User Reviews

Up till now, the accepted gold standard for the worst film ever made has been Plan Nine from Outer Space, directed by the incomparable Ed Wood.

But I'm here to tell you all that Neil Johnson has surpassed Mr. Wood with his Sci-Fi epic, Alien Dawn.

I've never posted anything on IMDb before, but I felt that the magnitude of the awfulness of this film had to be addressed.

Oh, and the reviewers who gave it 4 and 5 stars?

Really? Seriously?

One guy even said, "I've seen a LOT worse in the 'War of the Worlds' genre than this."

Please! Be serious! Some people rely on this site for guidance when renting movies. I downloaded the thing off the net for free and I STILL feel robbed.

what can I say, right in the beginning of this movie seems to start of as if they were in the same movie War of the Worlds (2005), possibly following tom cruise around. I wouldn't be surprised if they just stole the computers and script from the production team of WotW. There is no redeemable quality of this stink fest. Worse than even the worst made for TV Scify Original movie. Stay Away, Far away................

P.S. On another note, I doubt that this movie will ever even see the light of day. I just had the misfortune to get a screener.

P.P.S. I don't even wont to waste anymore time on such a horrible movie, but I have to add 2 more lines of text, just to submit this

If you want to make your worse enemy suffer, make him (her) watch this piece of cinematographic "art" from start till end. Guaranteed to achieve the wanted result. I still have to understand why somebody will finance (even with a miserable amount) such a nonsense? I am not an old, grumpy purist, I do enjoy digestible science fiction - been a fan of easy-minded St..-Tr.. all my life, but this is unwatchable, seriously. The evil alien machine theme is with us for over a hundred years now but this has to be the worst implementation yet and I've seen a lot of recycle bin stuff in my life due to my editing work. 1) Beaten up theme = no plot whatsoever 2) Awful CGI = Painful to watch in a conscious state 3) Appalling acting = Actually no acting as such AVOID, life is short!

I've seen a LOT worse in the "War of the Worlds" genre than this, but just because there's worse out there doesn't make it good.

The aliens come. Of course their technology is far advanced of ours. We don't know why but we can guess. They hit the whole planet with weapons we can't begin to fight back against. Yet somehow a rag-tag bunch do fight, and even achieve a victory.

Is that this movie? Well actually that's "Independence Day" - but they are much the same overall plot. Just don't expect so much from here. The acting is stiff but tolerable. There are glaring plot holes but then there always are. The special effects were adequate but then these days you can make amazingly good special effects on your home computer if you know how.

If it's a cheap enough rental and you're bored, try it.

I'm only 7 minutes into this War of the Worlds and Star Wars ripoff and my eyes and ears can't take much more. The flashbang, choppy editing or whatever it is that is causing my screen to flicker with every explosion and the jumbled together Star Wars sound effects has me on the verge of cutting myself to make it through. The acting is horrendous. If the makers would have put half as much money into the plot and some decent actors instead of CGI-ing the hell out of everything, then maybe I would have rated it a 4. I only gave it a 2 (instead of a 1) because I applaud anyone who can go out and get a movie produced and marketed (no matter how crappy it may be). This one is to be avoided like the plague. If the CGI, plot, acting and editing would have been better, then I would recommend it...but alas, I cannot. Better luck next time guys (if there is a next time).

So...ever hear of Neil Johnson? Me neither. He's the producer and director of this film, and one day he thought "You know, I think I can make the movie, War of the Worlds, that Steven Spielberg made. Yeah! That's the ticket!" And so he did. Of course, his budget was not quite as big as Spielberg's, so he had to cut corners here and there, like in script writing, actors' salaries, special effects, etc. No Tom Cruise in this flick. Oh, and yeah, he kind of likes some TV shows too, like Walking Dead, or even Lost. So he thought an aliens-invade-earth-to-eat- mankind kind of movie might be better with some video-shot footage of people, you know, kind of talking about how they feel about, well, being invaded and devoured. But, I think Mr. Johnson needs more practice and he should try again in, say, 50 years.

Expecting a crappy movie to watch - as mindless background noise - I was happily surprised. Think 'made for Sy-Fy' and you'll know what to expect. The CGI is cheap, but not as bad as expected.

It seemed to me be a cheap knock-off of 'Cloverfield' mixed with 'War of the Worlds'.

I think the big gripe people have with this was the lack of big-battle drama. Instead we have a small group of people just trying to survive. The acting and dialog unfortunately is so real that it's annoying - lots of frantic yelling at each other in confusion and desperation.

Actually, other than the obvious low budget, this was not that bad - give it a chance.

I rate it at least 4.0

I have seen a lot of questionable movies throughout my 37 years, and "Alien Dawn" is definitely among the top of the pile of questionable movies.

"Alien Dawn" shamelessly steals from movie such as "War of the Worlds" and "Skyline" without even trying to cover it up. The alien invaders tripods and how they pick up people for processing. It was painful to watch.

The effects in the movie were laughable and not pleasant on the eyes. The explosions were hilariously fake and bad. And the CGI effects were dubious and questionable, most of the time looking quite fake. However, I will say that in defense of the movie, that there were times that the tripod beings looked nice enough. The sounds of the alien weapons sounded like something I remember a toy gun I had when I was a kid used to make, it was bad. And apparently alien weapons is just randomly flashing an array of colors on the screen. It made absolutely no sense.

As for the acting, well I have seen worse, but it wasn't really anywhere near being interesting. There was a lot of acting fully devoid of emotion and enthusiasm. And that made the movie quite difficult to suffer through, as if the bad effects and sounds weren't doing their part to bring it down.

The story? Well just think of "War of the Worlds" mixed with "Skyline", and you basically have the plot of "Alien Dawn". If you have seen either of those two movies, you essentially have seen "Alien Dawn" as well. And it was just so ridiculous that the small band of 'survivors' could bring down tripods with homemade bombs, when military air planes couldn't do the same job.

If you enjoy Sci-Fi movies, then there are far better movies available than "Alien Dawn". However, if you like super campy and cheesy Sci-Fi movies, then you will probably get a kick out of "Alien Dawn".

This movie will definitely test your talent for managing to stay focused for about an hour and twenty minutes.

For every interpretation of H.G. Wells' "War of the Worlds" — from the radio broadcast and the movies, to the TV series — one could safely rely on consistency: interesting, if not always likable protagonists bearing witness to the near extinction of humanity at the three-fingered hands of aliens motoring around in tripod war machines firing death rays with a distinctive "pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew-pew" sound. In fact, no matter how each version changed with location, hero or narrative device, the ray guns and tripods have been mandatory (often, using the same sound effects Byron Haskin's created for the 1953 movie). And just as consistently, every movie and TV producer since has as least acknowledged H.G. Wells' in a story credit.

That is, until Neil Johnston dropped this steaming pile of dark matter onto our planet. Perhaps that's just as well. Why besmirch a great legacy with this amateurish entry?

In a jumble of styles — which simply HAS to include some found-footage video journalism — the writer/director lifts from a variety of other sources as well. Most obviously, Dawn of the Dead, and the 1984 version of Red Dawn. Perhaps the only redeeming quality is including the word "Dawn" in the title, so the viewer might mistake this as some kind of homage.

You might think that despite the crushing familiarity of the material, you could find a morsel of entertainment. Perhaps you have a fondness for cheaply-rendered 3D and quickly executed After Effects. But if you love clumsy hack writing, this is the movie for you. Betraying even less skill with dialog than he does with with plagiarizing plot, the director creates a world of bickering, unlikeable morons you don't care anything about. And they're often sputtering ill-considered truisms from other films. For example, after one character theorizes that the invading aliens are changing our terrestrial environment to suit their biological needs, a key character solemnly - and unironically - declares, "It's called 'Terraforming.'" Indeed. And Alien Dawn isn't the product of film-making, but rather "movie-forming."

Every bit of this movie is clichéd and brought nothing new to the genre or made for a gratifying evening in with pop-corn in-tow. The acting is terrible, granted the sfx not bad for a B-grade movie, and the most positive aspect of this movie. It's interesting they show news broadcasts and video feeds and intersperse it into the drama, but for me me this failed to drum up any suspense or emotion when I was watching this movie.

I couldn't really relate to any of the characters and found myself becoming impatient as I watched on. It was a 1:20hr movie, but it felt like 3Hrs! I think what I'm trying to say is that there isn't much of a plot. Most of the idea's have been taken from War of the Worlds, Battle Los Angeles and many other movies. All of which executed the drama, suspense much better.

Not the worst movie I've seen this year, but lacks drive.

Always looking to see weird movies to try out. Campy Sci Fi is about the best description for the genre of this film. Was expecting some character hard suspense, but most actors fell short. Looked a bit like a horror film at times, confusing. Some good looking shots for the budget in the desert, but conclusively weak script. Seen worse and that is not saying much. Better luck next time.

Watching Alien Dawn with an open mind as I do with all the movies I watch though with low expectations, and even with that mindset I still found myself watching a terrible movie where you actually have to fish around to find a redeeming quality of some kind. The special effects are incredibly ugly and artificially constructed(and that is being kind), and I'd be hard pressed to think of any movie recently that actually made me feel ill watching the camera work and editing. Then we have direction that is practically non-existent, vomit-inducing dialogue and a tedious and predictable story with no suspense, thrills or fun that manages to be derivative of several (better too) movies. The characters ranges from obnoxious to bland, and the acting is amateurish all round.

All in all, even when open-minded and not expecting much, Alien Dawn still managed to be sci-fi junk of the highest order. 1/10 Bethany Cox

You cant put into words how terrible this film is. I cant believe the fact that its just trying to be war of the worlds. The original 50's film had more worth credit then this. The acting was poor the effects terrible and the sound effects stolen straight from war of the worlds. I cant understand in this day and age how a company can make this when its just a rip off copyrighted movie.

In fact i laughed really hard when i read at the end of the credits that no infringements were meant to have been caused. really!!?? It really is so bad i wished i hadn't wasted my time watching it!

Sorry but i wanted to pull my eyes out and put them in my ears

It didn't take long for me to start cheering for the aliens in this one. The acting and writing is terrible and the direction is even worse. The plot is moved along by shaky, flickering news coverage (including clips of President Obama) and by first-person "video diary" footage. It doesn't even seem as though there was a script, just loose direction.

You know how some movies are released straight to DVD? This one is released straight to MST3k. Even if Rachelle Dimaria started fighting the aliens topless, it still wouldn't be worth your time, although let me know if that movie gets made. ;) The estimated budget was close to $2M, how many starving people could have been fed instead? Which is why anyone involved with this movie deserves to be fed to the aliens.

It's really impossible to overstate the awfulness on display here. This isn't just a "bad film" — it's incoherent. There's really nothing at all to even criticize. It's so disorganized and amateurish it's about as meaningful as watching watching static. Some actors shout some things. They seem alarmed and angry. There are bangs and flashes. Occasionally some very not-so-special effects appear on the screen. I could tell there was an alien invasion and there were Wars of the Worlds type tripody invaders, but that's about it.

I couldn't watch past the first half hour. I didn't feel like I was stopping anything in particular. There was nothing going on to stop. It was just an incomprehensible stream of images and noises that I finally got tired of trying to make sense of.

Even calling this a "student project" would be giving it too much credit: I've seen (much) better student film projects. It's a total mystery how something like this ends up with being distributed. Weird.

One can say sooo little things about this..... Monumentaly awful in every aspect imaginable!!!!

Why do people spend money to make such awfulness?!!?!? There are no words vivid enough to express how terribly, terribly, terribly bad this thing is......

A horrible torture of the optic nerve, a horrendous testament to the ear.... its horribility is not even slightly funny so as to be sporadicly amused.

I give it minus 10 stars. If there was a movie-pollution meter this would definitely be categorized as most toxic, hazardous and extremely deadly for the human condition, much like willingly drinking half a gallon of chlorine!!!!

Let's take the 'bots from War of the Worlds, the 'brain' alien from Starship Troopers, some bad acting and make a movie! The robots didn't even look as good as WotW. The actors could have used some direction, it almost seemed like they didn't even use a director. The special effects, (especially the smoke), were not properly edited into the movie either. They really should have added some corny 'Arnie' quotes and made this a comedy sci-fi...it might have had a chance. So I would pass this one by folks and don't look back, unless of course you would like to watch a bad version of "WotW 2" with some scary acting. Even Prometheus was better than this one.

This was probably a good idea to someone....someone with no movie making talent at all. you can see every movie they ripped off in the trailer. Im guessing they hired their cousins to act and maybe little brother for the special effects?

If you want a deterrent for staying out of film making, watch this. Otherwise, your time is better spent cleaning your dogs ears.