User Reviews

This movie is summed up by the most intelligent line uttered by one of its principal characters...

"I feel like I am in a bad episode of The X-Files"

...Alien Species is a schlocky formulaic alien invasion film with decent special effects, a lot of mediocre action and decent acting, which is so poorly shot, and so uninspiringly written, that it reaches new lows. And don't get me started on the hideous sound track! This film could easily be lost among many of the early Sci-Fi Channel fiascoes. There are a number of CGI shots involving space ships, an impossibly globe-like earth and urban explosions straight out of Missile Command (complete with disappearing flame and temporary damage).

Before I waste what little energy this film's review warrants I'll let you in on the plot. Aliens are invading the earth for no particular reason and everybody on earth is so freaked out and terrified that there is no military response and general panic and desperation predominate. A couple of prisoners are being transported to jail and a flying saucer knocks them off the road, after they pick up a few stranded victims of an automobile accident (including a famous astronomer and UFO expert of course!). One of the criminals turns out to be an innocent man and easily the worst actor in the film, but fortunately he doesn't speak until about half-way through (the X-Files comment being one of his first multi-word lines). Anyway, you get the picture.

As usual, I handed this a 2 because its harmless - since I reserve single star ratings for bigger productions which pose serious mental health risks such as "Tin Cup" and "Runaway Bride". My advice - enjoy this if you're like me and have to see every bad sci fi film ever made. Otherwise, don't waste your time.

Surprisingly, a number of things came to mind while watching ALIEN SPECIES, Peter Maris' empty skulled direct to video ripoff of the equally idiotic INDEPENDENCE DAY, mostly because the film is so vapidly uninteresting that it served as an opportunity to engage in free-form speculation for ninety minutes while things got blown up while bathed in fluorescent green lights:

1) I am in awe of Charles Napier. He may not be as endearingly grandfatherish in appearance as Peter Cushing or have a spry, mischievous old coot thing going on like John Carradine. But like those two legends Napier has made a career out of making the ridiculous seem perfectly ordinary. Usually he is cast as a cop or military officer who always has that glint in his eye that says he knows more than he is letting on, playing the fool to keep everyone at arm's length. My favorite Charles Napier scene is from Fred Olen Ray's DEEP SPACE where he dons a Scotsman's kilt and takes up the bagpipes after an intimate dinner. His date asks "What, is that supposed to make me want to sing or something?" to which Napier matter of factly replies "No, it's supposed to make you want to take your clothes off." She does.

2) The "hero" in this movie comes across as a dirtbag who has a haircut that makes him look like at least two of The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Which two I am not certain since they usually only wear socks and their underpants on-stage, and as such I have never really gotten a good look at them.

3) Actress Jodi Seronick Golden is indeed the best thing about this film: She is spunky and speaks with excellent enunciation, looks great splattered with alien blood while running around in a torn business suit and has a cute little nose. She deserves better than this.

4) I do not miss Will Smith at all (in fact, there are only white folk in this ID4 ripoff, which sort of misses the point why that giant bag of hot air actually kind of worked: We are ALL doomed, not just the white suburban punks & techno nerds) but the film could use an appearance by Brent Spiner without his "Data" makeup on. Without that white pancake base and ping pong ball contacts, he looks creepy.

5) The kook 9/11 Truth theory idiots have nothing on the whacked out techno paranoia conspiracy allegations spouted by homogeneous white suburbanite nerds in this baby. Maybe if they didn't look like members of Garbage or Curve I could take it more seriously ... Actually, no, I couldn't.

6) Computer grapics animation & special effects should only be made by people who's work does not look like it was recorded from a video game. It is one thing to make a movie that inspires or resembles a video game, but to get the process backwards requires such a willingness to look like such a moron that it us unacceptable.

7) Usually I praise a film with the audacity to ignore any kind of "suspension of disbelief", has no remorse about it's ultra-low budget and sticks to it's subject matter without ever look up from the gutter once. The problem here is that this film is pilfering global threat topics and doesn't have the good sense of a movie like ZONTAR, THING FROM VENUS to just have people sitting around and talking about it. By trying to show us instead the movie crosses the line from just being vapid & amateurish to having the gall to think it would be able to hold a candle to the sight of John Agar sitting on a Naugahyde couch looking concerned as the deaths of thousands are described to him.

8) The movie appears to have been intended to be the first part in a two-installment story, with no mention of whether or not part 2 was ever executed. My suspicion is that somebody had their Powermac taken away.

9) The film seems unsure at times if it is a parody or just a low budget ripoff, resulting in the film's most interesting scenes. You aren't sure if you are supposed to be laughing at the idiocy or poking your friends in the ribs to make sure they get the joke too. It is a disorienting viewing experience: Are we supposed to be taking this seriously? I hope not, but if so, what was the point of it?

10) The film has an affection for colored neon lighting that is used as a substitute for atmosphere. To be frank, the most unnerving scenes were ones set inside of a car with the principal characters attempting to have a conversation. It was like listening to a bad "X-Files" episode, which amazingly is referred to in dialog in what may be a rare instance of the film's self awareness showing.

11) At one point during a moment of crisis inside of the abandoned warehouse level from "Half-Life", one of the characters sweeps the area with his shotgun, at one point aiming it directly at the pretty head of Jodi Seronick Golden. Good thing it wasn't really loaded and they weren't really being attacked by space aliens or she would have been toast.

ALIEN SPECIES can be found on a new 50 movie/12 DVD box set called NIGHTMARE WOLRDS. It can be found there, but just why you'd go looking for it is a matter for you to decide.

2/10

This movie has nothing going for it other than some adequate SFX; the alien ships are OK - about the level of first series Babylon 5. Other that that it is a total stinker with nothing to recommend it at all.

Why is it that, in utter crap movies like this...

...the aliens are capable of building faster than light space ship and zapping entire cities to smithereens in moments but are reduced to skulking in caves, shambling along at half a mile an hour and grabbing people's ankles?

... American cars explode so easily? You just have to sneeze on the buggers and they go up like a roman candle.

... nerdy boy college types when presented with an alien artifact he has never seen before, ripped from a dead aliens wrist, can "download its data" onto his laptop in seconds whilst under fire, when most of us have trouble working out which way round a USB plug goes in?

Where did that loaded bazooka come from in the last scene? Hunky hero ran to get it out of the car but it was nerdy boy's car. Do nerdy boy college types always just happen to carry loaded anti-tank weapons around with them? The dialogue is pathetic. The "plot" (hah!) is thuddingly obvious and paper thin, and to call the characters and acting "wooden" would be generous.

It does however contain a hilarious alien kidnapping. If you accidentally buy this movie watch it up to the point the girl gets sucked out of her bedroom window - then turn it off and put it on eBay.

(Some of the comments here are about a different film. "Alien Terminator" (a Troma 'Alien' rip-off) made in the same year was released as "Alien Species" in Britain).

Well what a load of rubbish this film was, a plot written by a 12 year old, wooden acting, a 'rubber' alien, in general a bad rip off of the classic space monster movie 'Alien'.

I love movies where I can honestly say that I would have done a better job directing. Seriously. I'm not Mr. "Oh, I can do better than that" usually. But I think my dog could have directed this movie better, and I don't have a dog. Doesn't make sense, does it? Neither does the director's strategy for making this movie.

This is one of those movies that must have a budget of about $10,000 and you wonder "where did the money go"? I can only assume that the explosions in the film were an accident, since nothing else in the movie works, especially the plot. I also think that the actors in the movie were not only not trained in the art of acting, but deliberately taught wrong as a joke.

In this movie, you expect a hard-core sex scene to come on at any moment, not because of any sexual tension that has built up, but because the movie looks like it was shot by the same people who brought you anal whores volume seven. They should have paid the actresses an extra $50/day to score some crack and act while high. At least that would have been interesting.

To sum up, only see this movie while drunk with friends. Recommend this movies to none but your worst enemies, and see a good movie directly after this to avoid having the badness of this movie contaminate you.

Man, this is a bad one, except sometimes when it's one of them 'almost' good ones. But mostly bad.

Basically aliens invade the US in really bad CGI spaceships (almost as bad as the CGI in Alien Blood!) and it's up to some scientists to...well they don't do much at all except avoid getting killed.

Also, Charles Napier's here as a cop for a change and two of his buddies are transporting prisoners and then pick up some other folk and then everyone ends up in a cave where all the aliens are. That's the plot.

After that we're in standard nineties Alien rip off territory where out characters try to remain alive while rubber suited monsters (and zombies!) try and kill them. To be honest this actually improves the film as we can stop watching those awful UFO effects and the actors stop bickering and get to fighting some aliens.

This could have almost been on those enjoyable bad films due to the poverty of the production (it looks shot on video!), the bad acting and the daft effects, but there's an air about the film of it all being a bit half-arsed, which is reflected in the non-ending.

You'll know if you'll like this within about ten seconds of it starting.

Alien Species is a very cheap knock-off that was clearly surfing the wave caused by the massive blockbuster hit Independence Day (1996). This one was also released the same year as that one so that gives you an idea how fast it must have been devised, filmed and distributed. The speed of production shows, as this is a very shoddy and cheap effort, whose title also alluded to the previous year's sci-fi hit Species (1995). Well, it cannot be accused of not covering its bases that is one thing for sure. I quite enjoy rip-off films though so this was, if anything a slight plus point for this one and, in truth, Independence Day was a monumental load of gash and this minuscule budget movie was no more painful to watch. Just horrible in a different way.

Huge alien space-crafts arrive in our orbit and attack immediately. Various human survivors wind up taking refuge in a cave which turns out to be the base of these extra-terrestrials. Lots of alien-invader based stuff happens off the back of this, including explosions and cow theft.

Despite the budget, this one actually stars Charles Napier in an admittedly uninteresting role but it was still good to see him here nevertheless. It also sports some effects of the giant spaceships that were half-way decent. But in all other regards this is bargain basement stuff to the max. Its soundtrack was so tinny and awful it is hard for me to believe that this could have sounded remotely acceptable back in 1996. Sadly, this music is pretty relentlessly played throughout the movie as well. Its director is Peter Maris who I was already aware of on account of his debut movie being the sleazy thriller Delirium (1979) which made the infamous British video nasty list back in the early 80's. It was a good film though, quite significantly better than this one that is for sure. This one is also notable for ending on a very strange and ambiguous bit of dialogue that frankly posed more questions than it did any answers but, really, that's the least of this movies problems.

I suspect this movie was actually a pilot for a TV show that never got picked up. By this measure, it is far from the worst I've seen (e.g. "Recon 2020," "Battlespace," etc.), but still a distant cry from your average sci-fi picture. People searching for a serious movie will be taken aback, as the picture's laughable CGI effects, muffled sound, and questionable script place it square in unintentional comedy territory. Essentially, the filmmakers tried to create "Independence Day" on a budget of about $200,000 or so. I have to applaud the effort, because these people really did a lot with fairly little, but the kind of blockbuster movie they wanted to create just couldn't be done for that kind of money. As another reviewer has noted, this movie is included in the Mill Creek "Nightmare Worlds" 50-pack, and it is just as bad as you are probably imagining. Picture an attractive cast pretending to be terrified by "Nintendo 64"-level CGI flying saucers and spouting lines like "lets give these alien bastards a going away present, courtesy of the human race." Despite its crappiness, though, "Alien Species" is decently entertaining, and we got several good laughs out of it. The girls are all cute, the make-up effects were surprisingly above-average, and the dialog is full of cheesy one-liners and character clichés. Perhaps most importantly, the CGI, (at least until you become adjusted), is pretty consistently funny. Veteran bad movie watchers should get some decent laughs from this unique piece of early CGI-era garbage. All others should run in fear!

Bad acting, bad special effects, plot holes that you can drive a mack truck right through. All that, and Charles Napier too.

I give this a 9 out of 10 on the B-movie scale; I was thoroughly entertained. You have to be in the right frame of mind to enjoy this. I can't believe this gets a 2.4 on IMDb while there are clearly worse movies out there that score considerably higher.

It actually reminded me of "Planet Terror" from the Grindhouse double feature by Robert Rodriguez that was released earlier this year.

You can get this movie on a 12-disc set (total of 50 movies) that is titled "Nightmare Worlds" from Amazon . com.

This is NOT that bad of a sci-fi flick. Certain aspects of it are OK. Charles Napier is a good actor, but comes across as a bit over the top in this role. Hoke Howell is OK in his role. The rest? So so at best. Although I do give Jodi Seronick extra points for at least being able to act when she screams or cries and for being a fox. Now, as for whats left ... Plot? Its there, kind of. Earth is invaded. Continuity? Well, there was that horrendous storm that they all had to contend with during the first part of the movie that I never really saw any good evidence of. Special effects? They run from being pretty good and reminiscent, I think, of the last season of the original "Battlestar Galactica" and the TV mini series "V", to being REALLY bad. Certain shots of the galaxy look more like an out of focus photo of popcorn and juju beans laying on the theatre floor. And there is that one explosion involving an alien fighter/saucer in which the use of Fourth of July fireworks, literally, is evident. Dialog and scripting? OK for the most part, terrible in spots. Example: Max, when asked how he found them, replies that he jumped in the car to look for them. Cool. The next time I'm looking for someone and I don't know where they are I'll know exactly what to do. Jimmy Hoffa will be so proud. Sound track? Again, so so. Plausability? OMG! Examples: Max, when asked where the bazooka in the back of his vehicle came from, says he found it on the side of the road and picked it up in case of an emergency. AND he downloads alien info onto his laptop from an alien contraption that must've been in some way compatible in less than a minute! Maybe Mircosoft has outlets in spots I'm unaware of. Anyway, with all it's bad points I still found enough bright spots in it, principally the special effects and the passable action sequences, for the thing to be mildly entertaining.

There are certainly a lot of explosions and death in this movie. A rip off of the movie Independence Day. There are incompetent police officers transporting prisoners, one of whom is a nice guy, wrongly convicted. It's the usual gang of people thrown together, having to form a united front against an overwhelming force. These are the bad guy aliens. They are ugly, sort of like Hollywood corpses from movies like Poltergeist. Somehow, they have mastered time travel, built awesome machines, and yet haven't conquered drool and slime. Anyway, there is lots of running through caves where it's hard to see. There is plenty of nerdiness to go around (ala Jeff Goldblume), but unlike its predecessor, this doesn't even have the bases revenge motive working for it. The heroes really have no place to go or any plan, other than to keep alive. The special effects are fair, but it's just a rambling mess.

Usually any B movie with at least a little gore, and some lingering gratuitous nudity is worth a look, but man! This is the worst script, worst acted piece of nonsense ever. Some B movies can be loved because they are so bad, they're actually really good - see 'Hybrid' by Fred Olen Ray for an example of this - but Alien Species goes so far down the pipe that its just not funny any more. The only funny thing about it is the lead guys ridiculous hairdo.

Atrocious waste of good film, that i would have happily used to wipe my buttocks with.

0/10

When "Alien Species" began, I was surprised at the overall look of crappiness to the film. It was obviously shot as a direct to video film--with production values that you'd normally see in a high school production. The special effects are indeed special--and most look absolutely terrible. It's funny, but today most teenagers could make better effects on their laptop computers with rather inexpensive software. For 1996 it's not 100% terrible, but it was dated even for that time as well as incredibly cheap. The only thing the film has for it, such as it is, is the familiar face of Charles Napier. While he's a mostly one-note guy in this film (snarling and grouchy throughout--like he's struggling with a bad case of the gout), it did make a 100% crappy production look only 98% crappy. Why still 98%? Well, because his performance was THE BEST one in the film, as most of the actors could barely deliver their lines and the sound was pretty bad.

The story begins with some 'scientists' (they look more like college undergrads) discovering that something has invaded our planet. What follows is a meandering film with LOTS of macho bull performances (almost like you only cast pro wrestlers in all the roles), explosions, crappy space ships and minimal excitement. Even for a bad movie buff like me, there is a dullness about it that made it more of a chore to watch than anything else.

In many ways, this is like a modern day Ed Wood production. Even Wood could get Bela Lugosi and Lyle Talbot to star in "Plan 9 From Outer Space"--so "Alien Species" getting Napier in the movie is a lot less impressive when you think about it. Plus, the pie plates that were literally used for flying UFOs in "Plan 9" weren't really that much worse than the CG alien ships in this 1996 turkey. The overall viewing experience is something you just have to see to believe, as it's bad in every possible way. If more folks saw this film, it would most likely make IMDb's Bottom 100 list...it's that bad.

This is a bad movie. There are many things wrong with it and not much right. Here are the few bright spots:

* Attractive female leads

* Occasionally decent (albeit incoherent and inconsistent) effects/props/sets

* Plot holes and cheesiness so extreme that you will get some laughs at the movie's expense

Um... that's about it, really.

I won't list the shortcomings. That includes pretty much everything else, and others have done that already. I will note one thing nobody else has yet: Charles Napier's character inexplicably vanishes from the plot roughly halfway through the film, leaving us wondering why he was there in the first place. He gets enough screen time in the first half that we think there's a purpose to his existence. Oops.

The beauties in this should have gotten more work; its badness wasn't their fault. Lana Parilla did that silly alien spider movie (nearly as bad as this movie) early in her career, and she makes a fine "evil queen" in "Once Upon a Time" now.

Basically, if you enjoy bad movies, or are simply obsessed with seeing all sci-fi movies ever made, knock yourself out. Otherwise, this is not for you. If you do watch it, under no circumstances attempt to take it seriously. The modest amount of enjoyment I derived from watching it came mostly from laughing at it.

"Hold on, we're worth fighting for, I know we can make it to the other side, Hold on!" Wow - now that's powerful. If ever I'm the last underground resistant force against alien species that take over the earth and steal cows, I want to hear that song I tell ya! And, wasn't that chick singer's voice comforting yet powerful at the same time?! You know, I actually own the music video to that love/battle anthem and I'll tell you what - that band "Trilogy" does a purdy darn good job themselves at taking care of those pesky rubbery invaders. Anyway, just wondered why nobody mentioned it. Signing off for now, "that chick singer", Lisa Morgan. Y'all "Hold On" now, ya hear! ; )

"A fleet of UFOs is circling the Earth and a top scientist races to discover their true intentions for the planet. When the UFOs begin an attack on Earth, the scientist finds himself thrown in with a sheriff and his deputies transporting some prisoners to jail. The unlikely group is forced to seek shelter from the attack in a nearby cave, not knowing how significant it is to the alien's plans," according to the DVD sleeve's synopsis.

Peter Maris' "Alien Species" probably heated up a few 1990s video players, with its title and young cast. Star-billed supporting actors Charles Napier (as Sheriff Nate Bridges) and Hoke Howell haven't much to do; instead, the film focuses on "young talent". More seems to have been expected from Marc Robinson (as Paul Towers) and Jodi Seronick (as Carol Nelson) than the others; although, Kurt Paul (as Harlan Banks) is more enjoyable than not.

The titillation level is relatively low, you show know; the sexiest scene is when Mr. Robinson carries Ashley Semrick (as Stacy Chambers) out of the cave, close to the end. ("Somewhere, over the rainbow, way up high…") Perhaps the all too quick and confusing conclusion would have been clearer in the "Coming Soon", but canceled, follow-up "Alien Species 2 - The Invasion." Oh, well, there is still time...

Terrible. This has terrible CGI and terrible shootings. This is the worst movie in the 90s. The 90s has bad CGI along with the 2000s and this has got to be the worst movie ever along with other sci-fi movies that have terrible terrible CGI and terrible designs for these characters, in other words, this has probably not a good movie and nobody should see this movie and this should be in the mystery science theater 3000 for some reason or an Elvira movie macabre and this should've been reviewed better if it would become a b movie instead of a movie And it would've been never copied Independence Day.

I may have been up really late at night, but I didn't mind 'Alien Species' at all. Its craftsmanship for such a cheap B-movie production was pretty good (although the special effects looked like they were created on a Nintendo or Sega Genesis, and then grafted onto the film), the script was interesting enough in the realm of 'alien hostile takeover' movies, and its pace never lagged for a second. While watching it, the film's ending was very ambiguous, as if this had been planned as a pilot film for a TV-series, or at the very least, a feature-length sequel.

I loved the work of veteran character actors Charles Napier and Hoke Howell (the latter died shortly after the film's completion, and the death is mentioned in the end credits). Their consummate professionalism gave a classy sheen that the film otherwise didn't deserve. It's definitely worth a watch, though, to fans of both B-movies and of science fiction.

This movie is bad. And not "so bad that it's good". It's just plain bad. What a terribly hacky piece of crap!

Charles Napier is the top-billed actor. For the combined three minutes we see of him in this film, I suppose he's good.

Bad acting, bad writing, cheesy special effects. I can't believe this was made as recent as 1996. It's like one of those really bad sci-fi flicks from the 1960s.

I got this movie on a DVD set called "Nightmare Worlds" for $17.00. There are 50 movies on this set but, for some reason, I still feel I paid too much for this one movie.

As far as acting goes, the best of the cast was Marc Robinson, who plays the hero Towers. At least he has some kind of realistic expression, but he really wasn't given the best material to work with.

I'm not one to tear apart movies. As a matter of fact, it's just not what I do. But I feel I must advise people to not even waste a speck of your time on this.

I don't mind low-budget sci-fi movies, but it has to be done with lower expectations. The filmmakers here were trying to make an "Independence Day" ripoff on a D-movie budget. The aliens all have phony-looking costumes that wouldn't scare six-year-olds. More human-looking aliens would have worked better.

The fact that they have to mention "X-Files" to make this seem relevant is insulting to viewers.

There were also too many characters that the movie didn't need. Why did we need the woman "scientist" with Max at the beginning? She didn't do anything. The same with the granddaughter of Dr. Chambers. What the heck was her importance. For that matter, what did Carol do? She was supposed to be the assistant to Dr. Chambers. I didn't see her assist.

The character of the prisoner that got killed was put in just for that, and nothing else. Towers was the only important prisoner.

I can see having two policemen driving the prison bus, but Barnes was annoying. All the time. That didn't serve the story, it just makes you nervous.

The fact that the military was not even mentioned until near the end is silly. We never see military.

This is a prime example of a movie that tried to do too much with too little. And so much doesn't make sense and isn't given reason!

I give this a 1 because they won't let me give a 0.