PLOT: A SWAT team's transfer of a high profile criminal gets disrupted by an invasion of blood-sucking aliens.
REVIEW: An alien invasion sci-fi/horror/action flick, ATTACK OF THE UNKNOWN (pick up a copy HERE) didn't have a budget anywhere near that of the typical blockbuster, but I admire the fact that it never lets that hold it back from acting like it's a blockbuster. The first half of this movie plays out on an impressive scale and includes a big shootout, massive explosions, and a huge alien ship hovering over Los Angeles. The muzzleflares on the guns during the shootout were clearly added in post and the CG explosions aren't always convincing (though sometimes they are), but that didn't stop the movie from featuring a lengthy shootout and multiple explosions. Written (from a story crafted by producers Michael and Sonny Mahal) and directed by Brandon Slagle, the film also boasts some slick cinematography courtesy of Michael Su that's in line with its blockbuster ambitions.
Viewers who don't take note of the alien FX credit in the title sequence may be caught off guard when the alien action kicks in, as the film starts off looking like it's going to be a rather straightforward and down-to-earth, but action-packed, crime thriller. We're introduced to a SWAT team just as they're about to bust up a meeting between the heads of some major crime syndicates, the most prominent criminal of the bunch being a guy called Hades, played by Robert LaSardo. Hades is taken into custody, and anyone could predict that the SWAT team will be running into him again before the movie is over, but the twist here is that there are aliens in the mix the next time their paths cross.
Richard Grieco plays SWAT team member Vernon, and does a good job of playing a beaten down hero who keeps getting blindsided with bad news. Within the span of two days he gets served with divorce papers, participates in a gun battle, gets diagnosed with blood cancer, then has to face an alien invasion. There are several members of the SWAT team that end up fighting aliens, some notable characters among them including Jolene Andersen as Hannah, Paul Gunn as Kai, and Douglas Tait – who I'll always primarily think of as Jason Voorhees, since he was the one who carried Freddy's head out of the lake at the end of FREDDY VS. JASON – as Maddox, who gets to deliver cinema's most-used line, "Let's get out of here," on several occasions. He even says it twice in one scene.
After some moments that are reminiscent of INDEPENDENCE DAY when the alien ships first move in, ATTACK OF THE UNKNOWN settles down into a more contained story that brings to mind ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13 in its second half. The SWAT team is tasked with transferring Hades to a different jail, and before they can get him back into a cell the aliens are messing up L.A. big time – and when the SWAT team and Hades get inside the police department, aliens infiltrate the building in a quest for human blood.
The only hint (other than the FX credit) in the first 20 minutes that this is going to involve aliens comes in artwork drawn by Hades' young son. We'll find out that Hades, like the local girl in PREDATOR, has prior knowledge of these space invaders. Hades was raised on the story of a time, in the days of his great-great grandfather, when blood-harvesting aliens attacked a group of settlers, and we even get to see a flashback to this attack, which allows Tara Reid to make a cameo in old timey clothing.
The concept of blood-harvesting aliens is a cool one, and I might have liked it even better if it had been brought to the screen in a film where the aliens took a more subtle, scarier approach to the harvest, without the INDEPENDENCE DAY lead-in. Designed by Vincent J. Guastini, the aliens also look pretty awesome, with their ugly mugs and bulbous heads, and I was left wanting to see them pick off victims in something smaller and darker.
ATTACK OF THE UNKNOWN is a decent action movie, and there were elements to it that I really liked. My main issue with it is the running time, as I felt that some dead air could have been whittled out of its 103 minutes. The action in the police department in the second half could have moved along a bit quicker. There were times when the movie started to drag for me, it just felt like it was going on and on. That took my overall enjoyment down a couple notches.
If a low budget movie that acts like a big budget movie and tells the story of a SWAT team battling aliens sounds like fun to you, watch for ATTACK OF THE UNKNOWN. Gravitas Ventures is giving the film a VOD and Digital release on August 28th. A DVD and Blu-ray release will follow on October 27th.