Alien Fear Collection (Mill Creek Entertainment DVD Set)
Average
Picture: D Average Sound: D Extras: D Features:
The Absence of Light – D
Willows Way – D
6 Angels – D
Exterminator City – C-
The
latest collection of awful low-budget crap passing for cinema released by Mill
Creek is called the Alien Fear
Collection. Of the four features only Willows Way has anything to do with aliens. Aliens that are
also time-traveling angels with magic wands. I think.
All four
films have many, many problems. Chief among them are crappy actors
delivering even worse dialogue, which is maddeningly common among low budget
independent genre films. But The
Absence of Light and Willows Way
dig deep to create new and more creative problems for themselves. Willows Way tries desperately to weave
a complex and engaging plot that skips through various timelines. Instead
they end up with a repetitive jumbled mess and the aforementioned magic
time-traveling alien angels wearing tiaras. That is honestly the most complete
plot summary I can give you.
On the
other hand, whoever wrote The Absence of
Light doesn’t seem to have any idea what a plot is. The film seems to
revolve around two warring “dirty deeds” agencies as they fight over politics,
software that can track all personal data on anyone in the country, and
genetically engineered monster soldiers. But aside from ongoing excuses
to shoot each other and a big old explosion at the end, none of this has any
affect on the plot of the movie because there is none. The only thing
that The Absence of Light has going
for it are celebrity cameos from Tom Savini and Tony Todd. Otherwise this
film is viscerally painful to watch.
6 Angels is actually a bit better.
It at least has a functioning plot and characters that change as the story
progresses. The acting and dialogue are still bad, and there are scenes
where the main character is in her pajamas for no apparent reason, but the
filmmakers took some care in how the film was executed and displayed at least a
modicum of talent despite their low budget. The story picks up as Taileen
awakes from a coma after 12 years. She has been called to become the
newest Angel of the Circle. For
hundreds of years 3 angels have struggled against 3 demons. When one
falls, another is called, and so their battle continues. But the demons
have discovered a way to break the cycle and disrupt the balance of power.
And then
there’s Exterminator
City. Set in a
gritty futuristic metropolis that is apparently inhabited entirely by robots
and naked porn stars, Exterminator City
follows a robot serial killer and the robot detective who’s on his case.
The robots are puppets, the victims are all busty and naked (for no apparent
reason) and Exterminator
City is actually pretty
awesome. And by awesome I mean terrible. This is camp at its most
extreme. Exterminator City
is the bastard child of the Terminator
series, Se7en, soft-core porn, and Pee Wee’s Playhouse. There are
actually really only two things holding this film back. First of all, the
actual murders are extremely repetitive. The killer spies on the girl
long enough for us to ogle her inexplicably exposed breasts, she sees him,
screams, and then he kills her with some increasingly bizarre weapon. And
this repeats over 20 times. And second, the picture quality and camera work
drop from actually impressive (for a low budget film) to shot-on-a-cheap-camera-phone
awful.
In fact
the picture quality across the board is terrible. All four films were
clearly shot on video and aside from the non-porn star scenes in Exterminator City,
look as though they were transferred onto DVD with a blender. The audio
isn’t any better and the release has no special features.
Against
my better judgment though, I will actually recommend this collection solely on
the strength of Exterminator City.
For fans of horror, science fiction, high camp, and monstrously large boobs,
this one film is definitely worth ignoring the aneurism inducingly awful other
three. Besides, no self-respecting retailer will charge you more than $5
for this collection anyway.
- Matthew Carrick
