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(More customer reviews)The Sci-Fi Channel showed this movie over the weekend, and I'm seriously thinking of buying the DVD. Often their weekend fare seems to be low-budget techno-testosterone-adventure that's best avoided by anyone with a brain. But "Alien Abduction" is low-budget something else entirely.
It starts out seeming innocuously unoriginal, with four fairly annoying twentysomethings on a camping trip in the woods. They experience a horrifically gory alien abduction (hence the title), and then our lead woman wakes up in an institution for abduction survivors, where she has to figure out what's going on before what's going on kills her. We're not told whether the other three have survived, but they do reappear in the story after a while. (I'm being vague here on purpose.)
I knew from the outset that there would be a twist ending, and I assumed the twist would be fairly standard and predictable. Once the movie got going, though, it became obvious that I'd have to revise my prediction. I actually made several guesses through the course of the movie about what it would be, but was still surprised when it finally came. And it was pretty clever to boot.
All the hospital scenes are shot in a wash of green, or sometimes purple, contributing to the surreal, dreamlike atmosphere that pervades the whole movie. The only full color is when reality starts to intrude. If you pay attention, there are clues and red herrings scattered throughout as to the true nature of the situation, and some of them are actually not obvious, such as when the woman in charge says she is "responsible for all the abductions in the northeast region." In context, she clearly means that her hospital is responsible for the victims of such abductions. -- Or does she? The bizarre behavior of many (if not most) characters is another clue, but for this there are at least three potential explanations within the course of the story. Don't make the usual mistake of thinking this is merely bad acting. While it may be that, it also (perhaps unintentionally) has the effect of adding to the surreal, inhuman, disorienting quality of our heroine's surroundings, while at the same time preserving the quiet campiness, which turns out to complement the story surprisingly well.
Along her adventure, our heroine discovers scarred, murderous nurses; how easy it is to pose as a doctor in a military-run hospital; and the importance of wearing the right clothes for any given occasion. This is good dirty camp, and should be appreciated as such. Yet this character also acts in a completely consistent and believeable way, and turns out (after an initial spate of shrieking) to be a pretty sympathetic protagonist. This movie was made on a shoestring budget over a whopping one-and-a-half weeks, and the sound quality in particular suffered for it -- be prepared to turn your volume up, then down, then up again, several times. (This is frustrating but not fatal.) For the money and time they had, they did a pretty good job with a pretty good script.
All in all, the best B-movie I've ever seen.
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ALIEN ABDUCTION - DVD Movie
