I've been out with the plague since Saturday, but I'm finally getting back into the swing of regular life again. With death no doubt taking one step closer with each chill, ache, and stomach cramp, I decided to go down swinging. And for me, that means watching a found footage horror movie.
Alien Abduction follows a vacationing family from the point of view of their autistic son's camera. The autism has absolutely nothing to do with the plot, and I'm assuming it was just thrown in as a plot device to explain why he's constantly filming them. Really, they should have just made him an aspiring film student. Anyhow, a whole bunch of people disappear and aliens start chasing this family while the kid films it.
The Good: I've got some biases here, as I love alien abductions (um...) and found footage movies. This one has a lot of similarities with Signs, only water doesn't kill the aliens. By the way, that plot twist pretty much ruined M. Night Shyamalan for me. Anyhow, it's like Signs meets the Blair Witch Project (still one of the greatest horror movies ever made) and a bunch of scary stuff happens. A couple of the scares are cheap, but most of them are actually aliens. The cast is pretty flat, but about half-way through we are introduced to a hilarious mountain man redneck gun guy who strengthens every scene he's in.
The Bad: I'll bring up the autism again. Totally pointless and didn't add anything to the story. Another problem is the scope of this film. When I said "a whole bunch of people disappear" I mean like hundreds. Their cars are left running. Some of them are police. If this happened in real life, it would be a huge ordeal and the National Guard and every media outlet would be at the scene. Another big problem is that the aliens continue to stalk this family, while the remaining members continue to hide from them throughout the movie. While it does add suspense, it's so unrealistic. These aliens are pulling people out of their cars and transporting them to their spaceships, yet they can't find a kid and his sister hiding under a floorboard? The final problem I have comes with a spoiler, so beware and skip to the Closing if you don't want to read it.
Spoiler on 3..2..1.. Okay. At the end, the camera is found by the Air Force and becomes property of a Project Blue Book Case. Project Blue Book. Come on! I don't know if the writers threw that in to make it look like they did their research on UFOs or something, but all that did was accomplish the opposite. Project Blue Book was discontinued in 1970 and was primarily a debunking unit. If any legitimate UFO casebook exists currently, it would most certainly NOT be Project Blue Book. That really hurts the credibility of the writers.
Closing: If you're not a fan of found footage movies, obviously stay away from this one, but if you are a fan of the genre go ahead and give it a look. Just keep your expectations realistic and enjoy some fun sci-fi horror.
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