothing to do with putting the scenes together in such a way that a story makes sense. Anytime something happens we either cut away in the middle or jump in after it's happened. There is no narrative here, just random scenes that tell us nothing about what is happening. Then with virtually no setup a completely new element randomly appears, but other than one initial reaction none of the characters seem the least bit curious how it relates or what they should be doing about it.
If my assumption about the plot is correct there is an interesting story in here somewhere, but it's lost due to a weak understanding of story structure and the aforementioned poor editing.
98 Reviews
All the potential in the world, somewhere around Sharknado avenue.
influxtwo21 August 2020
All the potential in the world and THIS is what they come up with? I'm sorry. I love scifi, and horror, spanning back to the 50's and earlier, but this was just a turkey. My first thoughts were, well, the lead actress could not even take her own lines seriously nor be convincing. She'd smile & smirk at really awkward moments that should've been terrifying if it were really happening. The acting was only a small pinch away from bearable... but the momentum and potential really had me buzzed at first. Then I realized, oof.. this is a dud. First of all these are the only interesting people this movie can focus on? It's like... come on there has to be some more interesting people in the town. and don't get me started on the big CGI reveal....Let's just say That could've used a bit more time to cook in the kitchen. Even the sound editing was a complete turkey by the end and prior to that the musical notes were so dragged out it was almost unbearable. haha. This had potential, it really did...and somewhat competent actors. But the production was kind of just doomed from the start. I hate to rag on this derivative mess but right down to the writing it is just undercooked, all of it. Pass. A strong 3 out of 10. But for free on the ScyFy channel this could have it's place somewhere around Sharknado avenue.
Austr-alien...
s327616920 February 2020
The Dustwalker is a basic budget alien thriller from down under. Its limited funding shows from the get go but its not a bad little film.
It has the benefit of a rather unique setting that's suitably isolated, a small Australian outback town that fits in well with the back story. Having actors who actually know how to act helps this film too.
The action such as it is, is a bit mixed. Its a little too slow for my liking and its budgetary restraints stop it from doing anything novel that would have lifted it.
I think with decent money this could have been a winner but as it stands its only "ok".
5/10 from me.
It has the benefit of a rather unique setting that's suitably isolated, a small Australian outback town that fits in well with the back story. Having actors who actually know how to act helps this film too.
The action such as it is, is a bit mixed. Its a little too slow for my liking and its budgetary restraints stop it from doing anything novel that would have lifted it.
I think with decent money this could have been a winner but as it stands its only "ok".
5/10 from me.
Terrible film
albinoraven23 June 2020
Just watched a Hulu movie called Dustwalker I'm not entirely sure why. At first it was Lovecraftian psychological horror. (Look at the image art on the movie poster and dvd cover for reference to why I thought it'd be more Cthulhu-related.) Then the 10 minute mark hit and the plot got thrown out the window. Too many plot devices that were never explained and left unanswered for the duration. The first one was that town's only cell tower is down...which we find out because the tech pulls out his cell phone and calls A friend in town...who answers /on her cell phone/. This isn't even a spoiler since /NEVER COMES UP AGAIN/. Also, I HATED the ending. I'll spoil that below.
Spoilers start here::
I have a few questions:
1. Why is the movie called Dustwalker? The creature never goes near the dust storm (which itself is a one-and-done plot device that never gets explained. The thing goes underground as it's primary mode of transportation.
2. How the hell does the ALIEN speak and understand English within a couple hours after arriving on earth?
3. Can we talk about how the creature is half scorpion, half Resident Evil dog thing, but Is also a centaur?
4. The ending. Ugh. So. The entire movie is spent with survivors running from people gone murder-hobo who exist only to kill all humans and infect them with alien DNA or whatever. Then big bad comes along (the third of 4 times we see the creature), and takes all of the infected people, puts them in a pit and freaking /IMMOLATES THEM/ with its "now I'm a dragon-scorpion-demon-dog-thing" magical fire breath. That's it. The whole premise of the movie sucks so hard that the writer literally figured it'd be easier to just set it alight than try to fill in all of the plot holes.
If you're a fan of really campy, tropey bad films, go find one that doesn't suck and watch that instead. Overall, I give this movie a 2/10 stars, and that's just because I like psych horror (though this one down played the horror aspect.)
If you're a fan of really campy, tropey bad films, go find one that doesn't suck and watch that instead. Overall, I give this movie a 2/10 stars, and that's just because I like psych horror (though this one down played the horror aspect.)
Just awful.
alfredsmith19 February 2020
This is so bad I only watched half of it. This movie is an abject lesson in how not to make a sci-fi/horror film. Contains mostly awful acting, awful characters, awful editing, awful story and awful CGI. It's just awful. The only redeeming feature was the magnificent scenery of the Australian outback.
Please do not waste your time watching this turkey. There are thousands of movies better than this.
Please do not waste your time watching this turkey. There are thousands of movies better than this.
Plotless garbage
redwolf_cars21 March 2020
Warning: Spoilers
You start in Australia with a mystical meteor touchdown. Random australian guys starts fondling a deceased rat and gets infected with some mind controlling substance. One by one the town folks all seem to fondle dead animals with some fungus like spores on them. They all go zombie. Enter some type of non uniformed nameless police vixen who is days away from leaving police work in this aussie dump. Everyone is slow on the learning curve that the folks standing statuonary around looking blank eith pulsating red lesions and blotches are infected. Now giant sandstorm. Somehow related to creatures arrival. Zombies syart randomly killing people. Heroine cop lady still hasnt figured anything out. Creature uses its scorpion like stinger to round up his zombie folks like a meat on a stick and dissapesrs with them. More zombie people. 3-4 people arm up with guns barely shoot anyone or anything. Sxorpion creature tries to take a young girl they all ask it not too. It doesn't Scorpion like creature eventually rounds up a pile of people then sets tem on fire. Sandstorm disappears. Cut to scene where everyones just relaxed and talking about figuring out what the thing was and credits. I'm pretty sure an 8 year old drew out this plot with crayons and their rich father paid someone to make a movie. Complete garbage.
Low expectations, still disappointed
josephtzichterman21 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
My wife and I found this movie on Hulu and watched the trailer - looked like a low-stakes horror film and it was rated 4 stars on IMDB. We decided to watch it, knowing it was probably not going to be all that thrilling.
We were even more disappointed than we thought.
Dialogue: I would say the biggest disappointment of them all was the dialogue. It was written the way a bad book writes exclamations. I think the Doc actually said, "Incredible!" at the beginning of a scene. People used nonsense phrases and ignored what others said for the sake of moving the story along. It was both hard-to-follow and difficult to understand.
Plot: This movie made very little sense. We feel like the "big twist" at the end was both poorly explained and quickly ignored as the movie tried to end on a feel-good moment. The movie is basically, "What if that fungus that kills ants worked on people?" It jumps from scene-to-scene with no context, and lines that seem incredibly important one moment are completely ignored in the next. Basically, it was sloppy. Full of plots holes and unanswered questions.
Acting: The acting was alright, it's not their fault they had to read a terrible script. The zombies themselves all made weird faces as if their instructions were, "Look like you smelled something bad and are mad about it."
Graphics: The CGI whenever a zombie-person roared was just - bad. Left for Dead on the PS3 bad. The monster at the end was fine, but unexciting.
The end of the movie just left us with a ton of questions - Did the alien accomplish the thing he was supposed to do? What are they going to do about all the dead animals they still have laying around? Do the people know the monster is a protector? Why would they continue to study a thing that was supposed to be destroyed? How did that alien-bug fly a spaceship? How was the alien able to create that massive dust wall? Magic? Are there more bugs currently infected like the pill-bug that infected the blonde girl? Is the disease actually gone? What happened to the grandma, the alien's spaceship, the first teenage girl, the teenage kids' dog, Frank, and Dean's baby?
If we got any of these plots holes wrong, apologies, but we're not going to watch it again to figure them out.
We were even more disappointed than we thought.
Dialogue: I would say the biggest disappointment of them all was the dialogue. It was written the way a bad book writes exclamations. I think the Doc actually said, "Incredible!" at the beginning of a scene. People used nonsense phrases and ignored what others said for the sake of moving the story along. It was both hard-to-follow and difficult to understand.
Plot: This movie made very little sense. We feel like the "big twist" at the end was both poorly explained and quickly ignored as the movie tried to end on a feel-good moment. The movie is basically, "What if that fungus that kills ants worked on people?" It jumps from scene-to-scene with no context, and lines that seem incredibly important one moment are completely ignored in the next. Basically, it was sloppy. Full of plots holes and unanswered questions.
Acting: The acting was alright, it's not their fault they had to read a terrible script. The zombies themselves all made weird faces as if their instructions were, "Look like you smelled something bad and are mad about it."
Graphics: The CGI whenever a zombie-person roared was just - bad. Left for Dead on the PS3 bad. The monster at the end was fine, but unexciting.
The end of the movie just left us with a ton of questions - Did the alien accomplish the thing he was supposed to do? What are they going to do about all the dead animals they still have laying around? Do the people know the monster is a protector? Why would they continue to study a thing that was supposed to be destroyed? How did that alien-bug fly a spaceship? How was the alien able to create that massive dust wall? Magic? Are there more bugs currently infected like the pill-bug that infected the blonde girl? Is the disease actually gone? What happened to the grandma, the alien's spaceship, the first teenage girl, the teenage kids' dog, Frank, and Dean's baby?
If we got any of these plots holes wrong, apologies, but we're not going to watch it again to figure them out.
From one Aussie to another.....don't waste your time
sheepgrazing19 June 2020
I really wanted to like this....but....sadly....it didn't happen.
The acting was atrocious....the directing was awful.
Such a pity I can't un-see this and get my time back....oh and how the red head ever got a part in the 3 Hunger Games movies I will never know
I feel like I don't deserve my eyes after watching this movie.
MovieDadJH21 June 2020
How could I do this to myself? How could I allow myself to watch a movie this bad? Is this a manifestation of a deep-rooted self-loathing that I have not addressed?
I am almost half a century old, and I have seen a LOT of movies in my lifetime, but this was THE #1 WORST movie I have ever watched to the end.
The acting is so horrible that it seems the characters themselves don't even like this movie...and they're the ones in it! Have any of them ever had acting lessons? I am convinced the producer just picked random people while walking through the grocery store one day and asked them to play these parts, and they said "Sure, why not."
The plot is nonsensical and incomplete. It's like someone just taped all the scenes together with Duck Tape and forced it to be a movie against its will.
This movie is so bad that it is protesting against itself. It doesn't even want to be a movie.
It feels mistreated and abused, and it is still harboring anger and resentment against the producers and studio for forcing it to be a movie. It never even wanted to be made, but they made it anyway, and now this movie is ashamed of what it has become.
It knows it's not its own fault, but yet it still feels guilty and dirty for becoming a movie, and being seen by actual people. It's just that bad. So bad, in fact, that the movie itself has become depressed and traumatized, and is now a troubled film with lots of baggage to work through.
I hope no one ever does this to another film. I hope no one ever again picks random people from a Wal-Mart parking lot, shoves a script into their hands, and then records their lines on film 3hrs later. I hope no one ever again writes a screenplay while under sedation lying on the operating table waiting for surgery. I hope my eyes and brain forgive me for watching the entire 90+ minutes of the abomination.
I honestly meant well. I thought it would get better. I thought there would be some big twist, reveal, or climax that made the initial mind-numbing torture of watching the film a fair and reasonable price to pay, but alas, there was not.
I have violated myself by watching Dust Walker, and I hope I can live long enough to forgive myself for this. But one thing is for sure, I will never do that to myself again, because I love myself too much.
And for everyone reading this review, my hope for you is that you will love yourself enough to not watch this film. Skip it, if not for yourself, then skip it for your children, and for your children's children. Why add more embarrassment and shame to this movie's shattered self-image. It already feels horrible for being what it is. Please do the right thing...and never, ever watch it. I beg you.
I am almost half a century old, and I have seen a LOT of movies in my lifetime, but this was THE #1 WORST movie I have ever watched to the end.
The acting is so horrible that it seems the characters themselves don't even like this movie...and they're the ones in it! Have any of them ever had acting lessons? I am convinced the producer just picked random people while walking through the grocery store one day and asked them to play these parts, and they said "Sure, why not."
The plot is nonsensical and incomplete. It's like someone just taped all the scenes together with Duck Tape and forced it to be a movie against its will.
This movie is so bad that it is protesting against itself. It doesn't even want to be a movie.
It feels mistreated and abused, and it is still harboring anger and resentment against the producers and studio for forcing it to be a movie. It never even wanted to be made, but they made it anyway, and now this movie is ashamed of what it has become.
It knows it's not its own fault, but yet it still feels guilty and dirty for becoming a movie, and being seen by actual people. It's just that bad. So bad, in fact, that the movie itself has become depressed and traumatized, and is now a troubled film with lots of baggage to work through.
I hope no one ever does this to another film. I hope no one ever again picks random people from a Wal-Mart parking lot, shoves a script into their hands, and then records their lines on film 3hrs later. I hope no one ever again writes a screenplay while under sedation lying on the operating table waiting for surgery. I hope my eyes and brain forgive me for watching the entire 90+ minutes of the abomination.
I honestly meant well. I thought it would get better. I thought there would be some big twist, reveal, or climax that made the initial mind-numbing torture of watching the film a fair and reasonable price to pay, but alas, there was not.
I have violated myself by watching Dust Walker, and I hope I can live long enough to forgive myself for this. But one thing is for sure, I will never do that to myself again, because I love myself too much.
And for everyone reading this review, my hope for you is that you will love yourself enough to not watch this film. Skip it, if not for yourself, then skip it for your children, and for your children's children. Why add more embarrassment and shame to this movie's shattered self-image. It already feels horrible for being what it is. Please do the right thing...and never, ever watch it. I beg you.
You can probably walk your dust to another movie
Kamurai2523 June 2020
Okay watch at best, might watch again, but can't recommend.
This is an Australian movie, so its a whole new cast to me, and I only saw the thumbnail, so I was excited to see what a Dustwalker is....I'm still kind of wondering.
This is a "small town under threat" trope, but the seemed to have a vested interest in making sure in keeping the audience guessing. They accomplished this by sort of shifting goalposts though, so every time you think they've established something they're going to work with, we're on to the next stage of problems, and the previous stuff, while it mattered for where we're at in the story, isn't currently relevant anymore. It sort of gave me this continual feeling of disappointment throughout the movie, even though the action is ramping up.
Even the production value was pretty good, they clearly got the look they wanted for the effects, granted it was likely a small budget.
It's a great concept, and I actual enjoyed the structure of events, but the audience needs to see more of some parts, and a less of others. The writing just wasn't paced well enough for me, but I can't write it off as a bad movie entirely: hopefully other people like this more than I did.
This is an Australian movie, so its a whole new cast to me, and I only saw the thumbnail, so I was excited to see what a Dustwalker is....I'm still kind of wondering.
This is a "small town under threat" trope, but the seemed to have a vested interest in making sure in keeping the audience guessing. They accomplished this by sort of shifting goalposts though, so every time you think they've established something they're going to work with, we're on to the next stage of problems, and the previous stuff, while it mattered for where we're at in the story, isn't currently relevant anymore. It sort of gave me this continual feeling of disappointment throughout the movie, even though the action is ramping up.
Even the production value was pretty good, they clearly got the look they wanted for the effects, granted it was likely a small budget.
It's a great concept, and I actual enjoyed the structure of events, but the audience needs to see more of some parts, and a less of others. The writing just wasn't paced well enough for me, but I can't write it off as a bad movie entirely: hopefully other people like this more than I did.
Fun movie! See for yourself!
saharasands-3111318 April 2020
Now I wouldn't rate this an 8 compared to all movies out there but I feel like for what it is, for a movie of this genre with such a low budget, it deserves an eight! I disagree with some of the negative reviews. Of course the special effects were not all that special but they were good enough for me and it was a fun ride. There was one brief moment when an actor jumped on top of something and that looked very cheesy & should have been cut but don't want to put a spoiler in here. I thought the acting was good, especially the lead! I didn't find the storyline hard to follow (one scene with the teacher seemed like they forgot a little bit of their script because of the delay with her actions but not a big deal). I thought there was a lot of suspense and I didn't find it slow or boring. I've heard people find other things slow that I don't find slow because I feel like it shows character development and realistic reactions from people. I think people are so conditioned to fast paced scenes that they forget that if something like this happened in real life, and the people in the movie were real and not in a movie, they might not react the same way and as quickly as actors do in a script. If that makes sense. So to me, that seems more realistic and makes it more suspenseful. I thought it was a fun little movie to chill out with! Easy to watch!
Interesting small sci-fi film
jmbovan-47-16017310 September 2020
This is a small film, but it is still engaging. Reminded me of The Crazies but only set in a small Australian town and the source of the madness appears to be alien in origin. This has resemblance to a zombie film but more of 28 Days Later than Romero. Different, not a "great" film, but yet I found the main characters engaging. Not original and I predicted the ending fairly fast, but nonetheless I enjoyed watching this.
Not the worst I've seen
Keptinkaveman8 March 2020
Not the worst I've seen, and that seems to be the best thing I can say about it. It's a low budget film, so I can deal with bad special FX's. But the acting was bad, and characters were unbelievable. The story itself wasn't too bad, with a better director it might have succeeded. A writer should not direct their own work, especially amatuers. It was very slow, all the way through. Not really worth a watch.
Poor
iainsmith-180611 May 2022
Started off very slow and never sped up ! You can tell this is a low budget movie but it's poorly made with a lame storyline . It's so bad you end up watching the whole movie to see if it gets better but it doesn't ! Also in the UK the movie is called Alien Parasite.
Fine
kannis-7711325 June 2020
It's not the worst movie I've seen by far. I couldn't tell the budget from this movie, but I could tell they spent much more money on special effects rather than directing or the actors. Terrible, overused sound effects. I did like the concept and idea with the monster, but they went down the wrong path with it if I'm honest. Not horrible but also not very good. Acting was fine but directing sucked, also some chase/action scenes had terrible camera direction. Also something minor but that really bugged me was how clear the radios were it was super unrealistic.
A Standard Sci-fi Horror Film
worldmoviewatcher22 February 2020
Not a bad film although some parts didn't make sense and the action was too slow in places. There are some great views of the Australian outback which added to the mood of the isolated environment. The CGI was surprisingly amazing, particularly for a low budget film.
Could have been much more with more inventive and better executed action.
5/10 for good intentions
Could have been much more with more inventive and better executed action.
5/10 for good intentions
Don't waste your time
safair-729-18713820 February 2020
Written and directed by teenagers? Great name for a movie , unfortunately it was wasted on this one . I knew what I was in for when the person I was watching with said , lets just wait 10 minutes to see if it improves . It' didn't , after 10 minutes I was running a list of movies I've already watched through my mind and would have preferred re watching over this .
Entertaining enough for an afternoon
xaocam-7748022 February 2020
It really lacked polish, the acting was a bit hamstrung and the dialogue basic. The CGI was lower end for this day and age but that is also a reflection of the budget. Simple things like making sure the actors know how to operate a two way radio would have annoyed me less.
Not a use of time
muhtashimurrahman2 March 2020
From around 10 minutes, it got so boring I literally passed seconds to just finish and review this movie. The name is nice, so the poster. But at last it showed no potential on plot or acting. Some kind of badly mixed up boring scifi.
I've seen worse
jatstar-819 January 2021
Is it a masterpiece? Far from it, it's a low budget alien/zombie mix. I went in not expecting much and it was better than I expected. Perfect for a boring afternoon to pass some time. Maybe I'm a little biased being Aussie myself but it's definitely worth more than 1-3 stars.
don't understand all the hatred for this movie
davidm-1414 October 2020
I've been around IMDB long enough to realize that some people just seem to love to leave crappy comments for movies. not every film can be the "worst" ever made. i mean, i'll leave "santa claus and the ice cream bunny" to fill that spot for me.
this film is slow and creepy. the acting is no better or worse than any other independent horror movie, but the story stuck with me after it was over. that's the sign of a good scary story, told well.
a small dying outback town has a visitor from far away, and the townspeople are being systematically taken over by a parasitic alien lifeform. we're just as in the dark as the unaffected residents who don't understand what's going on.
the scenery is gorgeous and it reminded me of another sci-fi story i read a long time ago, "stinger" by robert mccammon. another story of a desert community terrorized by aliens.
this film is slow and creepy. the acting is no better or worse than any other independent horror movie, but the story stuck with me after it was over. that's the sign of a good scary story, told well.
a small dying outback town has a visitor from far away, and the townspeople are being systematically taken over by a parasitic alien lifeform. we're just as in the dark as the unaffected residents who don't understand what's going on.
the scenery is gorgeous and it reminded me of another sci-fi story i read a long time ago, "stinger" by robert mccammon. another story of a desert community terrorized by aliens.
It wasn't the worst movie I've ever seen.
nicole-larimer15 September 2020
Well acted but has issues
ant36au23 December 2020
The synopsis irritated me, we don't have sheriff's in Australia, at least as they are in a America ,our sheriff's are more like court appointed debt collectors, towns like this would, as all Aussie towns in Australia do, have Police and the would certainly be in uniform, not running around in plain clothes, not forgetting the vehicles driven in this movie and the ridiculous logo's, Aussie police vehicles all have POLICE on both sides of the vehicles and either blue and yellow markings or on older vehicles black marking along the length of the vehicle, there may be a coat of arms of the state but they are incorporated into the regular markings, that being said I think this movie is being a little underrated by some reviewers as it's
a well acted one even if the script is a little simplistic, the few effect there are are well done and all over it's worth a watch on a lazy Friday night or Sunday.
Mindless but harmless
Pegasus-1017 June 2020
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